News Archive
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| Crossing The Boarder April 9 2002 By Bryan Hersh of 49ers Paradise In recent years the NFL has attempted to expand it's market. NFL Europe is a prime example of such an attempt, as are moving some of it's pre-season games to other countries. I certainly support the cause, I welcome the chance of seeing the NFL in Canada - even in a pre-season game. I recognize the need to increase income through a greater audience, but I do see some difficulties with the NFL's plans. To date, I don't have a problem with NFLE. It's acted as a 'farm' system for the NFL, has allowed NFL teams to get some of their younger players some extra experience, and has been rather successful in the European market. My problem lies with the pre-season games played across the globe. The 49ers play one such game - against Washington - in Japan this pre-season. Now I have nothing against the Japanese market, but in order for the team to fly across the world, and get adjusted to a new time zone, the team will need to completely disrupt its summer practice schedule. Now while the outcome of the pre-season game is pretty much irrelevant, throwing off the teams schedule before and after the game is quite relevant.
There's a definite problem when a team loses virtually a week for one pre-season game. The NFL should limit it's pre-season, market ventures, to North America. If it want's to expand it's market in other continents, it should use the NFLE to promote it's product, and thus not tarnish any of the NFL teams practice time. Alternatively it could make such pre-season games much earlier in the summer, so teams wont feel the intrusion to the same extent.
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