From time to time, the NFL drops a hint about the possibility of playing a Super Bowl on foreign soil. There\u2019s another way to take a big event to another country without even taking a single snap there.<\/p>\n
A reader recently planted the seed. Since it\u2019s a slow Saturday, it\u2019s worth considering whether it could ever grow.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a traveling road show, one that has every NFL city in play. London has become an unofficial NFL city. And the hype around the draft could provide a way to bury the hook a little bit deeper in a place with a populace far more interested in other sports.<\/p>\n
There would be logistical issues, obviously. Starting the draft at 8:00 p.m. ET would mean starting the party in London (if that\u2019s the destination) at 1:00 a.m. local time. A prime-time draft party in England would require a 3:00 p.m. or 4:00 p.m. ET starting time domestically, which would result in a much smaller in-home TV audience.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the question of whether a draft in another country would result in a similar in-person crowd. It\u2019s not crazy, however, to think that the many NFL fans peppered throughout the U.K. and Ireland would make the pilgrimage to Piccadilly Circus.<\/p>\n
The players expected to be drafted in round one may be less willing to make the trip, too. Getting them there could require more of a financial incentive than paying travel expenses.<\/p>\n
Regardless, it would be a way to boost the league\u2019s international obsession without giving up anything from a competitive standpoint. And it makes a lot more sense to take the draft overseas than it does to export the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n
Bottom line? If the NFL ever decides it wants to do it, the NFL will find a way to make it happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From time to time, the NFL drops a hint about the possibility of playing a Super Bowl on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-619818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}