The NFL is putting together the final details on the first NFL regular season game to be played outside of North America. Published reports say the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins will play next year in London, at the newly remodeled Wembley Stadium. Details are yet to be finalized, but should be in the next few days. It looks like the Dolphins will give up one of their home games. This is doubly bad for the transplanted New Yorkers in South Florida, as the Giants visit Miami once every eight years under the NFL's scheduling plan.
The goal of the league is to have every team in the league play a regular season game in another country over the next 16 years. The Arizona Cardinals hosted the San Francisco 49ers in Mexico City in 2005, and played before an NFL-record crowd.
I think this is great. I don't think any non-U.S. city is ready for a full-time NFL franchise (Toronto would be with a slightly bigger stadium), but a game or two every year is a good thing for the league. We'll never turn world football fans into American football fanatics, but the NFL can still build a fan base and sell a lot of shirts overseas.
These regular season games are relatively easy for us, the fans, as long as they are in Canada, Mexico, or even Europe. A game can be played in Europe at 6 PM London time, which would be 1 PM Eastern/12 PM Central, which would fit well for TV purposes. Toronto is on Eastern time, and Mexico City is on Central time, so they fit perfectly. Games in Japan, China, or Australia would be a stretch for TV audiences in the U.S. Seattle and New England are playing an exhibition game in Beijing this August that will be televised around 7 AM on a Wednesday morning in the States. That wouldn't work in the regular season.
Look out world, the guys in helmets and pads are coming!
