The Jacksonville Jaguars officially will become a temporary tenant of Wembley Stadium on Tuesday.
In an email to season ticket holders Tuesday, Khan said the decision was based around his desire to turn the Jaguars into one of the NFL's "signature franchises."
"The Jaguars and the entire Jacksonville community will be a centerpiece in the NFL's efforts over these four seasons, and that's a very exciting and rewarding development for all of us," said Khan, who was being trailed Tuesday by cameras for CBS' "60 Minutes." "My ambition is to make the Jaguars one of the signature franchises in the NFL and to see Jacksonville realize its full potential as a destination for commerce, tourism and living."
The Jaguars will be taking the place of the St. Louis Rams, who dropped out of the London deal in order to focus on stadium issues in St. Louis.
UPDATE: Khan, Goodell and members of both city and state government officially announced the deal Tuesday afternoon.
Both Khan and Goodell stressed that the decision was wrapped up as much in helping the Jacksonville community as it was growing the game and the team's profile globally.
"I am obviously delighted that this is a wonderful time for us to start, both the Jaguars and the Jacksonville area to work together and raise our national and international profile," Khan said Tuesday. "(For) a strong Jaguars, we need a strong Jacksonville, and with this hopefully we'll be doing our part to have an even stronger national football league."
Goodell talked of his work before he became commissioner on the league's expansion committee in helping to select Jacksonville as one of the NFL's next cities.
"When we were talking about how we can continue to expand our game on a global basis, the big issue for us was finding a community that understood that this could be great for the community, wrap their arms around it and say, 'This is a win-win situation,'Â " Goodell said.
"We also needed to find an organization that had the same perspective, the same philosophy of we want to not only help the game grow on a global basis. We wanted to make sure we could help our community grow and help our own franchise grow on a global basis."
