U.S. Sports Leagues Are Considering European Expansion. They Shouldn't.
- Ashland Connelly
- Oct 9
- 4 min read
In the modern sports world, several leagues are considering expanding beyond their native continents. Most notably, the NFL has been considering a team in London for almost a decade, following the dissolution of the defunct NFL Europe league, and recently, Adam Silver has hinted at the NBA looking at similar ventures of European expansion. While I am all for new teams being added to sports leagues, the idea of having teams in Europe participating in American leagues is something completely fruitless. In my eyes, there is no reason for any league to try and expand to these European markets when there are plenty of, not only American markets, but also Canadian, Mexican, and Caribbean markets that can easily service a top rung sports team. The only true positive to permanently expanding to one of these large European markets is TV money, which, granted, leagues like the NBA desperately need more of. However, the costs on players greatly outweigh the benefits, with player fatigue, player visas, and other complications making even playing regular-season games abroad incredibly challenging. All of this is even before you get into the markets that are being, for some odd reason, ignored by U.S. sports executives.
There are 5 predominant sports leagues in the United States: the MLS (soccer), NFL (football), NBA (basketball), NHL (hockey), and MLB (baseball). Between these leagues, only 12 cities have a team in all 5: Washington D.C., Chicago, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Toronto, Miami, Minneapolis, Denver, and Philadelphia. Cities that used to be a part of this club include Atlanta (the Atlanta Flames moved to Calgary, and the Thrashers became the 2nd and current iteration of the Winnipeg Jets), Seattle (the Supersonics became the Oklahoma City Thunder), St. Louis (4 NFL teams, most recently the Rams who moved to LA, and 3 NBA teams, most recently the Hawks who moved to Atlanta and the Spirits of St. Louis pre-NBA-ABA-merger), and Kansas City (the Kings who moved to Sacramento and the Scouts who became the Colorado Rockies and later the New Jersey Devils). This leaves so, so many cities with three or fewer teams that could prove great spots for expansion. For example, the NHL is closely eyeing adding a team to Houston (which would promote the city to the 5-team club), and Salt Lake City and Las Vegas (at the expense of smaller markets) have been seeing additions to their cities through the Utah Mammoth and soon-to-be-possibly-rebranded Oakland Athletics. The latter two examples showcase another grand problem with modern sports executives: being allergic to the smaller market.
Obviously, smaller-market teams cannot generate the revenue of bigger markets. You can't found a team in Hartford expecting Los Angeles money, but you can found a team in Hartford expecting a whole city on your back. One of my close friends is from Oregon, and, even though she knows and cares about basketball very little (she isn't even from the state originally), she lives and dies by the Portland Trailblazers. Sports at their core are about community, and the greatest fanbases in pro sports are those of small-market teams where the whole city unites around their team. Yet, in recent years, the only expansion to a smaller market has been the relocation of the Seattle Supersonics to Oklahoma City and the departure of the Arizona Coyotes to Salt Lake City. Beyond these two exceptions, cities like Oakland and San Diego have seen the departure of their sports teams for larger markets rather than leagues entertaining the prospect of expansion. While fans are left sorely missing teams like the Chargers and Athletics, they are instead having their brands twisted to their new host cities, with fans who struggle to get invested in their teams. All it does is lead to situations like that of the Rams and Chargers, where road fans regularly outnumber the locals to the point that a game in LA may as well be a road game.
At the end of the day, this push from sports executives to ignore cities that have clamored for teams for years in favor of the big European markets is all done in the interest of TV money. There is little, if any, interest from fans for a team, and the prospect certainly raises lots of questions about how logistical it would be to play home games in a completely different nation, over 10 hours away from most of the NBA schedule. Instead, executives should strike back against the recent trends and learn to invest in the smaller, domestic market to retain the sense of community that the sports once held before they became corporatized. Below are some ideal candidates for many of the leagues across the country to look to expand to.
MLB: Nashville, Charlotte, Austin, Salt Lake City, Mexico City, and SAVE THE ATHLETICS!
NBA: Seattle (BRING BACK THE SONICS!), Las Vegas, Vancouver, Montreal, Pittsburgh
NHL: Arizona (RETURN OF THE COYOTES!), Houston, Atlanta, Quebec City, and Portland
NFL: Toronto, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Mexico City, St. Louis, and BRING THE CHARGERS AND RAIDERS HOME!
MLS: JUST ADD RELEGATION AND PROMOTION, IT WOULD SOLVE THIS ISSUE VIA THE USL AND OTHER LEAGUES!!! (Oh, and maybe Baltimore, San Juan, and northern Mexico cities without top tier LigaMX teams)
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