MLB, Inc. needs owners who think like Jerry Jones--at least on the subject of shipping players around the globe...

• George Vecsey on NFL in London:

"The N.F.L., which dominates the sports market in the United States, is facing not only the separate domestic growth of Nascar and soccer but also the international appeal of basketball and baseball. The N.F.L. operated a development league in Europe, but, as Goodell pointed out yesterday, “It was time for something new.”

• Sunday’s game at Wembley will be broadcast to 215 countries, raising its image internationally. Jerry Jones surely does not mind if any buzz from this game causes Chinese or Australian or German fans to purchase America’s Team gear over the Internet;
• he just doesn’t want to transport his team here.

“My hat’s off to Wayne Huizenga,” Jones said yesterday, referring to the owner of the Dolphins, who agreed to take his home game here, with the cooperation of the Mara and the Tisch families of the Giants.

Did Jones think the N.F.L. would expand to Europe anytime soon?

“We don’t even have a team in Los Angeles,” he said."...........

• Vecsey: "The most prosperous sports league in the United States has found jumbo jets large enough to transport the Giants and the Miami Dolphins to play at Wembley Stadium on Sunday in a regular-season game.The event manages to be historic and transient at the same time, since it is the first league game played outside North America but is hardly a precursor to expansion. Instead, N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke yesterday about staging an annual game or two here, and reaching a broader worldwide audience via digital media.
• That’s what it’s about these days, blogs and chat rooms and selling logo T-shirts on the Internet.....

"The league faces a much harder sell to get the Dallas Cowboys — known for some reason as America’s Team — to play here, even once in a generation. The owner of the Cowboys, Jerry Jones, emerged from a private conference on sports globalization yesterday to insist that international games were fine for some teams.

• “It probably doesn’t fit us,” Jones quickly added. He said American football was based upon “my town against your town” rivalries, best played out in their home stadiums."

From NY Times column by George Vecsey, "NFL Tries to Turn Globalization into a Team Sport," 10/26/07

• P.S. The enormous drain on human beings forced to work in these vast time differences is ignored. sm

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