In terms of the first point, I think the sport is so well established over here that we probably wouldn't gain a huge amount of followers simply because the support is pretty tribal, and people that watched the sport in the 80's and picked their team then, now have children that they have managed to coerce into following the same team. For example, and I'm quite proud of this, I was in a sports shop last weekend with the family and we were checking out the NFL gear they had, and my missus picked up a Jets hat to look at ("I like the green") - my daughter started booing. She then took it off her and handed her a Patriots one. And she's only 9!
Even though we're not in one of the large cities in the UK, I know plenty of NFL fans and the older guys have managed to get their kids to follow the same team, which is a story that's pretty common if you check out the various UK based NFL forums.
As for the second part, I'm in full agreement. The UK market could be an untapped cash cow, and if having a team here starts attracting interest from Europe, that's an even bigger bonus, because the game is incredibly popular in countries like Germany. All 32 owners will want some part of that.
