It’s too late to turn back now.
With kickoff to Sunday’s game between the Steelers and Saints in Paris less than 13 hours away, as of this posting, the plan continues to be full speed for Steelers-Saints at the Stade de France. Even the league will potentially climb into a smoldering pile of poop.
By Mark Maske of Sports in the Front Officethe game remains set for a 9:30 am ET kickoff after another day of local protests in Paris. More than 400,000 participated in the demonstrations, which resulted in more than 1,000 arrests. According to the Associated Press, a march that began peacefully ended with protesters throwing firecrackers and other things at the police. They responded with tear gas, sound grenades, and water cannons.
The question remains whether protesters will target the NFL game, in an effort to send a clear international message. No matter how secure the stadium is, the way to the venue’s security perimeter may not be.
Hopefully, nothing will happen. It’s still a calculated risk for the NFL, one that many see as unnecessary.
For the NFL, the need to play the game flows from the continued craze to export the game to other countries. If something happens, it’s impossible for the league to shrug and say, “We didn’t know that could happen.” And this will throw a wrench in the plan to make the game global.
Even without any particular problem on Sunday, the situation underscores the realities of potentially fielding teams in other countries, with other governments and other nationalities that could eventually complicate the effort to play all the games as scheduled.
Right now, the league doesn’t care. It sees only one thing — the possibility of turning a billion-dollar business into a trillion-dollar behemoth if fans in other countries become as passionate about pro football as Americans.