The NFL renewed its commitment to international expansion on Tuesday night, with its team owners voting to continue staging games in the United Kingdom through to 2016. They also opened the door to expanding the International Series, approving a resolution that "enables the league to determine the appropriate number of UK games per season, based on the popularity of the sport in the market and the number of teams that volunteer to play as home teams".

With ticket sales understood to have been slower than hoped for this year's game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Chicago Bears, sceptics may suggest that such a wording also leaves the NFL free to decide that "zero" is the appropriate number of UK games. But that would be to ignore the words of the league's commissioner, Roger Goodell, who spoke to the media at the end of the meeting in Houston.

"First off, we've been very pleased at the reception to the game and the way that our business has grown over there," Goodell said. "I think now you want to see … can it be sustained for multiple games? So we're looking at multiple games over there, and if that can occur, then you're continuing to see that you're responding to what we're providing in the marketplace. That gives you a better sense of whether it could really be a host community for an NFL franchise. That's what we're trying to evaluate."

Before anyone gets too carried away, Goodell was also quick to note that the league is still a far cry from serious thoughts of a London franchise. And yet Tuesday's announcement does appear to have marked the beginning of stage two of the league's expansion plan. As the novelty effect of seeing a live game wears off for a new audience, something more substantial than a series of one-off fixtures is required to sustain the fans' interest.

Hence a key discussion point was the idea that it may make sense for one or two teams to become repeat visitors. "When the initial resolution was approved in 2006, the thinking at the time was that we would have two new teams every year," the NFL's vice-president of international operations, Chris Parsons, said. "As the series evolved, we felt as though having a team return to the UK on a regular basis would certainly increase the fan base for that particular team, which in turn would drive fan growth for the entire league."

On paper that logic seems sound. Research has shown that fans are far more likely to stick with a new sport if they have a specific team to follow. If the same franchise were to return every year, then the UK-based fans of the sport could adopt that team, and would be more amenable to shelling out the not inconsiderable sums required for a ticket (and in many cases for travel and hotel costs, too) than they may for a game between two teams for which they don't care.

The difficulty, though, is that most of the existing fans in the UK have already chosen their team (or, perhaps even had a team choose them), and may not be enthused by those who put themselves forwards for repeat visits. ESPN's Pat Yasinskas is not the only one to ponder now whether Tampa Bay, preparing for their second London "home game" in three years, are the most obvious candidate – precisely because they have struggled to find a sufficient audience where they are now.

But the NFL knows there is little to be gained by standing still, and would sooner press ahead than sit back and allow the early momentum they have generated fade away. And any who doubt that the UK games so far have helped increase the league's influence need look no further than the country's amateur American football scene.

The British American Football Association has expanded at a rate of three new teams per season across its senior and junior leagues since 2007. The British Universities American Football League has expanded from 42 teams to 67 last season. In the meantime, the NFL's viewing figures on UK television have reportedly grown by 91%.

Whether that is enough to justify the sums required to put on games over here is another question, but clearly the owners believe it is. Because as much as the sport may mean to the fans, this summer's lockout provided a stark reminder that it is, first and foremost, a business. And one that knows a thing or two about turning a profit, at that.