When Jaguars owner Shad Khan was a child growing up in Lahore, Pakistan, he would often pore over a map of London's Underground subway system given to him by relatives and imagine what the intricate web of pipes, dots and tubes looked like in person.
Though he was more than 5,000 miles east of the United Kingdom, Khan felt the draw of London's vibrant culture, economy and traditions. Khan has pride for Pakistan, but London was always a North Star of sorts -- a place he needed to be.
"The sun never set on the British empire in Pakistan," Khan said in an interview with NFL.com this week.
I've never been a fan of having teams overseas, they talk about jet lags effect on games already, put some teams over seas and the jet lack is going to be huge... and then teams are going to want to have bye weeks before going over...
Though not in this article but some from the past (that I'm not looking up) it sounds like the difference tax / political system will keep the NFL from putting an NFL team there full time, because the team and the players would be taxed at a much higher rate and therefore the players wouldn't want to go there. But they're get "free healthcare" (I think).
But the theory is for a team to go there and last, they would need a higher cap number to be competitive with the post tax players amounts and if they become a good team, all the other teams/fans would complain about them getting a higher cap amount (plus agents would complain because the numbers would look much higher even if the post tax amount were lower, putting more pressure on them)
So if the NFL wanted to put a team in London full time, they would need to keep about the same cap number (or same) as all the other teams, and some how still keep London competitive with the higher tax amount (which players may care about, and the agents clearly will).
Personally, I suggest if we're going to force American football on another country why can't we start with Canada? ... I mean they're right there... and we have ZERO teams there. The jet lag wouldn't be any more of a factor than it already is, they've already gotten a good taste of American football and there are
a number of Canadian football players in the NFL for them to grab on to, including former Packers DT Colin Cole, P Jon Ryan and current Packers OLB Andy Mulumba... just to list the guys currently playing, and not the ones that's are retired.