Promotion

International Flavour

I have been in the UK since August on Sky Sports Television, and this is what everyone has been waiting for all year in London, is this momentous event taking place at Wembley Stadium on October 28th, 2007, an international regular season NFL game between the New York Giants and the Miami Dolphins.

But some fans have emailed and asked about the NFL developing internationally and about whether or not an NFL franchise would flourish in another country and what are my thoughts, so I will give mine and those of my former teammate, WR Amani Toomer.

1st I must say that one immediate place in which the NFL could work outside of the US lines would be in Ontario Canada, and to be more specific, Toronto. Mainly because it is a big city which is accustomed to entertaining large crowds for different venues, and also because Buffalo is about 45 minutes away, and about 100,000 fans from the Toronto area make their way down to Buffalo throughout the season. But in the spirit of international flavor, lets take it outside of North America.

When it comes to engaging in things internationally, I am all for it, because it gives you a totally new perspective on what the world is like and how people perceive various issues, and it develops a new respect, understanding, and appreciation for diversity. According to Amani Toomer, going overseas “unlocks another side of your brain, and there some many opportunities and a lot of interesting people to meet, but a lot of times people can get caught up in what’s happening over here (meaning the US).” So in essence, I think it is a marvelous and innovative idea for the NFL to go global.

In regards to an NFL franchise overseas, that would be a daunting task to take on, because the level of competition and the potential danger involved in playing this sport, you have to be a highly skilled athlete to insure safety, and to make sure you are even able to compete at this level. So you would have to have some form of training ground for interested parties over in Europe and other parts of the world so that people could play, because for a sport to become international, you have to have international players playing the NFL. If you look at what baseball and basketball have done, they have players from China, Japan, England, Germany, Italy, Croatia, Canada, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the list goes on. Also, the cost factor of having current NFL teams playing franchises in other countries would be major hassle….but when there is a will, there is a way.

Ian Allen played offensive line in the NFL for six seasons, primarily with the New York Giants. He now hosts an NFL radio program on www.colourfulradio.com, Mondays, 3:00 p.m. EST