NFL looking at Europe?

The New England Patriots [team stats]’ parent firm would love to expand into other U.S. sports leagues, but has had to look overseas because strict NFL regulations limit what team owners can do in America, Pats President Jonathan Kraft says.

“Unfortunately, (the) NFL has a rule that you cannot own a team in another major sport if there is an NFL team in that market,” Kraft said today at a Sovereign Bank forum in Boston on international business.

“I think it’s a good rule, but it limits us to leverage our abilities in the United States, because there are basically football teams (in every major U.S. city),” he said. “So, outside of (the) New England market, we’ve had to look abroad.”

Kraft said the Patriots came close to buying British soccer team Liverpool in 2005, but took a pass because the European Premier League doesn’t have a salary cap.

The Pats president said the Kraft family didn’t want to get into bidding wars for players with Premier League owners like Roman Abramovich, a Russian billionaire who owns Britain’s Chelsea soccer team.

“We just didn’t want to compete with people ... who want to lose 100 million euros and 100 million (British) pounds a year just to win a championship,” Kraft said. “That’s why we stayed away.”

U.S. investors George Gillet Jr. and Thomas Hicks eventually bought Liverpool, then the Red Sox [team stats] parent company acquired the team in 2010.

While the Patriots organization hasn’t expanded its sports holdings overseas, Kraft thinks the NFL itself will enter Europe within a decade.

“Ten years from now, we will probably have a team based in Continental Europe, probably (in) London or maybe Germany,” Kraft said,

The executive admitted that previous NFL efforts to bring pro football across the pond in the 1980s and ‘90s failed.

But Kraft said that’s because the league tried things like the second-string World League of American Football instead of putting a “real” NFL team in Europe.

“Having the real game being played on foreign soil is probably a part of the evolution of the (NFL),” he said.

(source Boston Herald)

Posted by Necesitamos Mas Football on 10:52 a. m.. Filed under afc , Jonathan Kraft , New England , noticias , Patriots , principal . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0