After gradually increasing the number of international games over the past several seasons, the NFL could be poised to bring its biggest annual event overseas, according to Ken Maguire of The Associated Press.
“We’ve always traditionally tried to play a Super Bowl in an NFL city — that was always sort of a reward for the cities that have NFL franchises,” Roger Goodell at a fan forum in London last week. “But things change. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if that happens one day.”
Excepting Super Bowl XLVIII, the NFL has picked stadiums either in warm-weather states or with domes to host the Super Bowl. This could be a significant barrier to an international Super Bowl. London, the most likely destination, may be too cold in February and lacks a domed stadium with enough capacity for the big game.
However, NFL executive Peter O’Reilly clarified on October 17 that an international Super Bowl is “not on the front burner,” per FOX News’ Armando Salguero.
It is more likely that the NFL continues to augment its international presence during the regular season. Goodell has proposed a 16-game international slate if the regular season expands to 18 games, though that will face pushback from the NFLPA after players have openly expressed frustration with traveling overseas midseason.
The prospect of 16 international games came up during talks that led to the 2020 CBA’s ratification, but the league’s 17-game schedule has come in well short of that mark. This season brought five international games. That is the highwater mark to date. Moving to eight has come up in the recent past. However, a jump to 16 would be a major change to the league’s schedule as a whole.
Goodell expects Dublin, Ireland and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to join the list of international hosts, with Madrid already confirmed for next season. Sweden and Australia have also come up as international sites, as is Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, which hosted a site visit in the past year, per CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones. So far, the NFL has mostly camped in London, Germany and Mexico City. Though, the Packers-Eagles Brazil matchup marked a significant development on the international sports scene. Jaguars owner Shad Khan – who also owns West London Premier League team Fulham F.C. – is also considering playing more games in London during upcoming stadium renovations in Jacksonville.
Owned by the storied Irish-American Rooney family, the Steelers are a prime candidate to play in Dublin’s first NFL game, according to ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr. The Steelers and Bears played a preseason game in Dublin in 1997.
Oh, hell no!
Just more reason to believe the NFL doesn’t care about its true fans and just care about the money.
Roger……who would pay the exhorbitant ad rates when your viewing audience would be greatly reduced due to a boycott
Why would anybody boycott the Super Bowl? It’s almost always going to be a neutral site game anyways. As long as the field is up to standard, who cares?
It’s easy for me to boycott it. I’m a Browns fan.
Fans are always threatening to boycott the NFL for one reason or another, but the ratings always go up.
No one is going to boycott the Superbowl.
And imho, the is Goodell’s backhand way of telling London, maybe Rio, maybe Mexico City, that a SB could be the reward for building an NFL stadium and adding an NFL team.
I don’t think you’d see a boycott big enough to dent the ratings. They’ve already priced the Super Bowl experience out of the average fan’s budget. Anyone that can afford a ticket can afford an international trip, and the rest of us will just watch it on TV. I think the challenge for the league though might be navigating potential differences in time zones. If an advertiser will pay as much for an afternoon slot as they would for primetime is a question I don’t know the answer to.
I’m assuming they would work it so that the game still played at a normal hour stateside. So they could play it in the afternoon in London or a pretty normal time in Rio or wherever.
Yeah that’s gonna be no from me.
Mark that down as the dumbest idea of the day
The day is young yet. Roger never fails to come up with a lot of dumb ideas.
Goodell is a crook and complicit which his ties to Pfizer… it’s time to take out the garbage.
This clown makes how much per year?
But yet only until last year could somebody buy the Sunday ticket so people that live out of market can watch games with out direct tv. Goodell is a joke
The South Pole would be unique.
I don’t care. It’s not like I can afford a SB in any American city.
This whole international games is ridiculous. If they want teams to play over there send 4 teams to play preseason games. I am sure ticket holders would happily not have to pay full ticket prices for pre season games.
Not sure how a team in Europe would work. Mexico City might work but how do they handle the logistics? Do they pay the Cartels to leave the players alone? Security will be tough.
Will this be a CFL in the US? Not that the NFL needs the money to keep going but do the fans become bored with it after a few years and attendance falls off? Just do not think it is a good move.
Let me guess the Saudis are gonna pay a billion dollars like they do with the UFC events. This is a joke why would a league where you don’t have a single team outside of the country play that championship outside of the country. As usual greed ruins all
Let that day be 100 years or so in the future…
That’s a dumb idea. But then again, you’ve had several of those.