Quote:I like the foundation of what you mentioned.


One concern though is the travel time to Tokyo. In the regular season, that would even be more pronounced. That much more for teams in the Eastern and even Central Time Zones.


I gladly admit one of my motivations for this type of plan is it would lessen the chances of playoff expansion. W/o an increase in the regular season games, I have little hope about the playoffs remaining the way they currently are.

Well I've thought about this as well. There was a time when each team had two byes each season. If the league ever went to a 17 or even 18 game regular season, there would be good reason to revive the idea of a second bye for each team. Then a team traveling overseas could have their overseas game scheduled around a bye and/or a thursday night matchup. For instance, a team could have a Thursday night matchup, then get on a plane on Friday or Saturday to their international destination like Tokyo. Then they have their international game the following Sunday then come back and have a bye the next week. The few times I've been overseas, it's always taken me 2 or 3 days to get adjusted to the new timezone and 2 or 3 to get adjusted when I get back home. I imagine it's the same for most though I could be wrong. If the above scenario happened early in the season for a team, having a second bye later in the season wouldn't necessarily put undue stress on a roster for the rest of a long season.

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