No, it has an impact on the accuracy of the spread. At least that’s my recollection of the study. It wasn’t, and seriously couldn’t, measure the “quality of play”, but rather compared the teams victories against the spread.
Which was why I emphasized that prior to that study, I didn’t hear any outrage over “the quality of play” of games with time zone differentials. It wasn’t until that study came along that I heard anyone bemoaning the “quality of play” because of time zones. It was just part of football; the home team has an advantage over a travelling team.
It’s great that teams are now starting to deal with the difficulty of travel, and kudos to the teams that are ahead of the curve.
What I have a problem with is this idea that somehow something that was just part of football for decades is now considered ruining the “quality of play”. Yes, away teams are at a disadvantage, and the spread underestimated the effect of that for teams that travel further. But the step from that to “the quality of play” is diminished" thus we shouldn’t have games in London is, to me, pointless. Snow. Rain. Injuries. Grass. Bad turf. Crowd noise. Windy conditions. Sleeping in a hotel room rather than home. Having your routine interrupted. All of them have effected the “quality of play” for decades. Yet now, apparently, now it’s time that we start to care.
Maybe someday the NFL will mandate that all games be played indoors, at 72 degrees, on artificial turf, with 4 weeks between games and decibel levels not to exceed 70, and each team gets to stay at home and use a transporter to get to the game. Then we’ll really have great “quality of play”.
A British marketing company and the NFL (so take it for what it is worth) commissioned a study into the possibility of a London team. Article here. They’re telling London that having a team there could generate around $250 million a year for Britian, with much of that being fan spending. So apparently they think there is enough fan support to make money for an NFL team in London.
Mike Lupica was laughing about this on the radio and said “If the NFL Execs thought it was good for business, they’d play a game on the Moon” Ha Ha Ha.
To which, I thought “Of course, isn’t that what you WANT businessmen to do? Make choices that are good for the business?” Or do we expect them to agree that a game on the Moon would be great for business, but they shouldn’t do it.
Well, we have two different experiences, then. While I wouldn’t qualify it as “outrage”, I have seen players, coaches, and some fans express some concerns over time zone differentials and their effects on players and have seen those concerns expressed for well over 3 decades.
Hell, even if we’re not talking against the spread, there’s plenty of anecdotal (yes, I know, it’s not absolute data) from players and coaches who don’t like dealing with jet lag, even within the US.
Is it a factor? Certainly. Is it enough of a factor that it should be the overriding concern for playing games in London? Maybe not. It’s certainly not something to just dismiss.
FWIW, I don’t like having Bills games in Canada either, and there’s no time zone difference involved there at all. It smacks of a cheap gimmick and testing the waters for a move to Toronto and possible expansion into Canada.
The obvious concern with this moon example is that you’d get something of variable, unknown quality but at a tremendous cost that wouldn’t necessarily provide something consumers want but serves primarily to profit the business.
That’s not what we want.
What we want is for businesses to provide us with goods and services we desire (even if don’t know always know it at the time - like the iPod/iPhone) at an acceptable price and hopefully high quality. And without violating laws or being excessively harmful to society or possibly the environment.
It’s up to the businesses themselves to figure out how to do so in a way that’s profitable and sustainable and using legal means. I don’t personally care if something is good for a business, except so far as it allows the business to continue operations and continue providing those desired goods and services.
As a trans-Atlantic NFL fan, I’m loving the “early” kickoff time they used last Sunday in London. I already have to DVR Monday & Sunday night games and watch ‘em the next day, so this was particularly nice. For once, felt like I was a kid back in NH settling in front of the tube for the Pats’ game while it’s still light out.
<ducks & runs> More London games, I say! More! </dr>
It’s a factor that has existed, and will exist, at least until Emory Erickson gets here, for decades in the NFL. The “quality of football” hasn’t changed, that factor has always been there. Maybe it would be worse if there were a team in London, but when both teams are travelling, like now, and there is so much else that goes into the game of football, I think complaints about reduced quality of play because of a difference in time, are a petty concern.
I’m gonna go on ahead and get the “'Merica, fuck yeah” response out of the way and say that this is an American sport, should remain an American sport and not be played elsewhere, and the NFL should just be fucking happy with the insane amount of money they already make and quit trying to foist shit like this on fans of the game.
I have one thing to say about this. I just found out my job is flying me to Dublin and Belgium for work the week of the 10th and I absolutely will be arranging a 1 day layover in London on Sunday the 9th…for convenience.
I don’t understand this attitude. I’m a baseball fan and I feel like baseball has benefited tremendously from becoming an international game. I can’t imagine the sport without the Latin American and Japanese stars of the last few decades.
Of course if they didn’t exist I wouldn’t know to miss them, and Americans presumably would have become stars in their place. But non-American players bring new skills and new styles of play and for my money they make the game more interesting.
I don’t see why football wouldn’t benefit from the same.
Football already does benefit from players from abroad…like American Samoa!
MLB is a good example of a game that’s played in many places all over the world, but the big show is here in the USA. I have zero issues with players coming here to play sports from abroad…but the NFL is a bit of an outlier with it’s amount of games, the way they are scheduled and the physical nature of the game and it’s recovery cycles.
Re-create NFL Europe as a developmental league if you want, but leave the NFL franchises in the States. Giving up a home game is crap, flying there and back is crap, it’s extremely profitable as it is and there’s simply no need to send franchises abroad when there are more cities in the USA that would love to have an NFL expansion team. Like I don’t know…Los Angeles.
</dr>