- This was probably inevitable.
This is the ninth year of the international series and about half the league has played some sort of game abroad. For all of the drawbacks stated above, it’s not a surprise that only teams with stadium or attendance issues have volunteered to go and “host” in London. As a result, London attendees haven’t really gotten their money’s worth. Winning teams have outscored losing teams almost 2:1 in the 11 contests to date with an aggregate score of 314-162.
The League has to be pushing hard for some more competitive matches there if they want this international expansion to work, and quite frankly, Clark Hunt, the chairman of the League’s International Committee for the last three years, would have been a hypocrite to keep the Chiefs out of London much longer. After all, the team was actually pushing for a London appearance under GM Carl Peterson back when the team was dreadful.
Sure, I still don’t love that the Chiefs had to give up a home game for this, but a trip to London was coming one way or the other.