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A17
Saturday 28 april 2018

U.S. leagues

are on the POOF! BE GONE

verge of going

international

By PAUL NEWBERRY
AP Sports Columnist
An NFL team in London?
Count on it.
An NBA franchise in Mexi-
co City? Yep, that’s com-
ing too.
What was once a pipe
dream — major-league
teams based in cities out-
side the United States and
Canada — is now just a
matter of time. The afore-
mentioned cities are the
ones most likely to break
through first, but others will
surely follow when every-
one sees how much po-
tential revenue is there for
the taking.
“The market is saturated
in the U.S.,” said Gil Fried,
a professor and chair of
sports management at the
University of New Haven.
“They need to find new
markets.”
The NFL has been trying for
years to make inroads in
Europe — especially Lon-
don — and those efforts
were turned up to full blast
by revelations that Jack-
sonville Jaguars owner
Shahid Khan is attempting
to buy Wembley Stadium,
a 90,000-seat, state-of-the-
art venue known the world
over.
Khan brushed off the ob-
vious speculation that
this is the first step toward
moving the Jaguars to Down at half, bench
London — where they al-
ready have been playing
“home” games since 2013 helps Raps eliminate Wiz
— but didn’t exactly pro-
vide a resounding vote of Toronto Raptors center Jonas Valanciunas (17), from
confidence for Jackson-
ville, one of the smallest Lithuania, attempts a shot over Washington Wizards
markets in the NFL. forward Markieff Morris during the second half of
“The first thing you want Game 6 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff
with certainty is you want a series Friday, April 27, 2018, in Washington. The
venue,” he said. “And this
gives us a stadium solution, Raptors won 102-92.
for us or anyone else.” Associated Press
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