The devil of the London Franchise is in the detail. I heard the opinion of one respected British commentator, Neil Reynolds, who said that 'we don't know how (an NFL franchise in Britain) would work yet'. **It's strange to me, that the practical difficulties of a sport that would cover some 5,500 miles between London and San Diego are somehow seen as secondary in this debate. With that in mind, let's take a more detailed look...**

Question 4: How could the NFL deal with the logistical travel problems of a London franchise?

To me, there is no way anyone can get seriously behind the theory of a UK franchise without knowing how the NFL proposes to deal with this problem, yet nobody has come up with a workable solution - even though the discussion has been ongoing for over five years now.

'Sir, I think we're coming in a little low...'

Let's just start with the very basics: At the moment teams get a bye week to recover from their trip to London, and it is pretty reasonable for us to assume that this would continue in the event of a London franchise joining the league, with the 8 teams travelling to Britain simply moving their bye weeks to accommodate the schedule.

All well and good, but in all the arguments about this I haven't seen anyone mention the real problem here: *How does the London team recover from travelling away for 8 games a year? *Remember that a London team can hardly have 8 bye weeks a season, therefore those round trips to Denver, Seattle, San Diego and even the East Coast of America for divisional games will take a big toll on the London players.

The answer that has generally been proposed by supporters of the UK franchise is to manage the schedule so that the British team plays two games at a time across the Atlantic, before coming home for a 2 game stretch in London. It's a massive compromise on two fronts: Firstly, the team is going to need a facility to train at on the East Coast of America that is up to NFL standards and where players can relax for a period of up to a fortnight. As simple as this may sound, it is far more complex than simply rocking up to an NFL or College football facility and parking the bus up. For starters, there needs to be a top class football facility with - and this is the crucial bit - no other team practising there during the football season. How likely do you think that is?

Even if we assume that obstacle can be surmounted, I think it's still a big disadvantage to live out of a hotel for two weeks and still have to deal with the long travel times involved. Think about it, many teams do this during the season when they play on the opposing coastline, but they do this specifically to negate the travel distance. If the UK franchise was to base themselves in a makeshift East coast facility, but they had two back to back games in say, Houston and Oakland, they would incur all of the disadvantages of staying away from home for a week, with none of the advantages that NFL teams usually get out of doing so.

There's no perfect solution that wouldn't result in some kind of competitive disadvantage when compared to the road travels that American-based teams face. A lot of people like to downplay this, but as my Lego-loving buddy Mike Freeman of CBS points out, it seems that privately at least, teams have acknowledged the problems this would cause. It gets worse when you consider the knock-on effect it could have on divisional standings towards the end of a long season, and in part five I'll examine the repercussions for the integrity of the game should all of this ever come to fruition.

As far as road support, it is pretty unlikely that a new franchise - that has been transplanted into London because they are one of the worst supported teams in the NFL - would attract much of a road following. There will be a few, of course, but in the main we can assume a relatively small following from Britain, and almost no American fans of the team. There are very few teams that can claim to have widespread support around the States, but almost every team has a strong core of die-hard fans willing to make the journey around America in support of their team, plus in many cases a healthy local support. The Bears, for example, have a large fan-base in Arizona, while the Cowboys have fans all over the country. These are all small benefits that would not be afforded to a London franchise, but that would add to the sense that the London team was an oddity in the NFL world.

The second thing that concerns me most with this particular issue is not really something that can be measured in 'miles' or 'revenue', or even 'games lost'. No, the major point for me is that even a compromise that sees the team play for a 2-3 game stretch outside of the UK is a subliminal message that the team is not really part of London or Britain. If the NFL is going to make a go of this, the team needs to be a huge part of the community and make up for the lack of roots in the area, not to mention competing with the weekly soccer fixtures of Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs and other big London clubs.

To put this issue of spending time outside of the city into perspective, how many soccer teams in Britain base themselves even thirty miles from their home stadium? None. How many NFL teams base themselves outside of their home state? None. How many teams, in any sport worldwide, base their club - even temporarily - outside of their home country? The answer is - unsurprisingly - none.

The closest comparison would be Russian Premier League club Anzhi Makhachkala, who due to an armed conflict commute weekly to their games in Dagestan from a base in Moscow. Just to point out, this is not a good thing. Anzhi are an anomaly in their own league and no example to follow, with a billionaire overpaying for players (not an option in the NFL) who wouldn't ordinarily be interested in playing football in an actual warzone. _I cannot re-iterate enough that _the only other team in the world of sport doing this, is trying to work around a real, no-foolin' people-getting-shot war.

The knock-on effect is obvious. People won't feel connected to a team where the suspicion is that the players are only around when they have to be. Oh, they can put on a few community events, but people aren't stupid, while British people in particular - whether it is a good or bad thing - are renowned for a healthy cynicism when it comes to people trying to make money at their expense. If the team has to spend extended periods outside of the country - and the only compromise that anyone has proposed would mean spending at least half of the season based in another country - will it ever really be British? Will the players be part of the community?

I know that many players like to go home in the offseason, but why would a player commit to living in England, if the team is not based there for half of the regular season? We can only assume that a new training facility would be built in London or Surrey to accommodate the team during Training Camp and the 'home' regular season weeks, but for around two-thirds of the year, the players could in fact be thousands of miles away in another country.

As I have said, in some ways it may not be that different to the usual NFL experience, but when the sport is trying to grow, every week outside of London will make the team less relevant and defeats the very purpose of relocating a franchise to Britain. Couple that with the serious competitive disadvantages that travelling long distances, and it remains the biggest obstacle that the NFL needs to address in regard to a UK NFL franchise.

Part Five will address the overall conclusions we can draw from all of this and the issue that I think is far and away more important than any money that the NFL can generate through an international series - The integrity of the game.

Part One - British fan opinions

Part Two - American fan opinions

Part Three - Attracting players to London

Part Four - Travel times

Part Five - Compromising the game's integrity