SAN FRANCISCO The NFL continued to build its global brand on Friday when commissioner Roger Goodell announced Mexico will host a game next season and dangled a carrot to British fans saying a team in London was a realistic possibility.
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You can’t have the 50th Super Bowl unless you first have the 50th Commissioner’s Friday-before-the-Super Bowl news conference, although watching Roger Goodell Friday I got the feeling he wished that weren’t the case.
The values of TV contracts are still rising.
“We hope to celebrate Azteca Stadium’s 50th anniversary with the increase of the league’s fan base (in Mexico)”, Televisa Deportes vice president Yon de Luisa said.
Conclusion: The NFL, despite all its problems, is essentially made of Teflon. “I am not going to speculate on what we’re going to do”, Goodell said.
Goodell, speaking at his annual Super Bowl news conference Friday, said he respects the cheerleaders’ role for each team and is discussing the issue with National Football League teams on a regular basis.
“To me, player safety is always going to be our No. 1 issue, no matter what else happens”, he said.
The NFL has gained enormous popularity in England over the past few years, with attendance at the three games played at Wembley Stadium setting new attendance marks for several of the teams that played.
The NFL is America’s most popular pro sports league, but it isn’t without its problems, such as head trauma, cheerleader compensation and the never-ending saga of Deflategate.
– He said there was a 40 percent reduction in player arrests during the 2015 calendar year.
“Any smart culture eventually stops playing sports that will possibly leave you debilitated”, Plummer said. Next year players will wear specially designed helmets.
“If it’s not quality, we have to do something different”, Goodell said.
Troubled Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel was under investigation by two police departments following allegations that he hit his former girlfriend last weekend in Texas.
Goodell explained changing the league’s rules on the use of marijuana are up to their medical professionals and they’re not recommending any changes at this time, and that he expects fantasy football to continue to be a positive part of the game, but it is up to the legal authorities right now, not the NFL.
But if that sounded like a tone-deaf, back-of-the-hand answer to a question, consider how Goodell ended the session responding to a question asking if he felt comfortable about encouraging parents to have their kids play football after seven high school players nationally who died of injuries suffered in games or practices this season. The owners instead approved a bid by the Rams to move from St. Louis to Inglewood, Calif., near the L.A. airport. And I think the players would be aware of that, that ‘Hey, I’ve got one [personal foul penalty], if I get one more, I’m out of the game.
The average fan does not stay away from football despite the steady drumbeat of bad news.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t call him out on it.
Mara emphasized the league is working hard to make the game safer.
“I believe the league should pursue a policy where if there are two personal fouls in the game it results in the ejection of the player”.
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It was a small tidbit of news, the debate over which will generate headlines as big as those for any baseball game in July or an Olympic medal in August.
