NFL Sets Firm Timetable for Expansion Plan

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said today that the league will expand no later than 1993--the first time the NFL has set a specific timetable for adding teams.

“Expansion is a very top priority, possibly by 1992, certainly by 1993,” Tagliabue said during a teleconference to discuss a summer preseason game in London between the Raiders and New Orleans Saints.

Tagliabue and former Commissioner Pete Rozelle previously said expansion would take place two years after a new collective bargaining agreement had been signed with the NFL Players Assn. The league and union have been without an agreement since 1987.

NFL spokesman Dick Maxwell, who attended the news conference in London, said the league will add four teams--either four at once or two in one season and two more shortly thereafter.

Tagliabue said the NFL is concentrating on the United States for new franchises but said cities in Mexico, Canada and Britain could be considered for expansion teams.

Asked about the possibility of an NFL franchise outside the United States, Tagliabue said: “I could see that down the line. I think it’s possible that it could be in this decade.