Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

We’re staring down the throat of another football season and the ever-optimistic News-Gazette sports department will again publish its weekly predictions beginning next Saturday.
Consider that fair warning.
Speaking of throats, there was an interesting discourse from the one of Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan earlier in the week when he announced that the Jaguars would play one home game each season for the next four years in London.
Khan, who bought the team for $770 million from Wayne Weaver last year, said his goal is to make the Jaguars the NFL’s primary international brand.
Even though the Jaguars are far from the most popular NFL brand in Florida, you have to admire Khan’s foresight; he knows the team will perennially struggle to fill seats in Jacksonville, so it makes sense that he seeks another revenue option.
He said that having international exposure for the team also might help Jacksonville win international shipping contracts and attract foreign investors.
It should also give Jaguars fans a break on ticket prices, maybe a 10 percent reduction.
All in all, it’s a good plan and Khan, a self-made billionaire, is looking like the smart guy he is … except for a quote attributed to him about the NFL’s current foreign status.
Of the league’s future, Khan said: “The NFL is going to be developing an international fan base. Why shouldn’t it be the Jaguars? In all honesty, internationally, they don’t know the difference between the Jaguars and the Steelers.”
Khan probably was speaking off the cuff, but of all teams to compare the Jaguars to, he went with the Steelers? Really?
In fact, Pittsburgh would be the one NFL team with a substantial international presence.
Just this week, the Steelers and the AVS Foundation, the non-profit group that owns the Steelers’ Terrible Towel trademark, settled out of court with a company that was printing Terrible Towels in Italian and several other languages. The company was using revenue from its knock-off Terrible Towels to help victims of an Italian earthquake.
Along with the Dallas Cowboys, the Steelers are the league’s most popular team in Mexico, where they are known as “Los Acereros.” The team holds clinics near Mexico City each summer and thousands of fans attend.
Two years ago, covering the World Cup in South Africa for Sports Illustrated, NFL writer Peter King described this encounter:
“I’m here with my wife, and the other day we were in a cab in Cape Town and the driver asked where we were from.
‘I grew up in Pittsburgh,’ my wife said.
‘The Steelers!!!’ the fellow said.
‘You know the Steelers?’ she said.
‘Everyone knows the Steelers!’ he said.”
For the heck of it, I googled, “Steelers bars, London” to see what popped up.
There were 1.3 million results. One chosen randomly showed a couple of Steelers bars in London along with a list of 48 other international Steelers bars in places ranging from Beijing, China to Florence, Italy to Lima, Peru.
There’s also Logan’s Pub in Rio Piedras, which, I believe, is in Puerto Rico.
Then I googled, “Jaguars bars, London,” and got an amazing 77 million hits, but none that were relevant unless you wanted to buy shoes or read 50 million versions of the Jags-going-to-London story.
I tried the more generic, “Jaguars bars.” There was one entry for New York City, a “we show all the NFL games” place. The rest were establishments in the Jacksonville area, few more than a shanked punt away from Jacksonville proper.
One other interesting Jaguars locale turned up, but it seemed mainly to serve as a recreational outlet for a primarily adult male clientele. I don’t think watching football there was the No. 1 attraction. Arrest warrants were involved, too.
Really, we wish the Jaguars well in London and hope they become an even hotter ticket there than Pippa Middleton.