I guess it's best case. I read earlier the trip to Mexico City is only an extra 30min flight time than flying to Santa clara/ San jose.

I'm not a fan of international games. It messes with competitive balance.

There's 9 international games this year. I know at least the niners are playing in 2 of them. And the flight time of their week 1 game in Australia is the longest road trip yet in this intnl series. Like 23 hours. That's 46 hours and twice through the intnl date line.

For why? So the billionaire owners can gain a larger audience? It sure isn't an improvement in the area of competition. Infact it's the opposite. The jet lag for the 2 teams going to Australia will affect them for some time. Perhaps? The unforseen results of such a trip might be the difference between one or both rams/ 49ers missing the Superbowl. SB windows are usually short in duration.

It's one thing during contract negotiations to remind players & fans, " it is a business".
It's a whole 'nuther level of business 1st to pack 2 teams off to a continent almost exactly half way across the globe. It screams- "#### competition". "Competition belongs in sports. Not in our anti trust exempted biz plan."

Back to what I was saying.
If there's 9 intnl games. There should be 18 teams playing an intnl game. Nobody should be doing it 2x. I'd take it a step further. For competitive balance. There should be 16 intnl games. All 32 teams making a journey. And... The bye week and scheduling should be as close to identical as is possible. The same thing for Thurs night/ Black Friday games.

It's a short season. Only 17 games. 1 loss is very often the difference between making the playoffs or missing them. We the fans. We watch bc we still believe the reason for football is the competition. The sport.