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The 2025 NFL schedule has all 32 teams traveling a collective 626,000 miles — including teams competing in a record seven games beyond United States borders. That number likely will increase in future seasons as the NFL flirts with playing as many as 16 games overseas in the coming years, according to a Front Office Sports report.
“At the NFL’s spring meetings in March, Chiefs owner Clark Hunt said the league ‘has a short-term goal of getting to eight, and maybe down the road as many as 16,’” according to FOS. “[NFL Commissioner Roger] Goodell has been touting the potential for 16 games since last fall. In May, he told CNBC he thought that expansion could happen ‘within five years.’”
“International is an open market for us,” Goodell added at the time. “We are excited about our potential.”
For now, this year’s schedule includes three games in the U.K., and one each in Brazil, Germany, Spain and Ireland. An eighth game, in Mexico, has been sidelined as World Cup-related renovations continue at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. The United Arab Emirates also has been tossed around as a desired game location. Last season, the NFL played five international games.
As The New York Times reported in late August:
For now, only a game in Australia has been announced for next season, although a provision in the Collective Bargaining Agreement allows for an expansion of up to 10 games in 2026…
Players, meanwhile, have been wary about a booming expansion because of the physical toll international travel takes on them. The CBA states that NFL owners and the NFL Players Association leaders would have had to meet before this 2025 season and negotiate expansion beyond 10 games. League officials said … that a meeting has yet to take place, but expansion could still happen.
“Delivering our games and making [them] as accessible as possible is hugely important,” NFL executive vice president Peter O’Reilly said on a conference call with reporters prior to the Los Angeles Chargers taking on the Kansas City Chiefs at Corinthians Arena in São Paulo, Brazil, on Sept. 5. He also noted that NFL games air free on television platforms in Mexico and Germany. “Free TV has an expanded definition these days. YouTube is a great example of the modern era of free TV.”
The NFL also is striving to make a social impact in some of its new host countries. In advance of the Sept. 28 Minnesota Vikings-Pittsburgh Steelers matchup at Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland, the league launched an NFL Flag schools initiative for every post-primary school across the island in partnership with Sport Ireland and American Football Ireland. NFL Flag starter kits were delivered to more than 900 schools for students between the ages of 12 and 16. Teachers also received free online educational resources for the classroom, as well as information about free teacher training courses to help them use the game in lessons, after-school clubs and leagues.
“There is this passionate [NFL] fan base around the world that’s growing,” O’Reilly said on the conference call. “I think the ownership really sees the opportunity to become a true global sport. As we travel around the world, so many of us, we see this demand. … It really feels like the momentum is there based on how the owners and our partners are thinking about it, and we couldn’t be more excited about that.”
The league’s global ambitions took root in 2005, when the Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers played the first regular-season game outside of the U.S. — at Estadio Azteca. More than 103,460 fans showed up, making it the largest crowd to ever attend an NFL game during the regular season.
Two years later, the NFL launched the International Series at London’s Wembley Stadium, with the New York Giants and the Miami Dolphins. Between 2007 and 2012, the venue hosted one regular-season NFL game each season. By 2013, Wembley was hosting two games per season, and then three each in 2014 and 2015. From there, the International Series kept expanding (save for the pandemic-plagued 2020 season), with a total of 36 regular-season games having been played in London, Mexico and across Germany through the end of the 2024 season.
All of which brings up the question of whether the NFL would dare to ever host a Super Bowl overseas.
“We’re clearly focused on the near term with Super Bowls in the U.S., given the great demand and the great impact of those Super Bowls in the U.S. and the great number of both interested and fantastic Super Bowl cities,” O’Reilly said during another conference call with the media in late September.
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