At a certain point, the NFL risks losing its core audience - American fans - by putting too much of a priority on games overseas.
There is no risk of this. NFL is more popular than ever and only gets more popular each year.
My personal opinion as a fan is that I love when football is on at 9 am so I can truly watch football all day. I understand it’s a hassle for the teams and that some players and coaches don’t like it. But that’s an issue for their union to take up. For me, as a fan, it doesn’t hurt the product at all to have games in other countries.
Year before last I drank a beer while walking to a bar before 5am. I don’t know if that’s an argument for or against, but it was noteworthy.
I could even get behind the one game per team per year. It would even mean an easy return to 8H/8A every year while in the US. Selfishly, as a Jags fan it would also mean no more god-damn road-shows spending multiple weeks in England and fucking up the rhythms of the season.
Beyond that, the NFL needs to understand that it will never displace soccer in most of the world and at best it will be playing on the edges, and that it’s important to be seen as a product that is premium (to its potential audience) because of its rarity and American-ness. You start thinking that there’s enough fan interest in every place every week, and then you hurt the quality of play and become less of an event. THAT’S when you have a real problem. American football is an odd beast that is just not set up for truly global mass appeal.
Love the sport, and ought to love the idea of it coming to the UK, but I really hate the international games. It’s just wrong to play matches all over the world instead of at the stadium of one of the teams competing.
Would never want to see it become a regular thing in football ⚽ and don’t want to see it in football 🏈 either.
