The last time we saw an NFL expansion team, George W. Bush was a year into his presidency, and C. J. Stroud wasn’t even a year old when the Texans joined the league in 2002. Will the league expand from 32 teams?
There’s a lot of hope and heartbreak in our list of expansion team candidates. Some of these cities haven’t ever hosted a team, and others have been repeatedly abandoned like a Detroit factory. Here are our top 10 possibilities for the next NFL expansion teams:
10. Columbus, Ohio
Columbus has history in the NFL with the Panhandles/Tigers playing seven seasons in the league during the roaring 1920s. The NFL was even headquartered in the city for over a decade before a move to Dayton.
While Columbus has the biggest population in Ohio, the Browns, Bengals, Steelers and Colts are all within a 185-mile radius, and the Ohio State Buckeyes helps to fulfil the need for football.
9. Sacramento, California
An NFL expansion team in Sacramento would only be competing with the Kings for the city’s love. Could the league really support a fourth team in California? A team in Sacramento would fill the void left by the Raiders relocation in Northern California, and the city is one of the largest media markets without an NFL team.
8. Toronto, Canada
There’s a big reason why there isn’t an NFL team in Toronto – lack of a suitable stadium. The 52,000-seat Rogers Center would need considerable renovations or a new stadium to be built. This is one of those situations of which came first: the chicken or the egg?
The Bills Toronto Series flunked in 2013, but that’s because Toronto’s NFL fans are over the Buffalo Bills. They’d rather see their own team in what is the biggest untapped market in both America and Canada.
7. St. Louis, Missouri
Ah, here we go. St Louis, abandoned like a Detroit factory after 21 years of production. When the Rams relocated to Los Angeles in 2016 it left a bitter taste for football fans in Missouri. The Rams left St Louis over money as the city couldn’t finance a top-tier stadium which forced owner Stan Kroenke to relocate to LA.
It brought back painful memories for fans of the St. Louis Cardinals, who relocated to Arizona in 1988 after 28 years in the NFL. The market size is big enough to support a team, but is the city willing to fund a new stadium to attract an NFL team to St. Louis for a third time?
6. Mexico City, Mexico
Two of the largest ever crowds in NFL history were set in Mexico City during preseason games, with the record set in 1994 when 112,376 watched the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Oilers.
With a metro population of over 22 million, Mexico City is one of the largest cities in the world and could host an impressive Mexican wave for the NFL. American football is also the second most popular sport in Mexico and financially, it could be too tempting for the league to turn down.
5. London, England
Is American Football just a novelty to the English? The rumors of international NFL expansion teams and a London franchise never seem to go away and it shouldn’t, with over 15 million American football fans in the UK. Expanding the league with an international NFL team would truly make the competition global but there’s the obvious logistical issues with having to travel to London.
4. Oakland, California
You can forgive Oakland football fans for being butthurt. Like St. Louis, Oakland has been abandoned twice after relocations to LA and Las Vegas. The loyalty of fans should never be questioned. Despite only four winning seasons in their second stint, and having to call the hole that was the Oakland Coliseum home, the passionate Raiders faithful still turned up.
Even in their first season in Las Vegas, almost one in seven fans were from Northern California. I don’t know how this one works though. The Raiders are now in Las Vegas and unless they relocate back, can you fathom Oakland being known by anything other than the Raiders?
3. San Diego, California
It’s here we finish the depressing tour of former NFL cities that deserve an expansion team. The Chargers were based in San Diego between 1961 to 2016 before relocating to Los Angeles following an overwhelming rejection by San Diego voters to help fund a new stadium in the city.
San Diego is making moves elsewhere however and will host the next MLS expansion team in 2025. The same question with Sacramento and Oakland needs to be asked, does California have room for a fourth team?
2. Portland, Oregon
A Portland NFL expansion team would create an intense rivalry with the Seahawks similar to the Battle of Cascadia in the MLS. Portland also has huge potential with a media market bigger than half of the NFL’s teams, and the Trail Blazers being the only major league sports team in the city. In the 1960s Portland voters rejected building the Delta Dome. Had they done so, we’d likely be talking about Seattle as a possible expansion team and not Portland.
1. San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is the favorite city for an NFL expansion team. The 64,000-seat Alamodome was built in 1993 and could host a team, but it’s in need of upgrades. That will be costly, but what makes San Antonio the most viable of all possible NFL expansion teams is its metro population of over 2.5 million, and a media market bigger than Kansas City, Cincinnati and Vegas,
When adding Austin into the mix, the area has a bigger market than Seattle-Tacoma, and San Antonio is the only city in the top ten most populated cities in America not to have an NFL team. You can also imagine the intense rivalry San Antonio would create against the Cowboys and Texans, who continually push back on a third Texan team.
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