The NFL’s international series continues to grow, with this season featuring a game played in Australia for the first time. Still, the plan is to make the league’s international footprint larger still, per league commissioner Roger Goodell.
“At some point, there will be NFL teams outside the USA. I have no doubt that this will happen one day,” Goodell told former NFL player Markus Kuhn in an interview for German broadcaster RTL/ntv.
Goodell isn’t stopping at international franchises, either. He also sees a world where a Super Bowl is hosted internationally, but a city would still need to prove it has the chops with an NFL franchise first.
“There are definitely international cities that could host something like that,” Goodell said. “But we would like to see an NFL team in such a city first.”
This season will see the league play a record nine international games across Australia, Brazil, France, Spain, Germany, Mexico, and England, which will host three games. Logistics remain the biggest hurdle for international expansion. The September 11 game in Australia highlights just how jarring the travel component is for teams involved in the international games.
The San Francisco 49ers are arriving in Australia a week in advance to properly acclimate.
“Usually when you travel with a [16]-hour flight, you don’t want to get there the day before because you lose like a whole day there or two and you’re just messed up,” head coach Shanahan said.
“The people we’ve talked to, you don’t feel normal until like the third or fourth day,” Shanahan added. “So, we’d like to go out seven days early. But since it takes a day and a half to travel there, we’re going to go nine. I think we leave on Wednesday and land on a Friday. And so, then we get there about seven days before our game.”
The Rams, on the other hand, are arriving a day before the game.
“Really, the goal for us is to try to keep guys in as close to a rhythm and routine as possible,” head coach Sean McVay said. “This is new to us, even going this far. I trust our group and most importantly, what’s going to be best for our players. We always try to take that into consideration.”
Once the NFL sorts out the logistics so that they’re standardized and easy for everyone involved, which international city would you like to see host an expansion franchise?
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