Scott Adamson, Author at Adamsonmedia.com

NFL footprint gets bigger

Friday marked the first of seven international regular season games the NFL will play in 2025, with the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers mixing it up in São Paulo, Brazil. Fans who are more accustomed to world class association football showed plenty of love for the top-tier tackle kind, with 47,000 watching the Chargers take a 27-21 victory at Arena Corinthians.

Other overseas stops this fall/winter include Dublin, Berlin, Madrid and three trips to London.

**Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Bluesky @scottadamson1960.bsky.social**

“The 2025 NFL season will see seven regular season games played outside of the U.S. – the most ever regular season international games to date, including historic first games in iconic venues in Berlin, Dublin and Madrid,” NFL official Peter O’Reilly, who is in charge of international league events, said when the slate was announced. “The 2025 International Games schedule showcases an exciting selection of matchups featuring major NFL stars, bringing our game directly to fans around the world, and underscores our collective commitment to global growth as we continue our journey to becoming a truly global sport.”

Each year, it seems, the NFL expands its reach, and next year it steps into Australia with the Los Angeles Rams serving as the host team for a game in Melbourne.

“Expanding to Melbourne, Australia, a beautiful city with a rich sports history, underlines our ambitions to become a global sport and accelerate international growth,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a prepared statement. “Together with the Victorian State Government, Visit Victoria and the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and with the Los Angeles Rams in 2026, we look forward to making history in what is an important market for the NFL and a significant next step in expanding our international footprint.”

What the NFL is doing right now for foreign relations might well be enough. When the league goes to locales like London it’s always a major event, and being an annual visitor is a great arrangement for both the city and the league.

But remember, talk about putting a franchise (or franchises) across the pond has never gone away and has, in fact, been pushed by Goodell himself.

“I think there’s no question that London could support not just one franchise, but I think two franchises, I really believe that,” Goodell said at a fan gathering hosted by Sky Sports back in 2022. “And that’s from a fan perspective, a commercial standpoint, from a media standpoint, I think you (United Kingdom fans) have undoubtedly proven that, and thank you for that. We’re trying to see could you have multiple locations in Europe where you could have an NFL franchise because it would be easier as a division.”

I’ve pontificated on these matters before, because it costs nothing to do so. My last unsolicited idea – based on Goodell’s musings – was to expand the NFL to 36 franchises with a European Division consisting of two London teams as well as clubs in Frankfurt and Munich. Playing each division foe twice along with the balance of a 17-game schedule, that gives the international wing of the NFL 11 or 12 games on their side of the Atlantic in addition to five or six in the United States.

“The question I think is going to come down to, not so much the logistics about travel, that’s clearly a challenge, it really comes down to whether you can do it competitively,” Goodell said three years ago. “Where the team here or the teams in the States coming over can continue to be competitive and that was the challenge when we did the regular season games.”

OK, so let’s make it less challenging by expanding the NFL to eight European markets – London One, London Two, Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin, Dublin, Glasgow and Paris. (You can plug in your own European cities here … I’m just using these as examples).

One four team division would go the NFC and the other to the AFC, splitting the NFL into two, 20-team conferences with five divisions in each.

To help with scheduling, the European teams would play each other twice during the regular season, accounting for 14 games of the 17-game slate. The remaining three would feature traditional NFL teams coming for a visit.

In other words, in addition to seven home and seven road games against European sides, the London Kings would also host, say, the Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears and New York Giants while the London Knights might welcome the New York Jets, Las Vegas Raiders and Tennessee Titans.

The winners of each European Division would earn a playoff spot and be guaranteed at least one postseason home game.

This unbalanced, all-European schedule would give the eight international teams a bit of a break in the regular season since they would face only a handful of legacy NFL foes (and avoid overseas travel), but hey – that’s life.

And since the NFL is a global brand, it could continue its international series in places like Brazil and Australia, utilizing franchises that aren’t traveling to play the European squads.

Of course, if something like this ever happens, it will be many years down the road. If and when it does, I’ll have shuffled off this mortal coil or be too old to care – or write about it.

Still, it’s fun to think about, and that’s what I’m thinking about as the National Football League begins a brand new season.

Philadelphia bound

The minute Pace Patton saw Diedre Grace’s America Pass, he knew it was a forgery. A very good one, but a forgery nonetheless.

“Lemme see here … says you are Citizen Grace, number 59834, Atlantic Territory. Where are you headed?” he asked, pretending to carefully examine her ID.

