Yahoo – After years of success with its games in London, the NFL might be considering taking its overseas relationship with the city one step further. Interest is picking up with the league, the Los Angeles Chargers and the rest of the NFL’s team owners in a possible move by the team to London, according to a report from The Athletic’s Vincent Bonsignore:

The Athletic has learned through NFL sources that the possibility of the Chargers moving to London has been broached among league personnel. The Athletic also has learned that, while the team is fully committed to Los Angeles where it will move into the new $4.5 billion stadium with the Rams next year, the Chargers would at least listen if the NFL approached them about about London as a possible option.

Finally, The Athletic has learned that NFL owners are concerned enough about the Chargers’ situation in L.A., where a crowded sports market and the presence of the more established Rams has resulted in a tepid embracement [sic] of the Chargers, that they would provide the necessary support for a relocation to London if the Chargers pursue it.

I guess a lot of this stems from the league just now starting to realize that LA can’t support two NFL teams. We all realize LA is one of the biggest media markets in the world, but that doesn’t change the fact that the NFL has put their head in the sand and ignored the fact that LA has never been a big sports town. Its a transient city so the majority of people in LA hail from somewhere else and already have a team. Not to mention its Hollywood so just about everyone out there is doing just about everything besides sitting at home watching sports. Thats what makes Boston a perfect sports town. Its cold and miserable like 8 months out of the year so you become a sports fan almost by default. In LA you can basically do whatever you want whenever you want. So trying to shoehorn not one, but two teams into LA after this same exact experiment failed in the 80s never made any sense. The Rams simply made it to market first and were better right off the bat so the Chargers were always going to be treated like a stepchild.

Now Philip Rivers would most likely be long retired before this move to London ever realistically happens, but its a pretty good example to take a look at. They moved from San Diego to LA, a gargantuan 2 hour and 43 minute drive north, and he refused to move his family. So the guy literally takes helicopters and buses to practice so he doesn’t have to uproot the Brady Bunch. Now imagine moving an entire franchise to London, which is a 10 and a half hour flight? Bananas. Granted I’ve seen stories in the past theorizing that for this to ever work logistically the team would likely have to be based on the East Coast as a sort of jumping off point. Otherwise you’re looking at 20+ international flights when you factor in pre-season as well as all the flights back to London. That doesn’t even take into account playoff games. Good luck signing big time free agents on that. My commute is an hour in traffic and I want to drive into the Charles every day because of it.

Welp, it seems like the Chargers agree because they have come out of the gates HOT to shoot these rumors down.

pic.twitter.com/7bWw2rhlGb

— Los Angeles Chargers (@Chargers) November 5, 2019

Sorry, London.