NFL’s Global Takeover Is Just Beginning

The NFL’s big global ambitions are only going to get bigger.

The Steelers and Saints are scheduled to play Sunday in Paris as part of the NFL’s nine-game international slate this season. As of Saturday night Eastern Time and early Sunday Paris time, the NFL’s plans to play Sunday’s game remained unchanged after a day of protests Saturday in France, which included reports of late clashes between demonstrators and police.

But the league’s future could include 10 games outside the U.S. next season; perhaps 16 international games annually, in conjunction with a prospective 18-game regular season in the not-too-distant future; and maybe, just maybe, a franchise eventually based overseas and a Super Bowl in an international venue.

“Frankly, it’s not something we’re spending a lot of time on day to day,” Peter O’Reilly, the NFL’s EVP of club business, major events, and international, said this week of the prospects for an international franchise. “I think what we’re talking about here is what builds that foundation for that possibility of a team outside the U.S. because you need … a fan base who’s going to fill a stadium on those 10 dates a year, the right government relationships, the right stadium relationships. … It’s really about planting those seeds for what could be possible someday.”

The NFL is pushing the limits of logistics and scheduling this season. The Rams and 49ers played a game in Melbourne in the season’s opening week. The Cowboys and Ravens played in Rio de Janeiro in Week 3.

“We had a great experience in Brazil—the Brazil fans, the people,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Wednesday at the conclusion of the NFL’s owners meetings in New York. “I’ve been in business in Brazil for over 30 years, and I really have a lot of interest in them as a country economically as well as socially. And it was great for the Cowboys to go down there. That was a success in every way. And so if we keep doing that type of thing with that type of support, that’s not only great for the game—it’s great for the fans that we have in Brazil.”

The NFL played games in London the previous three Sundays. There are also games scheduled to be played in Madrid, Munich, and Mexico City this season as the league seeks to continue to expand its global popularity and increase its already burgeoning revenues.

The current resolution by the owners allows the NFL to schedule as many as 10 league-operated international games per season. That does not include games operated by the Jaguars in London. The CBA does not make that distinction, and requires the league and owners to consult with the NFL Players Association to go beyond 10 international games in a season. Sources recently told Front Office Sports there had been no substantive talks yet between the NFL and NFLPA on that.

“I will say we are considering going up to 10 games next year and want to make sure we’ve got the right 10 games,” O’Reilly said Tuesday in New York. “This is limited inventory. … We want to make sure every one of those games is as impactful as possible.”

He said there are “a lot of things in the mix” to determine future game sites, including “considerations of where we might go back to and continue to build our momentum because now we’re reaching somewhat of a steady state … in those markets.”

O’Reilly added, “Further out years, the commissioner has been public and I think I’ve been public on [the fact that] there are other parts of the world, like Asia, that we are looking at. Is there an opportunity in Japan in the future? Opportunities where we haven’t been in quite a long time? So I think in a good way, we’ve established ourselves in a number of these markets and we like continuity. But we are looking at new regions.”

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told NFL Daily on Friday that a game in “Tokyo is clearly on our list, whether it’s next year or the year after.”

“Growth Alone Cannot Be the Goal”

Still, there have been some issues with traversing the globe this season. 

For the Week 1 game, the 49ers traveled to Australia a week early, while the Rams remained in Los Angeles to sleep in their own beds and practice at their own facility before arriving in Melbourne a day ahead of kickoff. The 49ers won decisively, leading Rams coach Sean McVay to later say that “sometimes you have a dumbass coach that makes travel plans that put you in a bad spot.”

For now, O’Reilly said, the NFL will continue to allow teams to make their own travel plans to international games. But he added the league is not ruling out a change to that policy in the future.

The game in Rio was preceded by a week of conversation about the field conditions at Maracanã Stadium. (JC Tretter, the NFLPA’s executive director, said in a written statement that week: “The NFL has been clear they want to continue to grow the game internationally. 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.”) Afterward, players and coaches said the field had held up well.

And despite the civil unrest in France, the NFL maintained this week that it planned to proceed with Sunday’s Steelers-Saints game. O’Reilly said there would be a heightened security presence around the game and related events. Goodell said Wednesday he’d been in contact with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rubio confirmed that, telling OutKick and Fox News Digital: “Our embassy feels the game will be fine. We have no indication the game will be impacted in any way.” (The Saints traveled to France early in the week; the Steelers, who arrived Friday, canceled a Steelers House fan event in Paris.)

Goodell, Saints owner Gayle Benson, and Steelers owner Art Rooney II met Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace in Paris, according to a social media post by the Saints, to “discuss Sunday’s game and the long-term future of the NFL in France.” Shortly after, President Donald Trump told reporters “you worry about it” and he “would have said the NFL could have probably postponed that match … because France is really in trouble.”

Even as rapidly as some major NFL international endeavors are unfolding, the ultimate prize is still far-flung. A Super Bowl in a city outside the U.S. could be as distant as an overseas franchise. Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s EVP and chief media officer, said last week at the FOS Tuned In summit: “That feels a little bit far to me.”