Atlanta: NFL owners have shown overwhelming support for two extra regular season games but have not held a formal vote to impose the expansion, league commissioner Roger Goodell said on Wednesday.
Goodell said a specific proposal to extend the regular season to 18 games from 16 would go to the negotiating team working with the NFL Players Association on a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
The owners have previously said an 18-game regular season and a reduction of pre-season games to two from four could be put into effect as soon as 2012.
"From our standpoint, we think we've moved this concept along," Goodell said he said at a press conference after meeting with owners in Atlanta.
"There's a tremendous amount of momentum for it."
Goodell said that while the owners had the right, under league accords, to change the schedule without a deal with the union, they wanted to make sure there was agreement across the board.
"We want to do this the right way and make it good for players, fans and the game in general. ... take our league to the next level," he added.
Forbes report
The National Football League's average team value fell for the first time in 10 years as the economy squeezed ticket sales and scared off investors, according to an annual Forbes report released Wednesday.
Twenty teams out of 32 in the most popular US sports league by TV ratings lost value during the 2009 season, the magazine said, as smaller-market teams struggled to find new revenue streams and keep up with player salaries offered by more profitable teams. "You're seeing some uncertainty in the NFL for the first time in a couple decades," said Kurt Badenhausen, a Forbes staff writer who helped with the report. "Their stadiums don't have the potential to generate revenues..."
