The 2025 regular season schedule includes seven games played outside the United States. The CBA allows for eight such contests per year, and the maximum should be expected for next season. 
[RELATED: NFL Still Eyeing 16 Annual International Games]
During an interview with Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, Gerrit Meier – who serves as the NFL’s managing director of the international department – said the league is “pretty confident” the full eight-game slate for overseas contests will be included for 2026. It is already known a first ever game in Australia will take place next year, while a new deal was recently worked out for at least three games to be played in Rio de Janeiro over the next five years. It would also come as no surprise if a return to Dublin were to take place in short order after this year’s debut there.
“The ambition to go international itself, it’s not a new ambition,” Meier said. “I think the point we’ve gotten ourselves to now is, O.K., how has the world changed? And if we truly want to be a global sport, what are the different elements that go into that? And we’ve seen that just having a game, that’s not enough. Just having media, that’s not enough. So just talking about the various elements, we realized there’s something bigger.”
Indeed, the NFL’s efforts to grow the game in international markets has included more than staging games over a span of several years and in various cities. As Meier informed Breer, the league is set to open a headquarters in Spain. That will make it the eighth country outside the United States to house such a venue, joining Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany, China and Australia in that regard. Madrid will play host to the Dolphins-Commanders game in Week 12 this year.
Given the long-running efforts to expand the NFL’s reach in Europe, the possibility of one or more franchises based there has been a talking point. According to Meier, though, an international team and/or division is not a “front burner” matter at this point. Instead, expanding into other markets – commissioner Roger Goodell has named Asia as a potential target in that respect – remains a clear priority, with Europe sill a high priority.
On that note, Meier confirmed the league is still interested in holding games in France in the future. He added Italy is another country the NFL is “exploring.” With further increases in the total number of overseas games played on an annual basis expected, the list of potential destinations for international contests continues to grow as well.
Subtract 8 from this total, and I’ll be happy
Jeez and how many double header MNF? because both ideas are bad.
The NFL needs that every NFL teams has just as many traveling miles as anyone else who’s traveling! Buffalo playing a easy schedule and less traveling miles a Playoff team going to the Playoffs. Being on the bottom in traveling miles shouldn’t be allowed to host home games in the Playoffs!
Here we go again with this idiotic take. Who do you thinks makes the schedules? Do you also not realize that teams on the east coast generally travel less due to, you know, their cities being geographically closer. Maybe we should relocate the entire NFC South to the west coast for one season so old man Boomer can stop whining about the Bills travel schedule this year.
Not to mention the schedule itself (at least with respect to opponents and geographic location) is extremely predictable and based on a rotating system. There’s only so much the league can do to externally influence difficulty of schedule
There is a disparity in travel miles for teams in every pro sports league but no data exists that proves that it is a major factor in determining success or failure.
The Sunday Night Game is really the premiere national TV game nowadays. Having 2 MNF games is just for advertising viewership numbers and doesn’t help the game. That one less day of rest for players is important.
“And we’ve seen that just having a game, that’s not enough. Just having media, that’s not enough”.
The word “enough” will never exist in the NFL vocabulary.
If you follow the logical progression of thinking here then the desired outcome is to eventually have none of the NFL teams with a home base. The city designators will be replaced by a private equity or corporate name. The Dallas Cowboys become the TPG Cowboys for example. This allows for limitless expansion with all the teams globe trotting continuously. Think of it as a rock band tour that never ends.