The NFL wants to be global, hoping to ultimately establish its brand with a franchise in London, but Grantland‘s Bill Barnwell has his doubts about the enterprise. From “London Calling,” his new article on the topic:

“London is obviously an internationally renowned city, and Wembley is easy to get to, which helps make the International Series games played there a success, but there’s a gap worth noting in the makeup of the people who go to those games. I went to the Wembley tilt between the 49ers and Broncos in October 2010 and found that the crowd wasn’t by any means full of Londoners. Instead, it was a crowd consisting almost entirely of fans from around Europe who had traveled to London for the game.

That experience initially raised my suspicions about a London team. The fans I spoke to and rode the train with that day were mostly close observers of the NFL, hard-core fans who kept impossible hours (and/or built intense spoiler-free torrent communities) to see as much of the game they loved as possible. It was a no-brainer for them to travel from Germany or Ireland or Slovenia to England to see a meaningful NFL game once per year while taking a short vacation in London and spending a few hundred euros altogether. Doing that once a year is feasible for most people. If a team were based full-time in London, though, would a fan in Germany shell out those same few hundred euros eight times per year to travel to London and see that team play every other week? I’m very skeptical that they would be inclined to do so. And if they’re not coming, I don’t think the NFL would sell out Wembley eight times a year, year-after-year, or come particularly close. That’s why it’s very important to see how the European market responds to this second game; if the league can gets fans around Europe to make two trips to England, they might have more faith in turning them into regular repeat customers.

There’s also the distinct possibility that fans in Europe wouldn’t back a London team.”