The National Football League looks to be expanding its horizons. This year, the first regular season game ever held outside the United States will be played in the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. If this debut is successful, other countries that could potentially host NFL games would be England, Japan, China and Canada.
Mexico City was chosen to be the host of League’s first international regular-season game both because of its proximity and the sport’s growing popularity in Mexico. ESPN reports that, Latinos in the U.S. cite football as their favorite sport, surpassing even soccer, according to the NFL. The NFL has specifically referenced their large fan base in Mexico and has expressed eagerness in finally being able to respond to the growing interest there. The League expects Azteca Stadium to be sold out this Sunday. Why that’s the case is entirely beyond me.
After all, who are these ambassadors of the National Football League? Which teams have been sent forth to display all of the skill, drive and intensity that American football has to offer? As the League has said, any future forays into the international arena will depend at least in part on the success of this game. Wouldn’t it make sense then, for the League to send its very best?
Certainly, then, the NFL selected the very best teams they could, teams that could display everything that the best football teams in the world have to offer. Certainly, the first teams to play a regular season game in Mexico will be of the same caliber as, say, the Patriots, or the Eagles.
Not quite. In a move equitable to making Britney Spears the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, the two teams that will go head-to-head south of the border will be the San Francisco 49ers and the Arizona Cardinals.
That’s right. On one side, you have the hapless Cardinals, who have never been good in all of recorded history. The Cardinals are rather like the Clippers in that sense: they’ve sucked for so long that it’s just kind of accepted as a part of reality now, much like the law of gravity or Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. The Niners, of course, are a far cry from the dynasty of the 1980s. Coming off of a 2-14 season and armed only with the most expensive second-stringer in NFL history, San Francisco pulled off their only victory so far this season with a play right out of a schoolyard playbook, only to be completely owned the next week by Philadelphia in a 42-3 massacre.
If the NFL really wanted a strong start in Mexico, they should have had a match-up between Oakland and San Diego. I know what you’re thinking: these teams aren’t exactly stellar either. I submit, however, that Oakland, while it has the same record as Arizona, isn’t even in the same ballpark with regard to skill. All of their losses have been against very solid teams (including both teams that went to the Super Bowl last season) and have been by relatively small margins. The Raiders won’t be winless for long by any means.
As for San Diego, while losing by narrow margins to the likes of Denver and Dallas, they absolutely butchered Eli Manning and the Giants last week. The Chargers also have a lot more going for them than their record indicates. And, of course, the Raiders and the Chargers have massive fan-bases in Mexico, as well as among the Latino population in the United States. If a Niners-Cardinals game sold out, fans would be pole-vaulting into the stadium to see a Raiders-Chargers match-up.
