CHINA NO LONGER IN NFL’S IMMEDIATE FUTURE

The NFL wants to develop a larger presence outside the United States, and its regular-season games in Mexico City, London and Toronto are a major part of that effort. But China is no longer in the league’s short-term plans. Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal reports that the NFL has suspended plans to play a preseason game in China. Those plans have been on and off since 2007, when the league initially scheduled a Patriots-Seahawks preseason game for China. But the Patriots, who were the driving force behind playing a preseason game in China, no longer have a presence there. “We have rededicated some resources in the current economy,” said Patriots spokesman Stacey James, per Kaplan. “We continued our efforts there until recently. ... There has been some belt-tightening given the economy, and one of the things we suspended was our operation there.” Consultant Marc Ganis tells Kaplan that trying to establish a presence in China “was one of the few failures of the NFL.”