There are two things that routinely bring out the worst in the NFL: The ongoing concussion issue, and the subject of franchises moving cities.

The latter has been shifted to the forefront again in recent days after the NFL received proposals from three teams — the St. Louis Rams, the San Diego Chargers, and the Oakland Raiders — to relocate to Los Angeles. The Rams came out firing particularly hard, claiming that St. Louis can’t sustain three professional sports teams and that the city was itself “struggling.”

It was the first ugly blow in a fight that will almost certainly escalate in the coming months as these teams try desperately to run away from its current fan-bases, and it all belies a deeper point: That, ultimately, franchises see fans as customers, superior and inferior depending on size, and nothing more.

That’s what’s driving this entire push to Los Angeles, and soon after, London.

(Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports)

You may not want your team to move to Los Angeles because you grew up loving the team, but NFL teams (apart from there Green Bay Packers) aren’t community organizations. They’re businesses by the letter of the law, businesses that have a right to make as much money as they’re legally able to.

The system constructed as it is now, fans passionately supporting a team is no different than people passionately supporting any number of products they buy on a fairly regular basis. Until enough people get together and decide to change the current system, it was and will remain a transactional relationship. Owners understand that, and they’ll keep doing things that will increase their bottom line.

That’s why one, probably two teams will move to Los Angeles sooner rather than later. There’s simply more money to be made in a major market like Los Angeles than a smaller one, like San Diego. Indeed, the size of the market was a listed as a key reason for the Rams’ potential move.

(AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

It’s why billionaire owners will keep threatening city governments with a move to another city if they don’t finance a new stadium. And it’s why there will be a NFL franchise in London. With a possibility of being the only NFL franchise in a city full of 8.5 million people — bigger than any city in the U.S. — all while gaining a foothold in a new area that would allow you to sell jerseys to millions more, suddenly common-sense concerns about logistics become less of an issue.

There are of course exceptions — the aforementioned Green Bay Packers spring to mind, as do the New England Patriots — but the Packers are community-owned, and if a team with a fan base as loyal as the Patriots tried to move there’d be a rioting in Boston. Franchises bow to the power of fans only when they know they have to, understanding that it’s good for business.

It’s not an endorsement of the system, by the way, merely an explanation of reality. If you don’t like it, either change it or stop engaging with it all together. There’s plenty of cricket to go around.