By JOHN McCALLUM
Editor
According to an Associated Press wire story last Thursday, the National Football League is engaged in preliminary talks about possibly, maybe, potentially, you never know, it could happen, adding a 17th regular season game – but playing it overseas.
This game would most likely be played in Europe or England. It wouldn't happen every weekend or at 16 different venues, but would be kind of a “mini-season ticket” where four games would be played one weekend at say, England's Wembley Stadium, and then another weekend in one of those marvelous soccer palaces in Germany built for the World Cup.
Back in the states, a pre-season game would be dropped to accommodate the expanded regular season schedule – or should we start pronouncing it shed-u-el.
NFL officials are also considering whether to push the Super Bowl back from the first to the second Sunday in February – remember when it was the last Sunday in January? – or eliminate the two-week gap between the Bowl and the conference championships.
NFL officials caution this is very preliminary – which is also what Major League Baseball said a couple years ago about last season's inaugural World Baseball Classic – and wouldn't transpire until the 2009 season at the earliest.
Once my heart stopped palpating and my vision returned to normal over the thought of more football, I was actually able to think about this.
Don't get me wrong; I'd love more football. I'm more a fan of the college game, but I get all light-headed and weak-kneed over NFL football just as much as the next guy – as long as the next guy is Chris Berman.
But do we need more football just to satisfy the Europeans thirst for the game? And are they even thirsty?
I've watched NFL-Europe games, mostly because I video-mainline just about all sports, and I frankly don't know that the draw is there. NFL-Europe teams still play to half-full stadiums, while soccer, the “other football,” continues to pack them in.
True, there haven't been any riots after Manchester United games lately, no burned down stands so maybe the European lust for its brand of football is fading. After all, how good can a sport be if you can't top if off with a little vandalism?
But I question whether there is a demand for American-style football in Europe. More so, I also question the wisdom of extending an already long season, eliminating a needed pre-season game, and adding a grueling travel schedule, not to mention expense, to NFL teams docket.
It's not as if everyone is playing football around the world in the same way that many nations play baseball.
To accommodate the fanatical interest, baseball implemented last year's Classic, an 18-day, 16-team marathon of travel and baseball action that I think contributed to abnormally slow starts to the regular season for some players.
Baseball isn't football obviously, but that's part of the point. Football players require more time to recuperate from the previous week's game. If that game is in Frankfurt, then you have the added problems of jet lag.
This idea of playing a regular season game in Europe is really about promotion and more advertising. Will NFL head coaches want to risk losing key players just for this?
And really, professional sports season are too long now, often overlapping each other by a couple months.
It's great – but I need to find some excuse to get out of the house.
For now, I think playing regular season NFL games overseas is a bad idea, at least, like I said, for now.
Besides, make Manchester United and Real Madrid come over here.
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com
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