Football (North America: NFL, CFL, Arena Football, minor leagues)

[english si]

A London team would probably do 4 road games, 8 home games, 4 road games with a base camp in the US somewhere to train those months. This minimises travel, and allows teams to take their off-week before/after playing the Jags (or whatever they rename themselves*) if they want to.

There's a problem is the two AFC teams who are the only ones in the division to have to play in London. There's an issue with the playoffs if London team gets home advantage seeding. A Superbowl would be tolerable (and will no doubt happen the first or second season), other than it airing a bit earlier than normal in the US as Wembley residents won't take well with a game beginning just half an hour before midnight. An 8pm kick off GMT would be noon PST, and at least people would be all out of the stadium by 1am.

Most of this is discussed upthread anyway. I'm unconvinced a London team would actually work (for reasons I discuss upthread), but this is another step on the road.

I imagine some of the timing has to do with Chelsea soon wanting to rent Wembley for a season (like Tottenham have this season) while they rebuild. They are seen as losers (along with the city of Jacksonville, and Tottenham Hotspur who's new stadium has been made NFL-compatible to try and get the London team to go there - still there's the 20 games they'll have over the next decade) as this won't happen. And no article has extrapolated that Khan owns Fulham, Chelsea's local rivals - I doubt he's hugely happy about the other stadium in Fulham being expanded!

*It would be silly to have a team called the Jag-uars in a city where it's pronounced Jag-u-ars. British Bulldogs would be good. Also stops it being a London team and alienate elsewhere in Britain.

[jp the roadgeek]

It's not so bad for a divisional opponent or an Eastern Time Zone team to go to London to play a game, then fly back home the next week and play a game.  However, I would make sure that the Jags are always home on the last Sunday in October, as the UK goes back to standard time a week earlier than the US, and therefore it's only a 4 hour difference between the East Coast and London.

The Jags and Dolphins would swap places in the divisions.  Yes, you'd lose rivalries the Dolphins have with the Pats, Bills, and Jets, but London is (relatively speaking) more in line latitude wise with those 3 teams, so a swap makes sense (London is 25 degrees north of Miami, but only about 9-11 degrees north of the other 3.  Plus, Miami is farther west).   You could also use this as an opportunity to make the logical geographical swap of Buffalo and Baltimore, but the Rooneys may veto that.

As for Jags road trips, I would make sure that any trips west of the Eastern Time Zone are at least a 2 game trip. There potentially can be a year where they don't have to travel west of the Eastern Time Zone (a year where they play the AFC North and either the NFC East or South, and the game against either the Cowboys or Saints is a home game), while the maximum could be 5 (a year where they play the AFC and NFC West, and their inter-divisional road game against the AFC South is either in Nashville or Houston.  In this case, I would have a 3 game and a 2 game trip).   

For any team in the Mountain or Pacific Time Zone, they would be guaranteed a bye week before the game.   The reason I suggest before: you lose time as you fly east, but also be guaranteed a stopover game on the way back against a team in the Eastern Time Zone.  After the bye week, teams could go over film and hold meetings Monday, take a red eye Monday Night and land Tuesday late in the day in London, practice Wed-Sat, game Sunday.  Hold game film and meetings Monday in London, fly out Tuesday morning London time, get the 5 hours back and land Tuesday afternoon in the US, practice at a nearby facility Wed-Sat, then game Sunday or Monday, then go home. 

[english si]

Boston to London flight times are pretty much the same as Boston to LA (6h35 vs 6h30). New York is 7h10 for London, 6h15 for LA, so it doesn't take much for it to skew to trans-atlantic being longer than trans-continental. BWI is 7h10 to London, 5h45 to LA.

Flight times are probably a bigger thing than time differences. Yes there's a jet lag, but that can be minimised by working on different hours while in London - if training starts at 9am in Boston, you can start at 11am in London and reduce the difference by two hours - a three hour difference is surely a regular part of the game? Games can be evening ones in the UK (starting at 6pm local time, which is the same time as most US Sunday games start UK-time), though there'll be afternoon games (9am Eastern) to create a morning game in the US. An evening game will reduce the effective time difference. And a 2pm game (an afternoon game outside of the week where the difference is less) is an hour later starting than in Eastern. You'll obviously not get a MNF/SNF/TNF game from London - they start after midnight.

You'd imagine that the umpteen games in London have dealt with the logistics for road teams - they certainly have tested it (including not having bye weeks before/after games). The problem is the home team, and whether it can convince a British public that sells out 4 games a season, but with supporters of all 32 teams and no one team standing out beyond what team the crowd prefers (like a Superbowl) to back a single team enough to make it feel like home. Oh, and sell out (or at least come close to) Wembley 8 times a year (OK, 6 and Tottenham twice) - something I'm not sure the English national soccer team has done.* And those 8 times in a year will likely be all in a row - certainly not too far apart.

There's two of three London games this season that are afternoon (Chargers-Titans on Oct 21 and Jaguars-Eagles on Oct 28 - the latter on the week where the time difference is 4 hours). And the evening game: Seahawks-Raiders on Oct 14 at Tottenham will be doubly interesting - both the first NFL game at the new stadium, and first Pacific-vs-Pacific game in London.

*Many are saying the sale of Wembley is a boon here - not only do England play a few games each fall 'on tour', like they did when Wembley was being rebuilt, but those games won't have so many empty seats, as they'll be in smaller stadia!

