Quote:
Originally Posted by Clever_Iggy
I think the NFL would look more to Europe, Mexico and Asia more before coming to Canada. I dont think an NFL game in Canada would increase interest as much as an NFL game in Asia, Europe, or Mexico.
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I think they've already committed to holding the 2008 international game in Canada. To play in Canada offers two benefits that Europe and Asia don't.
1.)Logistics, it's no more difficult to get to most Canadian Cities than it is to a U.S. city and the country is very similar to the U.S. which will likely go over well with the players association. You won't have the risk of taking two teams way out of North American time zones in the middle of the season and have them complain afterwards that the one game ruined their season sort of thing.
2.) Timezone similarity which will make the game easy to broadcast in prime time. They can make this the Monday Night game and it won't be that difficult to get ESPN in place to cover it and broadcast it at a normal time.
I think they'll want to have the first two years go over well with the PA and the broadcast partners before they attempt to go over to Europe or Asia for a regular season game. It's one thing to go to Tokyo in the first week of August and use your starters for 5 plays than come back over and have 4-5 weeks to recover. Try doing it in week 6 play your starters and than try to come home and have to get back into after like 10-11 days in a game that means something. I think this is why they picked Mexico first and want to try Canada second. After that I suspect they might try two Eastern based teams in a place like London and go from there.