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The NFL celebrated its 10th year and 16th regular-season game in London this past Sunday, with the virtual home team, the Jacksonville Jaguars, routing the Baltimore Ravens, 44-7.
The league's endeavors to bring pigskin action across the Atlantic have been met with huge success, often selling out games at the famed Wembley Stadium. Now, given the positive returns from these London games for the past decade, the NFL is looking to further increase its coverage on British soil.
As CBS Sports' Jason La Canfora reports, NFL International executive vice president Mark Waller raised the possibility of expanding the league's regular-season slate in London to eight games, adding that one team could play more than one game there in a given season.
Waller is aware of the issues regarding the added travel time for teams heading out to London, but he believes that a viable schedule could be worked out, even with one team possibly playing multiple regular-season contests in London on consecutive weekends:
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“I'd like to do both of those… I don't think you have to go four games, five games, six games, seven games, eight games. I think we've shown by the strength of the foundation that the demand is there, and I definitely think you could play across a full season [eight regular-season “home” games] and slate the games and I definitely agree with you, you'd want to see a team coming over and playing two or even three games, and then going back to the States and seeing how that works.
Because ultimately we believe if you ever put a team here the schedule would have to work on a flighting of two or three games in the UK, followed by two or three games in the States. I don't think you could expect a team to travel backwards and forwards every week. So we'd like to see what it's like to play here back-to-back weekends, and I'm sure we'll get to that in the next couple of years.”
The NFL has agreed to stage games in England until the year 2020; only then will the proposed expanded schedule for London games be given serious consideration.
The Jaguars, owned by business mogul Shad Khan, appears to be that one team that will be first to host more than one of their regular-season games in London. Khan is also the owner and chairman of English football club, Fulham F.C.