[Stephane Dumas]

I saw these news via a post on Skyscraperpage.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=231059&page=35
https://www.thestar.com/halifax/2018/07/17/council-votes-for-staff-report-exploring-cfl-stadium-in-halifax.html
https://www.cbc.ca/sports/football/cfl/cfl-expansion-to-halifax-reaches-crucial-crossroad-1.4750278

CFL expansion to Halifax reaches crucial crossroad
Next 4 to 6 weeks could determine if 10th CFL team becomes reality

Devin Heroux · CBC Sports · July 17

The optimism surrounding yet another attempt at CFL expansion to Atlantic Canada has been extremely cautious. Besides, many have said they've been here before only to have the conversation fall flat.

But since Anthony Leblanc and his business team, Maritime Football, made serious their intention to bring a team to Nova Scotia during Grey Cup week last November, it's felt different.

[davewiecking]

The Washington Valor (regular season 2-10) have just won ArenaBowl XXX1. Ted Leonsis' first team went to Baltimore and defeated his other team, the Brigade. Apparently next year the AFL is supposed to have twice as many teams as this year's 4. The Valor are now the second team which plays its home games in Capital One Arena to have won its league's championship this year.

[Stephane Dumas]

The Washington Valor (regular season 2-10) have just won ArenaBowl XXX1. Ted Leonsis' first team went to Baltimore and defeated his other team, the Brigade. Apparently next year the AFL is supposed to have twice as many teams as this year's 4. The Valor are now the second team which plays its home games in Capital One Arena to have won its league's championship this year.

Let's hope it'll bring a more promising future to that league. If the AFL folded, I guess some teams might move to the IFL (Indoor Football League) or another league like the Arizona Rattlers did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Rattlers

Edit: The Iowa Barnstormers are also another AFL team who moved to the IFL and won the championship of the IFL this season as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_Barnstormers

[1995hoo]

We have a friend who had Valor season tickets, but she's dropping them to free up more money for Caps tickets. She didn't go to last night's game because of the hassle of going to Baltimore. Game was supposed to be in DC because the league said it'd be hosted by the team with higher average attendance, but Verizon Center was/is unavailable due to construction for major renovations, including replacing all the seats.

[ET21]

College football is back! 

[bing101]

https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/nfl-ratings-2018-opener-1202931905/


Here is an update on the NFL for the 2018 season.

The first official game of the 2018 NFL season came in lower than 2017's opener in the early ratings.
Thursday's game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Philadelphia Eagles on NBC drew a 13.4 rating in metered market households. That is off approximately 8% from the 14.6 delivered by last year's opener. In addition to the continuing trend of ratings erosion, the game no doubt suffered due to a weather delay that pushed kickoff time past 9 p.m. ET. The game did not conclude until after midnight.
In the fast national ratings, which are not time zone adjusted, the game is at a 6.6 rating in adults 18-49 and 19 million viewers. However, due to the nature of live sports, those numbers will be subject to revision later today.
Little else aired on broadcast against the NFL. "Big Brother"  (1.4, 5.2 million) ticked up in viewers from last week on CBS. On ABC, "Match Game"  (0.6, 3.3 million) was up in the demo and "Take Two"  (0.4, 2.4 million) was even.

[US71]

Arkansas once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.  Ahead 27-9, then lost 34-27 

[bing101]

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/405765-trump-knocks-nfl-on-first-games-lower-ratings


https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colin-kaepernick-president-trump-kneeling-nfl-national-anthem_us_5b956a23e4b0162f472e58aa


Here is an update President Trump made the NFL a political issue again.

[Buck87]

The Browns didn't lose today.

They also didn't win.

[Alps]

The Browns didn't lose today.

They also didn't win.

Such a Browns outcome.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

The Browns didn't lose today.

They also didn't win.

Such a Browns outcome.

But leaving the Steelers confused was a silver lining to the day.

[Mr_Northside]

The Browns didn't lose today.

They also didn't win.

Such a Browns outcome.

But leaving the Steelers confused was a silver lining to the day.

It was kind of a shame that Ben couldn't add to his win count as the winning-est QB in Cleveland Browns Stadium history.

[Big John]

The Browns didn't lose today.

They also didn't win.

Such a Browns outcome.

Then they cut Josh Gordon unexpectedly today.

[Alps]

The Browns didn't lose today.

They also didn't win.

Such a Browns outcome.

Then they cut Josh Gordon unexpectedly today.

He unexpectedly showed up with a hamstring injury yesterday, sustained doing a photo shoot. That's So Browns.

[MNHighwayMan]

Another week, another tie.

Unbelievable.

[DaBigE]

Another week, another tie.

Unbelievable.

Yeah, this revised roughing the passer rule needs a lot of work. Is the defense supposed to clear how their going to sack the QB before attempting a tackle?

[SSOWorld]

The ref's explanation.

Try paying attention dude, Clay did not pick up the quarterback!!

https://twitter.com/RobDemovsky/status/1041447764935303168

[mgk920]

And about the placekicking in Sunday's Vikings @ Packers draw....



OTOH, I was very happy when the Packers picked JK Scott (punter) in latter rounds of this year's draft - and my satisfaction was re-enforced in that game.  A good punter will get a team out of trouble, effectively reversing the field, in one helluvahurry!



Mike

[triplemultiplex]

Fuck the refs.  That's all I'm gonna say about that.

[theroadwayone]

Do you think the NFL should change it's overtime rules?

[MNHighwayMan]

Do you think the NFL should change it's overtime rules?

Yes, back to a fifteen minute period. The rest can stay as-is.

[mgk920]

Do you think the NFL should change it's overtime rules?

Yes, back to a fifteen minute period. The rest can stay as-is.

Howabout eliminate overtime during the regular season and go to three points for a win and one point for a draw in the standings (like is common in the world of fútbol)?

Mike