While it seems like a no-brainer on the surface, the National Football League’s likely move to expand its regular season doesn’t come without a number of potential pitfalls.

In an effort to boost revenues in a relatively pain-free way, the league is considering converting one or two of its meaningless and injury-riddled preseason games into regular season games that would almost certainly attract larger crowds and more lucrative television audiences.

“To me, it makes quite a bit of sense. You can fairly easily increase your revenue without fundamentally disrupting the flow of the season,” said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University.

Messing With Success?

But critics say expanding the regular season to 17 or 18 games could cause more injuries for star players forced to play in additional games, find resistance from television networks and water down game play. Plus, it would be tinkering with what’s been a very successful recipe for the sports world’s preeminent league, which brings in more than $8 billion in annual revenues.

“If I [were] God and I got to be [NFL Commissioner] Roger Goodell, I would say don’t change a winning formula,” said Jim Lackritz, co-founder of San Diego State University’s sports business MBA program.

There’s no question the NFL has had a winning formula, as its average franchise is worth $1 billion -- more than twice the average of its nearest competitor, Major League Baseball -- according to Forbes.

It’s also been a winner on television, with more than 225 million Americans tuning in to watch last year’s regular season, according to Nielsen Media Research. In fact, the NFL accounted for a record 13 of the 15 most-watched TV shows last fall, up from one of the top 15 in 2003.

“I think any time you have change, you have reluctance and you’re going to have the naysayers, and we understand that. But it’s clear you don’t need four preseason games any longer,” Goodell said at a news conference in March.

Goodell and the NFL are still in talks with the players association about expanding the regular season as part of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, which expires after the 2011 NFL Draft.

The league prefers shifting the new regular season games to the end of the year, pushing the Super Bowl further into February.

Upsides to an 18-Game Season

The move, which would likely take effect in 2011, could give the NFL new leverage when it renegotiates its $3.7 billion contract with its TV partners: CBS (CBS), General Electric’s (GE) NBC, Disney’s (DIS) ESPN and FOX, which like FOX Business is owned by News Corp. (NWS).  

“Every business is under pressure to find ways to grow. People are always searching for easy ways to drive up revenue. This certainly seems like one of those,” said Calkins.

At the same time, fans sick of seeing their stars go down for the year before the season even begins would likely cheer the move.

“They’re gonna love it. They hate exhibition games; they’re basically meaningless,” said Lackritz.

And the league could use those extra games to test out domestic markets without an NFL team (think Los Angeles) or foreign cities (like London) as a way to boost the league’s international profile.

Potential Pitfalls

But there are downsides to expanding the regular season, most notably for the players in a league that already has the shortest careers due to injuries.

“They’re already beaten up. If you add one or two games to the mix you’re beating them up further and increasing the odds of a catastrophic injury,” said Lackritz.

Marginal players that often rely on phenomenal preseason performance to make the cut could also be left out in the cold by the shortened preseason. That concern could lead the players association to bargain for an expanded roster to give coaches more flexibility.

The league would also be messing somewhat with one of its biggest selling points: that each and every game matters significantly, something its rival leagues with 82 or 162 games can’t say. Adding games could dilute the game play and hurt the NFL’s stellar brand.

“My gut reaction is that any change is about money not about the good of the game because the game is terrific as it is,” said Lackritz.

There are also some signs of skepticism in the TV industry, which has voiced its concern over flooding the market with new commercial inventory, especially after the holiday season in a down economy.

“It’s not a slam dunk. There are some complex issues the networks have to look at,” said Neal Pilson, president of Pilson Communications and a former CBS Sports president.

The networks will not want to pay a proportional increase for the additional games because sponsors, most of which have a set NFL budget, won’t be able to pay the same rates.

“At the end of the day, if the NFL wants it to happen, it’ll happen. But it is not a no-brainer, happy-to-do-it for the networks,” said Pilson

Despite the potential pitfalls, football fans can look forward to at least one extra regular season game in the near future. 

“Every business has to balance the risk about jeopardizing what’s working versus trying to grow. To me, there isn’t an extraordinary risk. I think it’s quite likely the NFL will go ahead and do this,” said Calkins.