True. I guess what I was trying to state was that you didn't have any real names in the league - no star power to attract people to watch it. Its the same type of statement that could be made for the UFL or AFL in the US. Having a second-tier farm league in the US is tough enough (Arena Football folded for a year in either 08 or 09, and we've had so many fly-by-night leagues, its been sickening)...So one could only imagine how difficult it'd be to keep European farm teams viable.

Hopefully, we could add more than one team per continent, so we could have teams take tours of the foreign nations, which would cut down on travel, and help the teams become more culture. As per the article, Nate Clements has never been to Europe, and I'd imagine that most NFL players never even saw the other side of America before going pro, much less Europe.

I don't see it catching on. Especially in England where you'll be competing with three codes of rugby - Union, League and Sevens.

It will probably be as popular as Football (the one you actually play with your feet)  is in America, too much competition.

The NFL's logistical problems are pretty minor relative to other leagues. If MLB, the NBA, or NHL decided to expand to Europe it would be a lot more difficult to plan.

Beyond that though I think the NFL would have a more difficult time succeeding there. Hockey and basketball would have a better adjustment. If done right, in a couple decades or so, I wouldn't mind seeing a NHL-KHL merger.

I think with the NBA though, they'd have to choose between expanding in Asia or Europe.

I think NBA would be a little more successful, if only because basketball is already a mildly popular sport here, which they do already teach in schools. Frankly, I believe that baseball has no hope in the UK. Ice Hockey, too, already has a small footprint, but it's hard to expand due to the nature of the game - kids can't take a sheet of ice down to the park to play it (and I do believe that it's how much kids play it that results in the long term success of a sport).

Lax is in a catch-22 because the gear is quite expensive because it's a niche. If more people played it, prices would go down, but people are reluctant to play, because prices are high (I mean, a bog standard stick is at the lowest £35, and can reasonably go all the way up to over £100, and other gear like helmets and stuff are all typically over £130 (though ice hockey helmets are legal, and are typically only around £60-£70, which is a slight saving). These prices are pretty steep if you just want to try the sport out).

Football has the advantage over sports like lax and ice hockey in the terms that all you really need to try it, is a ball, and a couple of other people who have played before, just like soccer.

Remember, the whole issue of popularity is predicated on the fact that the NFL plays in London right now, and is selling out games like nobody's business. If they can sell out Wembly, then why not give 'em a team? Heck, there are a lot of Rugby players coming over to American Football and doing spectacular, so it wouldn't take too long to see some Englishmen putting on the pads.

How frequent are NFL games? I couldn't see team realistically being based in London and having to go all the way to the USA, and have American teams come all the way to the UK every couple of weeks. Surely that would be too taxing on the players, and will have huge consequences for quality of play?

NFL games are once a week, usually on Sunday and sometimes Monday. Travel wouldn't be a bad as you think as long as the UK team was in one of the Eastern Divisons. An East Coast team playing a UK team would be like a West Coast team playing and East Coast team.

NFL games are once a week, and there is one bye week per year. For the game tomorrow at Wembley, both teams took totally different approaches - one team arrived on Friday (which is typical for any away game in America), the other arrived on Monday.

For a UK team to work, you'd need either a European division with 4 teams total, which play eachother twice (6 games of a 16 or 18 game season), or allow the UK team to take a tour of America twice a year - playing 2 away games in a row, then going back to Europe, and having 2 teams come and play them. This could be accomplished pretty easily, as weeks 4 to 10 are byes for every team, which would potentially allow the teams traveling to the UK to get a week off after playing.

Ah, that makes more sense. I wasn't aware of the divisions between the East/West coast (something of interest: a flight between Seattle and Orlando is just a little bit shorter (less than an hour I think) than a flight between London and Orlando).