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More than half a million people were drawn to the NFL Block Party on Saturday afternoon, as Regent Street, in London's busiest shopping district, was closed down for the day to play home to football fans celebrating before Sunday's game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Minnesota Vikings.NFL fans wearing every one of the 32 team jerseys (yes, I counted them myself) were out in force, enjoying a string of delights put on by the NFL and eating American-themed food.
The main attraction, though, was a stage upon which appeared a host of big-name talent from the Steelers and Vikings, including both teams' head coaches, likely future Hall of Famers in Ben Roethlisberger and Troy Polamalu of the Steelers, and Vikings stars Adrian Peterson and Jared Allen.
All of the players and coaches who appeared on stage exited stunned by the level of support, as fans from across the world turned out to see them and cheer them on before the game.
At the time the NFLPA agreement was being negotiated, Goodell enticed the players' cooperation with boasts of tripling NFL revenues to over $20 billion within 10 years. At that time I predicted that this could only be achieved by four types of expansion: 18 game season, add more teams, more playoffs, and geographic expansion into Europe's TV market (larger than ours). "That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!"