NFLPA ponders eventual NFL push for European division

NBC Sports

a day ago

The NFL has been printing dollars for years. In time, it may be printing Euros.
The NFL Players Association, we're told, is preparing for the NFL to eventually make a push for a four-team European division.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell has been actively discussing the pros and cons of putting multiple teams — and more than 200 union jobs — on another continent. And there are more than a few cons.
Will players want to move to London or Germany or Spain or wherever? Living in a different country introduces a host of new issues, starting with the governmental structure and continuing with the taxation system, cost of living, the potential language barrier, and more.
Then there's the draft. It's one thing to tell a 21-year-old who'd prefer to live in his hometown of Pittsburgh that he's moving to Seattle. It's another to tell a kid from Phoenix that he's packing for Frankfurt.
From the league's perspective, there's no evidence that a plan is in place to put one or more teams in Europe in the foreseeable future. The goal for now is to expand the number of permissible international games under the Collective Bargaining Agreement from 10 to 16.
That said, this year's decision to give the Vikings consecutive 'road' games in Dublin and London is, we've previously explained, the first effort to evaluate the impact of a multi-week foreign trip on a U.S.-based team.
If/when team(s) are in Europe, that's how it will go. In lieu of traveling across the Atlantic Ocean twice in a given season, teams will get their European games played during the same trip.
One basic question, if the league were to put four teams in Europe, is where the teams will come from. Expansion, as to all four teams, is a possibility.
Making that option more attractive is the price that a new owner would pay the other owners for a team. Right now, an expansion fee of $10 billion per team wouldn't be crazy. Four teams means $40 billion, which also means $1.25 billion for each existing owner.
Another question becomes where a four-team European division would be placed. Currently, the league has four eight-team divisions. Adding four teams would result in four five-team divisions and four four-team divisions. One obvious goal, in order to minimize travel, would be to put the four European teams (and their two games per year against each other) in the same four-team division.
But that division would have to be placed in either the AFC or the NFC. That would create a potentially significant burden on the other teams in the European division's conference — especially if the European division's champion wins the No. 1 seed in the conference.
Then there's the reality that the three California-based teams, along with the Seahawks, Cardinals, Raiders, and Broncos, could be facing ridiculously long trips for playoff games. Likewise, the European teams could be facing the same kind of postseason travel realities. One fairly obvious solution would be to restructure the league to put the Rams, 49ers, Seahawks, Cardinals, Raiders, Broncos, Chargers, and one other midwestern team (Cowboys, Texans, Chiefs, Saints, or Vikings) in two divisions of the same conference — with the European division in the other conference.
Regardless, it's not just another effort to generate short-term interest and media coverage during the annual European games. Yes, the league has a habit of dangling carrots (e.g., London Super Bowl!) when it's time to move the needle in England. But it's possible that some of the more outlandish possibilities aren't simply aimed at creating headlines.
In 2022, Commissioner Roger Goodell mentioned the possibility of a four-team division during a pre-London game hype session. Although he has since pivoted his focus to 16 international regular-season games, it's not an either-or alternative.
It's quite possibly a stepping stone.