1987 NFL Strike prevented earlier NFL Expansion?

[7DnBrnc53]

I was googling 1976 NFL Expansion, and I found this thread:

http://csnbbs.com/post-9577169.html

One poster claims that Phoenix and Memphis would have been awarded expansion teams in January 1988 if the 1987 strike didn't happen.

[rhickok1109]

It seems to be one guy's opinion, without anything to back it up.

[7DnBrnc53]

Yeah, apparently. I have heard about the Bart Starr Phoenix Firebird project, and I think that Tex Schramm said one time that the Mid-South may be a good expansion candidate, but nothing ever came of it.

[Rupert Patrick]

Isn't expansion a process that involves a number of cities submitting bids, and over the course of a year or so, the bids are examined and discussed and whittled down to a number of candidates as the ownership groups and venues are vetted? The entire process of expansion cannot be done in a single meeting, and I would think if there were plans to expand in the spring of 1998, even a year or two before, we would have heard all about it.

I remember for the Panthers it took about 18 months to two years between the time it was revealed that Jerry Richardson was putting an ownership group together and the Panthers were inducted into the NFL. I know there were numerous civic studies put together to demonstrate the Charlotte area could successfully support a team, and these studies took time to put together. In Richardson's case, he had to sell his restaurant chain, Spartan Food Systems, which operated Hardee's and Quincy's, beforehand in order to obtain the working capital to buy the team and get the process started.

Even when the Browns left Cleveland and Paul Tagliabue announced that Cleveland would get an expansion team to start the 1999 season, ownership groups started to come together immediately in order to be ready for expansion meetings. This isn't something that can come together in a couple months.

[7DnBrnc53]

Isn't expansion a process that involves a number of cities submitting bids, and over the course of a year or so, the bids are examined and discussed and whittled down to a number of candidates as the ownership groups and venues are vetted? The entire process of expansion cannot be done in a single meeting, and I would think if there were plans to expand in the spring of 1988, even a year or two before, we would have heard all about it.

I remember for the Panthers it took about 18 months to two years between the time it was revealed that Jerry Richardson was putting an ownership group together and the Panthers were inducted into the NFL. I know there were numerous civic studies put together to demonstrate the Charlotte area could successfully support a team, and these studies took time to put together. In Richardson's case, he had to sell his restaurant chain, Spartan Food Systems, which operated Hardee's and Quincy's, beforehand in order to obtain the working capital to buy the team and get the process started.

Even when the Browns left Cleveland and Paul Tagliabue announced that Cleveland would get an expansion team to start the 1999 season, ownership groups started to come together immediately in order to be ready for expansion meetings. This isn't something that can come together in a couple months.

If there were plans, they only thing that I can think of is that the NFL didn't want to make them official until they saw what would happen with the strike. That's the only thing that I can think of.