Goodell's Dream of Football in Olympics Motivated by Money, Not Love of Sport

As the Games of the XXX Olympiad continue in London and the National Football League prepares to begin the 2012 preseason with Sunday's Hall of Fame Game between the New Orleans Saints and Arizona Cardinals, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell spoke recently of one day combining the two, with football becoming an Olympic sport.

However, not only is the idea of quarterback Andrew Luck one day standing atop the medal stand wearing a red, white and blue helmet more pipe dream than plausible, the notion is motivated by billions of reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with some esoteric love of the sport.

According to an NFL.com report, Goodell recently spoke with Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk on "The Dan Patrick Show," and as talk turned to the London Games, Goodell waxed poetic about the idea of seeing "American football" included as an Olympic sport:

"

Absolutely. We’re already taking steps to gain that IOC recognition. We have, I think, 64 countries that are playing American football now, and that’s one of the requirements. That’s been growing dramatically—I think it was 40 just five years ago.

"

First off, the simple fact is that the idea of football as an Olympic sport just isn't realistic from a competitive standpoint. Sure, there may be 64 countries "playing" American football, but that doesn't mean that any of them, outside of perhaps Canada, would have any hope of hanging in a game with a Division III college team from the States, much less take on a team of NFL stars.

That's not going to change anytime soon. And by "soon" I mean in the next decade or three.

Second, there's one motivating factor behind this, and one only. International expansion of the NFL.

Sure, the National Football League is a multi-billion dollar juggernaut in the United States, but they haven't had nearly the success that, say, the NBA has had in increasing interest overseas. Roger Goodell wants to change that.

Guess why?

If you said money, then you just brought home the gold medal in the obvious answer competition.

Not that the National Football League hasn't tried, mind you. The World League of American Football became NFL Europe before folding in 2007, and while those leagues gave players like Kurt Warner a chance to continue playing football (which in Warner's case eventually led to two Super Bowls) they just couldn't garner the interest abroad necessary to sustain them financially.

Yes, the single regular season game played in London each year over the past few seasons has been moderately successful, but that's partly due to the fact that it's an annual novelty of sorts.

Additional games in London, or a Super Bowl there, or God help us an NFL team in London (all ideas floated by Goodell in his interview with Florio) would all almost certainly fail for the same reason that the WLAF and NFL Europe did.

Are you listening Mr. Commissioner?

The vast majority of the rest of the world doesn't care about American football and never will.

Football is a uniquely American sport, and regardless of how many times the NFL tries to cram it down the rest of the globe's throat it's not going to take. They have soccer, and rugby. And most of them like it just fine that way.

So, Mr. Goodell, stop trying to cement some imagined legacy as the NFL commissioner that put teams overseas and concentrate your efforts on fixing the problems that the sport already has.

And please, at least do us the service of not pretending that football in the Olympics or abroad is about "a response to the tremendous fan reaction and the growth of the game" or some such nonsense.

The NFL isn't trying to win the world's hearts and minds.

It's trying to win their wallets.

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