not fair to cities that subsidized building of sta

smazza · October 25, 2006

AROUND THE LEAGUE

NFL approves plan for games outside U.S.

From the Associated Press

October 25, 2006

The NFL will play as many as two regular-season games a year outside the United States starting in 2007, with Mexico, Canada, England and Germany as possible sites.

The plan, first announced last month, was approved Tuesday at the recommendation of Commissioner Roger Goodell, who said the benefits of reaching an international audience outweighed the loss of some teams' home games.

"We are talking about a limited number of games that we think will have a tremendous impact," Goodell said.

Mark Waller, senior vice president of NFL International, said the league expected to schedule only one overseas game in 2007.

No specific sites were given for the games. However, Waller said the league hoped to announce the first site by this season's Super Bowl. The teams would be selected later.

"Germany has a large number of sites as it's just done the World Cup," Waller said, adding that the United Kingdom] has a "significant number of great sites. We know the sites in Mexico and Canada, so there's no shortage of venues that are interested in these games."

The plan would be set up so that teams would rotate over a 16-year period, with each team playing outside the country twice over that span, once as a visitor, the other as a home team. That means a team would lose one home team during that span.