LONDON — It’s coming. Maybe not next year. Maybe not for five years, or 10. But it’s coming. There will be a London Monarchs franchise in the NBA, or a Manchester Marauders team in the NFL before you know it. It’s happening. Our cozy little corner of the world is fading.
The world is coming.
“No question, you can sense that this is where we’re headed and I think that’s a good thing,” Knicks forward Steve Novak said yesterday, as a bevy of European journalists descended on O2 Arena, where the Knicks and Pistons will play a regular-season NBA game today.
“I know that our sport has a global mindset now. I know the NFL does. That’s the way the world is headed, and it’s a good thing that we’re a part of it.”
Said Jason Kidd: “It won’t stop here. There’ll be a team in Mexico soon, too. This is heading to be some kind of worldwide phenomenon, and I think it’s great.”
It will end a good century or so of arrogance on the part of the United States, of course. From the very beginning, the baseball series that determined the American championship wasn’t called the “American Series,” or even the “North American Series” when Canada was invited to the party; it was called the “World Series.” Basketball has long followed suit.
That’s who we are: We are the world, at least when it comes to sports (though, if we start inviting the English to our reindeer games, we might have to think about renaming it “sport”). You will notice whoever wins the Premiership in the UK isn’t nearly as brash, partly because then they have the UEFA Champions League to contend with. And even then, nobody has the temerity to declare themselves the champions of Africa, Asia and South America, too.
We have long bypassed such details.
In the next five years, 10 years, there will at least be a small recognition there really is a larger world out there. It’s coming. It isn’t hard to sense.
“It’s going to be great,” J.R. Smith said. “The best cities to go to on the road in the NBA are the cities where you can explore, and see things, not feel trapped in your hotel. I know guys feel that way about New York. Here, I’m going to see a few museums tomorrow, get a feel for what the culture is about.”
Said Novak: “We’re going to a soccer game tonight [Chelsea vs. Southampton] and I know a lot of guys are excited about that. It’s the kind of thing you don’t always get to do on your average, ordinary road trip.”
Yes, London does provide far more in the area of enticing sights and sounds than Phoenix or Cleveland or Dallas. But it also happens to be a good seven hours by air from New York (which would make it a solid 12 from Los Angeles, San Francisco and, soon, Seattle). Until someone invents a Star Trek-style way to beam players 6,000 miles away, this remains a logistical challenge.
“For us, this trip isn’t any worse than a trip to California,” said Kidd, who has experienced the rhythms of as many 82-game challenges as anyone ever has. “But there are other considerations.”
Customs, for one. It took the Knicks a good three hours to go from touch-down to check-in Tuesday morning, and that’s just not going to cut it for American teams when this is a routine and not a novelty. There are no automatic scheduling solutions. Would a team like the Knicks stay for a two-game series? Would anyone ever play for a London team required to make five or six two-week road trips per year?
It’s why football seems likely to be the first American sport to commit to the Continent, with fewer games and less red tape to slice through. The Jaguars are dipping their toes in the deepest waters, so far, but eventually you could see a team going all-in here. It would mean a lot of 9:00 starts to accommodate TV back home, but it’s unlikely that would be an impediment.
The details will follow, but the spirit is already alive. Ready or not, the world is coming, and it is coming fast.