“Looking for work, sir,” she said, adjusting her faded green backpack. “It’s mostly dried up here in Norfolk, so I figured I’d head further north. Saw you pull over and was hoping I could ride with you a ways.”

Patton’s jeep had official government markings on it, and an America Pass was required for any passenger.

“Sure thing. I’m headed up the coast, so if you see a place you want to stop, let me know and I’ll drop you off. Just call me Pace, by the way. No need for formalities.”

“Copy that. Call me Diedre.”

After several miles on the road, the rider/driver dynamic between Diedre and Pace began to evolve into something else entirely.

First there were the obligatory, “Where you from?” exchanges, followed by vague niceties about their personal histories. The more they talked, the more Pace believed he was riding with a kindred spirit.

Feeling confident that he knew what the sturdy-built hitchhiker was up to, Pace decided to test her.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Diedre replied.

“Why are you really traveling to the north?”

Diedre was puzzled … she thought the question had been asked and answered during earlier “car talk.”

“Like I said, just looking for work. Only so much I can do on what’s left of the port in Norfolk, so I’m moving on.”

Pace wasn’t buying it.

“You just sound like a woman on a mission,” he said. “And if you are on a mission, just what is it? Most people going this direction want to find out about the Philadelphia Freedoms, and as you know, the government frowns on that particular pursuit, especially after the Uprising of ’29.”

Named after the old World Team Tennis Team from the 1970s that inspired an Elton John song, the Philadelphia Freedoms were allegedly a group of revolutionaries headquartered in Pennsylvania. Rumored to be plotting to infiltrate and ultimately overtake the Imperial America regime, state media contended that the entire movement was weak and disorganized, and had already been quelled.

Diedre was taken aback: Pace was on to her, and that meant the situation could get volatile at any moment.

“My mission is to make money so I can eat. That’s the mission of a lot of people these days,” she said, slowly moving her hand to the right pocket where her mini stun gun was hidden.

Pace pretended not to notice.

“It’s just little things you’ve mentioned here and there make me think you have bigger plans. Then again, maybe you’re just running away from something. Is your home situation bad? Are you trying to get a divorce and the guy’s standing in the way? Are you in trouble with the law? Have you broken the Patriot Code? I just want to understand.”

Early on Diedre had to catch herself because she felt at ease talking to Pace. Now, however, she was on the defensive. He had spent the drive buttering her up, and was probably taking her to the nearest work camp. He was, after all, driving a government-issued vehicle.

She tried to remain calm, but made sure her hand was firmly on her weapon.

“Never married, no family to speak of, no debts owed, no ties to the Mob, not on any government watch list – unless you know something I don’t,” Diedre said, avoiding eye contact with Pace. “Like I said, I just need a job. Plus, I’ve never been up north before and now seems like the perfect time to visit, especially with the Border War still hot. How about you? Are you just out looking for bounty money?”

Pace toyed with the idea of immediately telling Diedre the truth, but thought better of it. He wondered how long it’d be before she tried to turn the tables on him.

“Just making the rounds … like a good American.”

The elephant in the room – or in the car – was the fact that a thousand dollar bounty was available for anyone who rounded up a suspected revolutionary and turned them in at a Patriot Code checkpoint.

With her fake America Pass – and her assumption that Pace was an official of Imperial America – Diedre was either trying to hijack his vehicle or take him hostage in hopes of gaining information.

So Pace eased off the road, came to a stop, and turned off the engine.

“Before you zap me with your stun gun – yes, I know you have a stun gun – you should probably know this isn’t my vehicle and I don’t work for the government,” Pace said. “Well, I’m in the government, but I’m working against it. They just don’t realize it yet. There are a whole lot more of us than you might think.”

He then raised the sleeve on his left arm to reveal a tattoo of Elton John banging on a piano.

Diedre smiled.

“Subtle,” she said.

Pace nodded.

“I hoped you’d notice. Now … what do I need to know to know that we’re working together?

“Release date of the song was February 28, 1975,” Diedre said. “It was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin for Billie Jean King. Now your turn.”

“B-side was I Saw Here Standing There,” Pace replied. “It was a live performance with John Lennon.”

The pair breathed a sigh of relief and shook hands.

“By the way, Pace is an alias. But I imagine you already knew that. My real name’s Fess Douglass. And you?

“Tubman … Henrietta Tubman.”

Douglass cranked up the engine and steered back onto the road.

Philadelphia was still a couple of hours away.

Freedoms? Well, those would likely take a bit longer to get back.

