The NFL may ultimately require all teams to give up a regular season home game and play that contest overseas, Jets President Neil Glat predicted last night during a presentation to the New York Venture Capital Sports group. Many teams, including the Jets, are hesitant to give up home games, and generally only teams in special circumstance or with tough local markets have agreed to do so. But with the number of games played overseas growing that inventory may no longer be enough. This year there will be four games played outside the U.S. (three in the U.K. and one in Mexico), and starting in '18 two games a year are contracted to be played at EPL club Tottenham Hotspur's new stadium in London. The league has talked about playing essentially a regular season home schedule, eight games, overseas (Daniel Kaplan, Staff Writer).
ACROSS THE ATLANTIC: Tottenham Hotspur Chair Daniel Levy discussed the building of the club's new 61,000 seat stadium and their commitment to hosting NFL games, noting the NFL is "very involved in absolutely every aspect of this stadium and it's very important that they buy-in to the construction process." The NFL is "really engaged and now we have regular, weekly meetings and we formed this ten-year partnership." NFL Exec VP/Int'l Mark Waller said the new stadium is "critical" for the NFL hosting games in England because "we've always said we need to have options in London where to play our games" (TOTTENHAMHOTSPUR.com, 6/15). In London, David Churchill noted NFL execs "have been in Tottenham for talks throughout the week" to see how the new stadium "is shaping up." The state-of-the-art stadium will "become London's biggest" EPL venue. To accommodate soccer and football games the stadium will "have a retractable grass field with an artificial surface underneath for NFL games." Levy said, "It is encouraging to see the new stadium starting to take shape and it certainly whets the appetite for our games here" (London EVENING STANDARD, 6/15).
