NFL Expansion: 5 Cities that Could Get a Pro Football Team

On Thursday night NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said that the league would prefer to put a new team in Los Angeles, Calif. as opposed to moving a current team to Los Angeles.

"We probably don't want to go to 33," Goodell told Bob Costas on the interview show "Costas Live," on the NBC Sports Network.  You can see the entire interview here on ProFootballTalk.com.

Goodell elaborated that an uneven number of teams would create too many scheduling conflicts, including forcing one team to be off each week, so the powers that be in the NFL would add another city to the league when and if Los Angeles builds one of their proposed stadiums.

But where could that mysterious thirty-fourth team end up? Here we propose five potential landing spots for the team that would balance Los Angeles.

London, England and Toronto, Canada have both been suggested as places that could get teams in the future as they have both hosted a series of regular season games, but in reality neither is feasible.

A team in London would be a 12 hour flight from teams like Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland and Phoenix. Teams that have to fly from coast to coast within the US already have a competitive disadvantage. The NFL would not be willing to put that burden on their teams.

Toronto is much closer and seems like a reasonable option but the Bills Toronto Series has been a disappointment. The NFL has had trouble selling all 54,000 seats a significantly smaller amount than even the smallest NFL stadium, Solider Field (61,500).

The crowds who have showed up have been largely quiet and disinterested and both the Bills and the NFL have intimated that they are less than happy with the results.

San Antonio seems like the most likely option for an addition team when all of the various factors are considered. The city is the seventh largest in the United States, yet it has just one professional team, the Spurs.
The city already has the Alamodome which seats over 66,000 for football games. That would certainly help a new team there get off the ground with little initial investment.
The city is large enough to sell out a 70,000 seat stadium week in and week out and when combined with the cities rabid support of the Trailblazers in the NBA and the Timbers of the MLS and you have a recipe for NFL success.

If team number 33 goes to Los Angeles, it stands to reason that the other team that gets added to the league could be out west as well to keep the schedule and travel more balanced and fair for all teams. So for that simple reason Portland would make a great option.

Las Vegas has long been coveted by every professional league as a destination for a team. There is major corporate money, a large population, good weather and the chance to have your product showcased in the entertainment capital of the world.
But there is legalized gambling, including on sports, legalized prostitution in the state, casinos and all the general zaniness that makes it such a fun place to visit.
But, in a league that as paranoid about its image as the NFL is, the chances of them putting their players in proximity to that kind of temptation is low.

Oklahoma is no longer just the place where the wind comes whipping down the plains, it’s one of the larger and more affluent cities in the United States thanks to its location in the middle of an active oil field.
Combine that with the way the city has embraced and supported the Thunder since they moved to town, and it looks more and more like a very attractive landing spot.

Birmingham is by far the smallest city on this list, but don’t let that diminish its candidacy. The cities metropolitan area is over one million and a quarter of the state’s population lives within an hour of the city.
It is smack dab in the middle of the most fertile ground in the country for college football and University of Alabama and Auburn University have no problem drawing 101,000 and 81,000 people a week respectively.
The big concern here would be where to place the team. Auburn isn’t likely to want another tenant in Jordan Hare Stadium meaning the city would have to build one to get their shot at a team.