However, in an increasingly global society and economy, the NFL languishes in popularity outside of North America. International players are a rarity in the league, and there has been no history of even a Canadian-based NFL franchise.

Historically, football has rarely been played internationally. High costs of equipment and football-caliber stadiums have limited its growth in the third world, and the only first-world countries that have even marginally embraced football are Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

Football abroad has often been perceived as a sign of American nationalism and a barbaric culture. Critics of football often portray the game as a modern-day gladiator fight with a ball, and that it only appeals to the lowest common denominator of people and aggressive Americans.

This interpretation may be unfair, but the results of these stereotypes against football have marginalized the sport to a degree worse than American soccer.

The NFL did a series of preseason games from 1986 to 2005, known as the American bowl, across the world to showcase football globally. In 1991, NFL Europa was established as a minor league and training ground to raise Europeans on football.

Only Germany embraced football, as all of the leagues teams (except the Amsterdam Admirals) either folded or moved to Germany. Even with the German support, NFL Europe drastically failed financially—the league was primarily filled with American NFL rejects and failed to develop any homegrown players.

As a result, the NFL shutdown the league in 2007, and they continued to struggle in gaining support for the sport outside of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Nevertheless, the NFL has recently been raising its efforts in making American football more popular abroad.

Roger Goodell has made globalization of football one of his top priorities outside of suspending trouble-making players. On October 2, 2005, the Arizona Cardinals defeated the San Francisco 49ers in front of 103,467 fans (NFL regular-season record) in the first regular season game ever played abroad (Mexico City).

Last season, the Miami Dolphins played the New York Giants in London to kickoff an annual international series that places at least one regular-season NFL game overseas per season. This tradition will continue when the NFL returns to London for next year’s Chargers-Saints game.

The Buffalo Bills also are starting to play one preseason and one regular season game each year in Toronto. Many sources around the Buffalo Bills are speculating that they may actually move to Toronto after the 89-year-old owner Ralph Wilson passes away.

The NFL also has outreached to its Mexican fan base by creating a Spanish version of nfl.com, and expanded the league’s TV coverage south of the border.

Despite its previous failures, the NFL has the smoothest transition for globalization than any American sport, and has the best opportunities of doing this with full compliance from the players.

With the termination of the recent collective bargaining agreement, Roger Goodell has flirted with the possibility of adding a seventeenth game to the regular season, and alternating the home fields between AFC and NFC every other year.

However, instead of adding another home game in an unbalanced way, the NFL could instead move this game to a neutral field in a certain city abroad. Set up sixteen cities in Europe, China, Japan, Australia, and Mexico to receive an annual sporting event to build up a consistent fan base for the NFL.

Due to having at least six days between games, the travel and time zone factors are not relevant for the NFL. If these games turn out to be successful, the league could expand into the more successful cities on this circuit.

Overall, the NFL has struggled to popularize American football internationally, and the current conditions of the NFL have allowed the league the perfect opportunity to change this.

Ever since baseball was first played in the 1830s, the game has regarded as America’s national pastime.

However, baseball actually has more popularity in several foreign countries such as Japan, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Venezuela, Taiwan, the Dominican Republic, and Panama. As a result, baseball has had a tradition for over a century of being an international sport.

Out of all of America’s major sports leagues, Major League Baseball has the most racial and cultural diversity among its players. Star players such as Vladimir Guerrero, Ichiro Suzuki, Ryan Howard, Alex Rodriguez, and Chipper Jones show a cultural balance in star power that is not apparent in the NBA or NFL.

Baseball spread quickly internationally after the game was invented. American expatriates and foreign students spread baseball into Mexico, Cuba, and Canada in the mid-nineteenth century. Following the end the shogun reign of Japan, American traders spread baseball to Japan, where it quickly became the country’s national pastime.

When Japan became an imperial power, it spread baseball along with its influence to Pacific Rim nations such as South Korea and Taiwan, while Cubans introduced the sport to the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean nations. Since the early twentieth century, professional sports league have been established and prosper in baseball-playing nations, with sizable numbers of players from these countries playing in the American Major Leagues.

Consistent international baseball competition began with the Caribbean Baseball World Series in 1949, a showdown of Latin American club teams. The IOC in 1992 introduced baseball as medal sport in the Summer Olympics. In 2006, the first World Baseball Classic was played across the baseball world with incredible fanfare.

In terms of Major League Baseball, several major leagues established their farm teams in Canadian cities in the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, from 1954-1960, there was triple-A team in Cuba known as the Havana Sugar Kings. If it was not for Fidel Castro plunging the island into communism, Cuba would probably have a Major League team by now (all other International League cities at that time have/had a major league franchise since).

It was not until the inception of the Montreal Expos in 1969 that Major League baseball expanded outside of the Untied States. The Toronto Blue Jays became the first Canadian franchise in the American League in 1977—as well as the first foreign baseball team to win a World Series, in 1992.

