(670 The Score) Sooner or later, the NFL is expected to expand with new franchises.
There are currently 32 teams, but just how big could the NFL get? Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk believes 40 teams would be the “perfect” number for the league … eventually.
“I think it’s going to go 32 to 34, stop over to 36,” Florio said on the Bernstein & Rahimi Show on 670 The Score on Wednesday. “Ultimately, 40 would be the perfect number – eight divisions with five teams each. I would like that. I probably won’t be around for that to happen. I mean, that’s eight more teams when you only have 32. But I think they can get there. The fact that there’s so many quarterbacks now that can get it done because the colleges are cranking out so many every year and the teams are finding ways to get these guys up to speed quickly, I think we could get to 40 at some point in the next – I don’t know – 40 or 50 years.”
Florio pegged London as the key city to watch when expansion talks heat up again. The last time the NFL added an expansion franchise was in 2002, when the Houston Texans joined the league.
“London is definitely a place to watch,” Florio said. “They’ve got two NFL stadiums in London, and I don’t think that’s a mistake. I remember years ago when L.A. was this perpetual possible return for the NFL, Al Michaels was the first one who said, ‘When it happens, it’s not going to be one team, it’s going to be two.’ And I think that same reasoning applies to London. When it happens, it’s going to be two. You’re going to have a built-in rivalry, you’re going to have reduced travel costs because those two teams will presumably be in the same division – although I feel bad for the two non-London teams in that same division that are going to have to come over there on a regular basis. Two teams, there’s two stadiums, two teams in London.”