Oakland Raiders in talks with Tottenham to use White Hart Lane for 8 home games in 2019
'The Raiders don't have a home next year. London is a possibility as of now.' The Raiders' potential switch to London comes because the lease on the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum has expired and their new stadium in Las Vegas will not be completed before the 2020 season.
While owner Mark Davis would like to stay, the City of Oakland filed a lawsuit against the franchise and the NFL over their controversial move to Las Vegas.
Now this would be interesting. Keep in mind the Raiders are in the AFC West so you'd potentially be asking all divisional opponents to make a 13+ hour flight to play a divisional game.
Now, I know it's unlikely this would happen, but I think we are closer than ever to actually having a permanent team in London. At this point it's probably just a matter of time.
Comments
Now that's a long trip to play a home game
I'm not sure why the Glazer and Kroenke family's allowed the nfl to enter into the deal with Tottenham. Why help your competition?
Personally I don't think it's realistic for the NFL to expand to Europe in any capacity. Even if there were a market it's just too geographically isolated. Even "American" sports with more international appeal like Hockey, Basketball, and Baseball would struggle to make this work IMO.
Anecdotal but my German neighbor was a huge Dallas fan
Did he look like this guy?
He LOVES Dirk
Yes, it would be difficult, but way more doable than the sports you mentioned which play multiple games per week. Football is the only sport it would make sense for, though even with that it doesn't make sense to me.
It only makes sense now on the limited basis that it's been implemented because it's possible to schedule a bye week for each team immediately after their trip across the Atlantic. You would be severely impacting the London team by forcing them to travel to the States 8 times during the season.
Maybe if they made it so they made only 2 trips to the States and played 4 games each time, and either had a semi-permanent practice facility somewhere in the States or had a formal training facility that they could use at each opponent's location, it might be somewhat tenable, but even then all the travel would seem excruciating. Not to mention the fact that if they played in the "night" game slot on Thursday, Sunday, or Monday, it would start at 1:30 am London time, and their fans would have to stay up until almost 5am just to watch their team. Though I suppose you could make up for their lack of prime-time exposure by giving them 8 nationally-televised morning games in the States, but I can't imagine they'd have too many Americans tuning into their games, especially on the west coast where kickoff would be 6:30 am.
Rather see an EPL team in NYC.
I have been a Raiders fan my entire life since my dad grew up in Long Beach. We have been talking for the last year about if we would stick with them when they move to Las Vegas. My dad was a Raiders fan for over 50 years before he passed last month. I am glad he doesn't have to read about crap ideas like this for the Raiders. Mark Davis is just as messed up in the head as his dad Al.
Mark Davis is just as messed up in the head as his dad Al.
With a worse haircut, no less.
That hair cut wasn't even cool when Dumb and Dumber first came out
I'm pretty sure Al was sane at some point in the 70s .
The 70s drove a lot of people insane...
Cocaine is a hell of a drug
Guess it'll become the IFL not the NFL if that happens
The NFL wouldn't let it happen. It would need to be an Eastern team to pull it off. The flight to Europe for any of the teams is brutal and teams from a Western conference would be at a huge disadvantage.
Counterpoint: the NFL is all about $$$$
... making it, though, not wasting it...
The NFL already sells out the random games they move to London. And considering that the NFL has been rumored to be looking to move a team there permanently, a situation like this is a perfect low-risk test run. Instead of going through the hassle of moving a team over and taking the chance of epic failure, now you have the chance to send a team over for one season to test the waters, with the understanding that they'll move back in one season, paving the way for a permanent franchise should it work out from a logistical and revenue standpoint.
Daniel Levy gotta pay for the stadium somehow.
Am I the only one to think expansion would make more sense in Canada/Mexico/PR than another continent?
Itd be cool if Cities like Toronto, Mexico city had teams. I also wouldn't mind some sort of Division Shake up. I know sports are cyclical but it just seems like forever that teams like the Patriots have had a free ride to the playoffs with that shit AFC East division. Imagine if your NFL team got to play Miami, NY Jets and Buffalo twice every year.
This got me thinking... I feel like it would be pretty awesome to shake up the league structure entirely. Bring in about 8 new teams, split into two groups (24 in the top, the rest in the bottom), and have a pro/reg system. Maybe have an East/West split or something for cost savings, and the top half of each conference gets into the playoffs.
Would be tough to try to preserve all the big rivalries, but might be worth it in the long run. At least, if the league's popularity continues to fall it might be something to try to switch things up.
I think if the Raiders were to go to Mexico City it would make sense.
I just can't see the league being cool with an in division rival being 12 hrs away. Creates to much of an advantage for the London Team.
Reasons I want this to happen:
1) Raiders fans getting into a soccer riot.
2) Chris Berman doing his "THA RAAYDAAAHS with a thick cockney accent
3) Shots of Mark Davis drinking tea in his press box pinky out will break the internet
4) the average dental hygiene of their fan base will improve
5) Beast Mode in England... live stream every minute of it.
6) COME ON YOU RAIDUUUURS!!! From the stands...
My Radiers have been pretty unwatchable for the last 15 years so why not go with this gimmick prior to moving to Sin City?
Blow up Dan Snyder and the entire Redskins organization and bring them to DC! (Kidding about the whole blowing people up thing of course)
they have the KHL here in Russia (hokey league) with teams spread all over the country as well as Finland, China, Kazakhstan, and some eastern European countries. When teams from the east have to travel to teams from the west and vice versa they can fly anywhere from 11-13 hours with an 8-10 hour time difference. I think if the KHL can figure it out then the NFL can do it with no problems. I understand that moving a football team is more complicated than a hockey team but it's still the NFL vs the KHL.
I actually think teams in the western cities in Europe would work if there's enough interest. Amsterdam, London and Paris are all a 7hr flight to NYC (been on all three). It's atleast a 5hr flight from NYC to Seattle, LA and San Fran. So to me it's not a big deal. They just would have to only schedule easy coast teams predominantly, followed by Midwest teams less often and a west coast team maybe once a year. As long as they're is a division in Europe where 4 major cities have a team for their division games then it's plausible. They'd have to have atleast 2 teams in Europe at the same time to make it work right away, until then it's not feasible. It already happens really, LA and San Fran rarely travel to the east coast more than once maybe twice a year, so the logistical precedent already exists.