Nevertheless, baseball has struggled to gain a footing in countries that lack a tradition of baseball in their past. In Europe, baseball has gained little traction and has been marginalized to the degree that cricket and lacrosse have been in the United States.

Due to intense poverty, there is little to no presence of baseball in the Africa or the Middle East as a result of the relatively high cost of equipment.

The only South American country that has embraced baseball is Venezuela, and Oceania lacks a baseball following. China is the only country that has adopted baseball in recent years. Baseball is also losing popularity to American football and basketball in the United States and Canada due to a steroids scandal, Bud Selig’s poor management, and an aging fan base.

What can Major League Baseball do to make baseball popular across the globe and remain relevant on the world stage? Intercontinental expansion is impossible, due to games being played every day and the long travel times across oceans.

The MLB can try adding teams in Latin America, but they would probably fail due to the lack of economic development and wealth in these countries.

What baseball needs to do is continue its outreach into Asia, while also aggressively marketing the game in Europe. Baseball also needs to extend its appeal to the under-40 crowd and revive its current young fan base. Overall, baseball has an international presence, but has a long and difficult road to globalization.

Globalization has taken the hold of America’s major sport, but no league has had more success or a more involved future with the international market than the NBA.

Seventy-six of the NBA’s 360 active roster players are international players from thirty-eight different countries. Yao Ming regularly breaks the record for the most votes to the All-Star team, Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki (both born outside of the US) won three of the last four MVP awards, and the San Antonio Spurs have won three championships in the past five years with a primarily foreign core of star players.

With this increased prominence of international NBA stars inspired from the first Dream Teams, the NBA has made basketball only second to soccer as the world’s most popular sport.

Financially, globalization skyrocketed the revenues of the NBA. International customers now consist of nearly 50 percent of jersey and merchandise sales. The internet has helped spread the popularity of the NBA.

Fifty-three percent of NBA.com traffic is now coming from outside the U.S., up a third from five years ago. And 20 percent is from China alone. The NBA also has TV deals with over 100 countries and the playoffs along with several regular season games broadcast live across the globe.

When the Milwaukee Bucks played the Houston Rockets on Nov. 9, 2007, an audience of 200 million people viewed the game (That is more than the Super Bowl). Overall, globalization had paid incredible dividends financially to the NBA.

What does the future of the new globalized NBA? First, international players will continue to make up a higher percentage of the players in the league. The international  market will quickly exceed the US market by 2010. However, the biggest change to the NBA that will happen is European expansion.

Half of international players are of European descent, NBA style arenas have been built in London, Spain, Germany, and France, and an established fan base of Euroleague fans are ready to embrace big-time NBA basketball.

The best way for the NBA to expand into Europe is to add a six team European Division to the Eastern Conference. Location of these franchises would be determined by the largest basketball markets and cities with NBA ready stadiums.

The best candidates for NBA expansion are London, Paris, Madrid/Barcelona, Berlin, Rome, and Athens. Instead of the normal suggestion of five teams, adding six teams will balance the NBA with thirty-six teams while keeping the six division format. Each division would now include six teams instead of five.

As a result, the rest of the NBA would have to realign to adjust to the compensate for the new Euro-division. The Central Division would move to the Western Conference and add the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Washington Wizards would move to the Atlantic Division, while the New Orleans Hornets and Memphis Grizzlies would switch conferences and move to the Southeast Division.

The Northwest Division would discontinue and the Utah Jazz, Denver Nuggets, and Seattle Supersonics (if they move to Oklahoma City) would join the Southwest Division. The Portland Trailblazers would join the Pacific Division to complete realignment.

If the Sonics manage to stay in Seattle, then they would go to the Pacific Division and the Phoenix Suns would go to the Southwest Division.

In terms of scheduling, each team would play divisional opponents four times (20 games total) and every other team twice (60 games total) for an 80-game season. The subtraction of games in the season makes for increased travel times and rest for transatlantic flights.

Each division winner will have a playoff spot plus the top the remaining top five teams in each conference. Once the construction of NBA stadiums are complete, their seems to be no problems in implementing this schedule and with declining value of the US dollar allows greater profit opportunities for European teams.

Prime time television in major European markets will also skyrocket the revenues and the popularity of the NBA as it will become the first major intercontinental professional sports league.

However, there are still some problems with European expansion that will have to be dealt with in the process. The language and cultural barrier between Europe and the American basketball player poses challenges, and players may not want to live and play in a foreign country (Toronto is in Canada, but the cultural divide is not nearly as evident).

Second, both American and European fans will have a hard time watching their teams’ road games on the other continent due to time zone differences. Despite these challenges, European expansion is the future of the further globalization of the NBA and its quest to challenge soccer as the world’s sport.

Throughout the twenty-first century, globalization has spread across economy, political relations, people, and popular culture all over the planet.

The world of sports has also been radically globalized during this same period of time.

NBA and MLB are filled with players that reside from countries outside of the United States. The arrival of Yao Ming added thirty million Houston Rockets fans to a team that only has one million viewers in the US currently.

