Dude.
Okay a couple things -
1) Whoever said there wasn't an NFL team in Toronto forgot the Bills. A little bit. Up to 2013.
2) I don't get the red-headed stepteam concept, where everything goes to hell for one team or another every week (including 8 times for the London team). I would hope it's a stepping stone to a European division to at least soften the travel issue.
3) I wouldn't miss the Jags and neither would Jacksonville. Christ's sake.
4) Take that and 3 more teams from small (U.S.) markets, and ya got the GMT division, if, as noted above, Brits actually can stomach a team. I think Germany could; it's a martial metaphor to begin with, and Germany was into the WLAF when it existed.
5) The whole stepping-stone theory would mean that the NFL believes Europe can support 4 teams, not 1, ultimately. Hell, if they can support 8, we can have the GMT North and GMT South. Or East and West if it shakes out that way.
6) The dilution-of-talent problem is huge. As noted there's no pipeline. U.S. kids started playing soccer, because Communism really won in the 80s. I'm not so sure European parents are eager to sign their kids up for a game medically proven to scramble people's marbles.
7) In terms of the nationalist boo-hooing? Screw that. If I could wave a magic wand and have every country play NFL-style football instead of soccer, I'd do that. As noted, they don't want to do that, but hell, I could have a favorite team in every league, the FA cup could actually stand for Football in the proper sense of the word, all would be right with the world. Call me an expansionist ahole, but I'd be all for it.
So if they can really get it to work, I'm all for football on Zulu time (that's GMT). I just don't get how they're going to get it to work. I don't know if their timeline is years or decades. I just don't think they can look at cities the size of London and Berlin and content themselves with teams in Jacksonville, Buffalo, and wherever the hell the Titans play.
If a London team catches on, what do you think the merchandise numbers would be vs. Jacksonville? How about ad spend? Come on guys. There are major cities out there. I don't know how they get to the tipping point but I can see the appeal for the league.
The world is catching up to the West, and there are rich people and corporations everywhere (you know, for the PSLs.) Let's share the gift of CTE.