The last team added to the NFL was the Houston Texans back in 2002 and seeing as the league has grown in popularity over the past 5 years I think there should be a new NFL team by 2010. Obviously Los Angeles has been the city that most people have been talking about but I will take a look into some other possible cities. They are all in the west because if you look at this map of NFL teams you will see that only 12 teams are located to the west of the Mississippi including those on it. If the NFL had an east and west league then the line would not be the Mississippi but rather if you just cut Michigan in half and cut straight down. Similar to the NHL.
Salt Lake City, Utah- I am going to start this one out with a city not many would expect. Salt Lake City has the facilities to host a professional football team after all they were able to host the 2002 winter Olympics. Salt lake is home to BYU who has a good following in Salt lake, Air Force head football coach Fisher Deberry has said of Edwards Stadium, "Probably the loudest and best stadium is whenever things are going good for BYU and their fans start beating on the metal bleachers. That can be a very tough place to play." Lavell Edwards Stadium has a capacity of about 64,000 and could easily have the fan base for a NFL team.
San Antonio, Texas- San Antonio is the largest metropolitan area in the country without a football team at the professional or collegiate level. It is the 7th largest city in the country but the 29th largest metro making it about the size of Salt Lake City and it is a fast growing city. Back in the 2005 the Saints had way more people attend in San Antonio then back in New Orleans despite only winning 3 games that year which shows that San Antonio is at the point where it can support a NFL franchise. The Alamo Dome would be the perfect place for a team in San Antonio it is currently the home of the Alamo Bowl in college football and was where the Saints played in 2005 along with the San Antonio Spurs Basketball Team from 1993 to 2002.
Los Angeles, California- This one should be obvious to most people why it should have a NFL franchise with it having the second largest media market in the U.S. and a metro population of 13 million this city is well past the point where it could support an NFL franchise it could probably support 2 easily only problem is its horrible track record. Back in 1995 the current Los Angeles Raiders moved back to Oakland while the Los Angeles Rams relocated to St.Louis leaving Los Angeles without a NFL team. This could probably be avoided if they only had one team to keep the fan base from being split. The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum would be a great home field having a capacity of over 90,000 making it as large if not larger then most NFL Stadiums. Some random thing i noticed if you take this picture into microsoft word and highlight it it looks like a X-Ray.
Oklahoma City- It’s got a metro population of only 1 million but the state is full of football fanatics and even though it is not as populated it would have enough loyal fans to fill the stadium coming in from other parts of Oklahoma. If you need proof that this can be done just look at memorial stadium in Nebraska in a city of 250,000 It has been able to sell out the stands of an 80,000 seat stadium at every home game since 1962 if you took the amount of people inside the stadium at one game and made the stadium a city it would be the third most populous city in Nebraska.
Now Oklahoma City is not near ready for an NFL franchise but after the cities above get teams this city should be taken a look into.
In summary my favorite of these two would be San Antonio and Los Angeles If these cities both got a team it would maintain the NFC/AFC balance by having the LA team go to the NFC because nearby neighbor San Diego has an AFC team leaving San Antonio with the AFC team.
This new UFL thing is going to be a flop already just by looking at where 3 teams are planned to go in the cities of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Mexico city. I find it ironic that the one of those that’s in Mexico has the name pronounced in an English way.
Mexico City- Are you kidding me?!? For a predominantly American league and sport?!? It’s not like Canada where we can understand the language easily by just dropping the occasional eh. It will be hard for this team to find players who want to live down there seeing as almost no one down there speaks English and the only Spanish most football players learned is school is how to say "I go to the beach to play tennis with my cousin" or something worthless like that.
Las Vegas- You have to be nervous about playing here with gamblers wanting the Las Vegas team to win if your on the Las Vegas team you better not let them down and if your on the other team you better hope they don’t try to rig the game to make you lose. Not a smart move at all to put a team in a city that is known for gambling.
Los Angeles- ok this actually a good place to put a team but it does have a bad history a little more then a decade ago they had 2 teams but then in one year they both left. Los Angeles is still a good place for a football team as long as they don’t try to split the fan base with 2 teams or try to combine their mistakes with Mexico City and Las Vegas by moving it to east LA.
Just look at cities like Dallas do you see more cowboy fans or desperado fans? NFL teams have long roots in most of its homecitiesand most football fans don’t enjoy different types of football (such as Arena Football) as much as the NFL. And for cities who have dynasty teams it would be nearly impossible to get them to be fans of anotehr leauge even if it did have a team from the same city.
Even cities that don’t have a NFL team still can have a big football fan base because of college teams such as when I lived in Austin people paid much more attention to the UT longhorns then to the nearby Dallas Cowboys about 3 hours to the north. When I go up to Nebraska they don’t have a single professional team in any sport but the Cornhuskers has sold out every game since 1962 that’s almost half a century sellouts for a college team and the capacity is 80,000. That would mean that if you zoned off the stadium as its own biggest city during a game the amount of people inside would make the stadium alone the 3rd most populous city in Nebraska behind Omaha and Lincoln. I can’t speak for Los Angeles but I have heard it’s about the same down there with USC.
But here is another idea if you want a team in Mexico City then why don’t you just start up a league down there? Not only would it have no competition but it will expand the American football fan base and you would not have to worry about language differences. This UFL has about the chance of success against the NFL as a 6th grade JV running back against Brian Urlacher of the Chicago Bears.
Pistons suck i did not choose this name it was my cousin messing around with my comp back when the spurs played the pistons in the NBA finals. I watch both college football,NFL, and the NBA
Salt Lake City, Utah- I am going to start this one out with a city not many would expect. Salt Lake City has the facilities to host a professional football team after all they were able to host the 2002 winter Olympics. Salt lake is home to BYU who has a good following in Salt lake, Air Force head football coach Fisher Deberry has said of Edwards Stadium, "Probably the loudest and best stadium is whenever things are going good for BYU and their fans start beating on the metal bleachers. That can be a very tough place to play." Lavell Edwards Stadium has a capacity of about 64,000 and could easily have the fan base for a NFL team.
