The NFL could vote as early as May to expand the regular season to 17 or 18 games, which would then take effect as early as 2011.

The league has been looking for a solution to its scheduling problem for years, and expanding the regular season seems to be the solution that they have settled on.

The problem that the league currently has is that the fans and players don’t want four preseason games. The players don’t like them for the risk of injury, and the fans don’t like them because they are often required ticket purchases for regular season packages. Giving the players and fans less preseason and more regular season looks to be what the NFL will call the answer.

Add to that the fact that the league is always looking to maximize revenue and it becomes even more clear. One more week of the season is 16 more home games league-wide, and you can double it if you add two more games for each team.

Adding two more games to the schedule would give each team nine home games, and likely a large boost in revenue league-wide.

Of course, getting this done is not as easy as it sounds.

“>From the NY Times:

But teams are still grappling with changes that will be required for a longer season, among them the possibility of larger rosters. Additional games would have to be negotiated with television networks that broadcast games and with the players union. Owners must decide soon how long the season will be because it is expected to be included in coming negotiations with players on a new collective bargaining agreement.

Getting the players on board with one or two more regular season games is going to cost the league some money. The risk of injury goes up, the career length will go down and the league will stand to make a fortune off of it. The union is not going to sign off on this without some major concessions from the owners and the league.

Adding two games to the season means that an eight year career now will be the equivalent of a nine year career under the new schedule. That’s just one less year that some players are going to keep jobs or keep healthy in the league. That will require a financial incentive to get the players to go along with it.

And when do you play the new games? The NFL wouldn’t give Arizona a home game early in the season without a roof because of the heat in the past. Playing NFL games in Phoenix, Tampa, Miami, and other warm cities is not going to be fun in the middle of August. And if you do it at the end of the year, we start talking about regular season games in the second or third week of January and the Super Bowl at the middle of end of February. It will probably be a one game on each end approach, but it will still cause logistical problems for the league.

I’m torn on this. I love seeing more football, but the reason that every game sells out and the passion is so high is because every game means so much. With each game you add to the schedule, all the other games mean slightly less. I also don’t like seeing the games stars limping away from the game with an injury at 30 years old, and adding games to the schedule is certainly going to increase that, no matter how many safety rules you put in.

I think the owners will end up voting to approve this, but I think there will be some severe reservations from the players. Expect this to be a long, drawn out fight over salaries and revenues for the next year or two.

In the end, my money is on the league getting its way, and in return, the players get a hefty boost in the salary cap once it goes into place.

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