With the rise of the US Soccer team, the World Cup has truly become a global competition. Regular season football and hockey games are now played abroad, while foreign soccer teams tour on American soil.

How will the globalization of sports change the games we know and love today?

Will these changes improve sports for the fans or only line the pockets of owners and corporations?

To what extent will the relevancy and hierarchy of the established leagues be transformed by the pressures of global markets?

In a six-part series, these and many other questions will be addressed and also explained how each of the major sports can best transition into this global society while maintaining its quality of play.

The history of international sports, up to this point, has been sporadic.

In 1896, the revival of the summer Olympics was the first truly global competition, but it was restricted to amateurs.

The World Soccer Cup emerged in 1930 as the first global competition that allowed professional athletes. Soccer championships (such as the European Champion Clubs’ Cup, which later evolved into the Champions League) would also arise throughout the world in the mid-twentieth century.

Outside of soccer, globalization has been limited. American sports leagues have added Canadian franchises in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal while the NHL expanded hockey to the United States.

However, since the 1990’s, globalization has excelled with the advancements of technology and the acceptance of professional athletes in the Olympic Games.

The domination of the 1992 USA Dream Team basketball squad has inspired foreign youth to play American sports while the 1994 World Soccer Cup led to the AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization) to supersede Little League.

Today, players from across the world fill American sports leagues and European soccer clubs and these games, broadcasted on national television and the Internet, began the globalization of sports.

What changes does globalization provide for professional sports leagues?

The future of sports lies in the change from continental markets to global markets. Americans in the past five years have been seen regularly wearing Manchester United jerseys and Lakers fans can be found in China.

Eventually, leagues will have multi-continental franchises and road trips will tire players even more. Franchises and the surrounding sports league will see greater profit as the global market provides limitless expansions of revenue.

The percentage of international players will continue to grow along with the popularity of global competitions, such as the World Baseball Classic and the UEFA Champions League.

It is not even unlikely that ESPN International will appear in some countries.

These trends seem general, but different industries have different reactions to the global economy. For how each of the major sports is dealing with globalization and how it affects them, please read the rest of this series.

Due to the site crashing, I lost the majority of my sports articles. Fortunately I published all of my sports articles on my bleacher report profile. So feel free to read my old sports articles over there.

September 8th 2008

College football, unlike any other major sport, lacks a playoff.  In the current BCS system, due to polls and automatic BCS berths, only schools from the Pac-10, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, Big East, and the ACC can compete for national titles.

However, in recent years, the top teams in the WAC and Mountain West conference have been competitive nationally and have appeared in three of the past four BCS bowl games (2-1 in these games).  Yet the overall strength of these conferences will prevent them from BCS consideration and revenues.

How can the top teams in the Mountain West and the WAC compete with BCS conferences for national titles instead of an occasional Fiesta Bowl berth?  The solution is to realign the Mountain West (similar to what the ACC did in 2004) to include the top teams in the WAC while cutting out the bottom feeders of the conference.

There are multiple ways that the Mountain West can realign.  The first way is to invite Fresno State, Boise State, and Hawaii into the Mountain West while kicking out San Diego State and Wyoming to create the Mountain Ten.  This adds three quality football programs to a conference that has non-BCS powers TCU, BYU, and Utah.

By adding Fresno State, the Mountain West does not lose a presence in California from the expulsion of San Diego State.  Since these teams were part of the old WAC, old rivalries will rekindle and make the Mountain West more compelling.

By eliminating Wyoming and San Diego State, the conference eliminates two perennial losing programs.  San Diego State has not been relevant since Marshall Faulk graduated in 1993 and has not been in a bowl game this decade.  Wyoming’s crowning achievement is a Las Vegas Bowl win against UCLA.

The WAC would gladly take these schools to replace their losses.  As a result the WAC will have much more parity, but its quality of play will resemble the MAC or Sun Belt conferences.

This arrangement also benefits the departing WAC schools.  They will be in a better conference and therefore have more TV exposure and recruiting success.

With the additions of Fresno State, Boise State, and Hawaii, the Mountain West would have a strong chance of gaining an automatic BCS berth, as its talent level would exceed the ACC and maybe equal the Big Ten by having five football powers in the conference that are consistently nationally ranked (BYU, Utah, Fresno State, Boise State, and TCU).

It will also mean more revenues from BCS bowl money, which in turn strengthen the athletic departments of the school.  By no longer having bad teams such as Idaho, Utah State, San Jose State, and New Mexico State on the schedule, these team would have legitimate shots at winning a national title due to an increased strength schedule.

If the Mountain West cannot expel their bottom tier teams, they can keep them and have a 12-team Mountain West conference with a conference championship game.  It is not as good of a setup, but it will still add much depth to the conference and allow for BCS possibilities.

Overall, the Mountain West and top schools of the WAC should strongly consider realignment as a way to bring credibility to the league, gain access to BCS money, and allow teams to have a strong chance at a national championship.