Things were already looking dire and half-hearted when I saw the Berlin Thunder versus the Rhein Fire last month in the Olympic Stadium; the already sparse crowd of 200-odd spectators were scrunched to one side of arena (albeit peppered with plenty of hardcore, face-painted fans) and the cheerleaders were distinctly more watchable than the cringe-worthy on-field performance (come on, fellas, you can pass the ball, too). At the time, I should have known I was watching the last game ever (not counting last week's World Bowl in Frankfurt). And I should have guessed the downward slope of NFL Europa's financial decline (apart from the noticably steady shrinkage of league to six teams, all but one located in Germany). Bringing to a close 16 years of uphill struggle, the US boss decided to pull the plug altogether on this perpetual loss-maker (USD 30 million yearly). NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced yesterday a "strictly business" move to shut down the league -- but he still wants to keep the fire of worldwide (American) football burning,

A foundation of American football fans in key European markets has been created and the time is right to shift our strategy. The next phase of our international growth is to focus on initiatives with global impact, including taking advantage of developing technologies that make the NFL more accessible on a global scale and ensuring the success of our new international series of regular-season games.

This new "global impact" means US teams will play a few games abroad, with the Miami Dolphins now scheduled to play the New York Giants in London at the end of October. The NFL is also working on staging some regular-season games in Mexico, Canada, Germany (probably next year) and even Beijing in 2009. But with this kind of wide-open speculation, this writer is betting on Planet Mars in 2010. Haven't they yet considered an intergalactic league?