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The NFL and its team owners have ambitious plans to keep expanding their annual schedule of international games, perhaps to the point that each team will eventually play one game per season outside the U.S.
To this point, however, they have yet to have the required conversations with the NFL Players Association to go much further than where they currently are.
The NFL and NFLPA have not yet had substantive discussions about the possibility of the league scheduling more than 10 international games next season or beyond, two sources tell Front Office Sports. The collective bargaining agreement requires the league to consult with the NFLPA to play more than 10 international games in a season.
The NFL and NFLPA declined to comment on the status of such deliberations.
One source tells FOS that no meaningful talks on the topic are likely to take place until JC Tretter, the union’s executive director, is done meeting with players on his current tour of teams.
The NFL will play the third of this season’s nine international games in London on Sunday, when the Commanders face the Colts at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. That’s after the Rams and 49ers played in Melbourne in Week 1 and the Cowboys and Ravens played last Sunday in Rio de Janeiro.
This is the beginning of three consecutive Sundays with games in London. That stretch is followed by games in Paris, Madrid, Munich, and Mexico City, concluding on the Sunday of Week 11 on Nov. 22.
Tretter did address international play in a written statement that the NFLPA released last Friday regarding the field conditions for the game in Brazil.
“The NFL has been clear they want to continue to grow the game internationally,” Tretter wrote. “However, growth alone cannot be the goal. The goal has to be growing the game while maintaining the standards our players deserve. If we can’t do both, then we need to make different decisions.”
One agent told FOS the NFLPA should seek meaningful concessions by the league and owners in exchange for agreeing to go beyond 10 international games.
“They should not just automatically say yes on that,” the agent said. “Those games are an extra burden on players. The trip to Australia was not just an ordinary road game.”
But another agent told FOS the union should readily agree to more international games, adding: “Why hold out? Grow the game. Drive revenue.”
The owners’ most recent resolution on the topic allows the NFL to schedule as many as 10 league-run international games in a season. That does not include the games run by the Jaguars in London, meaning the league potentially could play 11 international games annually.
The CBA, however, makes no such distinction between league-operated games and Jaguars-operated games and sets the cap at 10.
The CBA says that the league and union were to have met prior to the 2025 season to “confer regarding whether to increase the maximum number of International Games in any single regular season to more than ten (10) games in 2025 or subsequent years.”
It’s not clear whether such a meeting took place. The NFLPA was under different leadership at that point. Lloyd Howell resigned as its executive director in July 2025. David White served as the interim executive director until Tretter was elected in March.
The CBA also says of going beyond 10 international games in a season: “Such decision may be based on underlying business justifications, including but not limited to growth in [revenue], club and player brand development, media and related opportunities, as well as player working conditions, health and safety, burdens on player families, insurance, housing, and/or tax-related issues, and the NFLPA’s consent shall not be unreasonably withheld.”
As such, the labor deal thus might leave it open to debate whether the union would be “unreasonably” withholding its consent if it were to refuse to agree to go beyond 10 international games annually.
The league and owners have prioritized expanding the NFL’s global reach and appeal. They have left open the possibility of ultimately playing 16 international games annually, perhaps in conjunction with a prospective 18-game regular season. The CBA says the league and owners cannot unilaterally extend the regular season beyond 17 games, meaning the NFLPA must agree to a move to 18 games.
The current CBA runs through the 2030 season. Any formal discussions on CBA-related issues, including an 18-game season, are likely also on hold until Tretter is done with his current round of meetings with players.
The NFL and NFLPA have been able to work cooperatively on several measures since Tretter’s election. That includes an accountability system announced in August by which any player who violates certain player-safety rules three times this season will receive an automatic one-game suspension, while any player who has only one such infraction will have half his fine money returned.