The night Chicago died

I realize most of you are experiencing a tingling sensation in your special regions since this is the first full Saturday of a new college football season. But for all of my fellow alt-football nerds, today is also a day to raise a glass and pour one out for the Chicago Winds. And while you’re at it, maybe do the same for the World Football League.

On this date 50 years ago the Winds played their final game, and three days later the franchise folded. This caused even the most optimistic WFL fans to realize the end was nigh for the struggling circuit. (The league went cleats up on October 22).

First, some background …

After a disastrous 1974 season – one dripping in red ink and resulting in two teams folding and two more relocating – the original WFL actually folded. It was replaced by New League Inc., doing business as the World Football League.

The 1975 reboot began with 11 franchises – the Birmingham Vulcans, Charlotte Hornets, Winds, The Hawaiians, Jacksonville Express, Memphis Southmen, Philadelphia Bell, Portland Thunder, San Antonio Wings, Shreveport Steamer and Southern California Sun.

The WFL was missing the top media market – New York – so it was vitally important that Chicago, Philadelphia and the Anaheim-based Sun provide a “major league” boost.

But Chicago was iffy from the get-go.

According to the Associated Press, when the franchise was formed (replacing the 1974 Chicago Fire) “certain partnership documents and other ownership arrangements” were not completed. Two of the Winds’ backers placed their investments ($175,000) with the league, pending clarification and finalization of ownership documents.

WFL commissioner Chris Hemmeter had devised a strict financial plan for the league, one that required minimum capital requirements for members. And his “Hemmeter Plan” was designed to make sure teams made payroll. Players would earn one percent of gate receipts while “stars” requiring greater compensation had to be paid through money placed in an escrow account.

Chicago’s ownership group reached an agreement with the WFL to supply enough money to assure a full season’s operation, so the Winds were admitted in the hopes they could be the bellwether franchise.

They could not.

In March of 1975, there was talk that the Southmen’s Big Three – Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Paul Warfield – might be sent to Chicago from Memphis owner John Bassett in an effort to “save the league.”

That never happened.

And in April, the Winds took their biggest swing when they tried to lure Joe Namath away from the New York Jets. But whether or not the man who helped boost the American Football League to prominence could do the same to the WFL became a moot point after Namath opted to stay in the NFL.

Babe Parilli was coach and general manager of the team up until late July, then he was released to make room for Abe Gibron and Leo Cahill.

Cahill had served as GM of the Southmen before heading north to his native Chicago.

Gibron was fired a year earlier by the Chicago Bears after going 11-30-1 over three seasons, but was brought in to assume the same role with the city’s WFL club.

“I can only promise it will be an aggressive team both physically and mentally,” Gibron told AP.

The franchise did manage to sign John Gilliam away from the Minnesota Vikings, and hoped the battery of quarterback Pete Beathard to Gilliam would put wins on the ledger and butts in the seats.

It did neither.

Chicago opened with two games on the road – a 10-0 loss to Birmingham and 38-18 drubbing at the hands of Shreveport.

The Winds’ home debut at Soldier Field drew a crowd of 3,501, who watched the hosts log a 25-18 overtime victory over Portland.

Game four was a 28-17 loss at the Hawaiians, and on August 30, 1975, the Winds traveled to Memphis.

The Southmen won big, 31-7, but that was the least of the Winds’ woes.

Remember that thing about clarification and finalization of ownership documents?

“There were continuous delays regarding those documents and other representations which they had made that were not fully clarified,” Hemmeter said on September 2 after learning the two original investors pulled out. “That brought the Winds below minimum capitalization requirements. We agreed from day one that kind of violation would not be tolerated.”

So, just three days after falling to 1-4, the Winds were done.

Hemmeter suggested the move to drop to 10 franchises would actually help the WFL.

“From a business standpoint, it is certainly a more responsible act to shut down a potential problem than to allow the potential for future problems to exist,” he said in an AP interview. “We are not willing to gamble on the future of the league.”

In reality, though, the WFL had no future.

There was no national TV contract, and attendance was terrible in most markets. Philadelphia averaged just 3,500 per game, with its final home contest drawing 1,293. Portland was bringing in less than 8,000 customers per home date.

Even Birmingham, whose WFL champion Americans averaged nearly 40,000 per home date in 1974, dipped to 24,100 in 1975.

While the league managed to hang on for another seven weeks after the Winds’ demise, Chicago’s exit was a harbinger of the World Football League’s doom.

“There wasn’t any single overriding factor in the decision,” Hemmeter said in a prepared statement announcing the end of the WFL. “When you go into any business venture, you realize there’s an upside potential and downside risk. As responsible people, we realized the risk had become too great.”