Not just games in the rest of the world, or increasingly insistent marketing initiatives capable of involving a global audience in every possible way. American football is seriously considering a geographical brand extension, imagining the day when the Dallas Cowboys or Miami Dolphins might come to face a franchise from London or Mexico City. The announcement comes directly from Roger Goodell, commissioner of the National Football League: “We talk about it quite a bit,” he explained. “At some point, there will be an NFL outside of the United States. I have no doubt about that: one day it will happen, I just don’t know when.” It would be a leap into territory never explored by the major American sports, which at most have a few franchises in Canada – considered, from both a sporting and commercial perspective, part of the same market as the United States. Today the NFL has 32 teams, which in recent years have also appeared overseas in genuine continental tours: London, Munich, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Melbourne and Mexico City, just to name the destinations chosen for several regular-season games in 2026. There is more: Goodell has also revealed that the prestigious Super Bowl itself could, in a future that is not so far away, be hosted in a foreign city. “There are international cities with everything it takes to organise an event like this. But I would first like to see an NFL franchise established in those same places.”
And so the search for candidates has already begun in the States. Which cities might genuinely become NFL cities? The clues come directly from the league’s choice of international fixtures, and not by accident: the spotlight is therefore on Mexico City, London, Paris and Madrid. The first is certainly the most convenient for logistical reasons – it would not be all that different from a trip to Canada – and American football has appeared at the legendary Azteca Stadium five times in the last season alone; the football World Cup was another convincing test of the sport’s ability to stretch its reach. The three European capitals, meanwhile, are the options best equipped to stand alongside the United States in terms of infrastructure, audience size and local spending power. London has the edge in terms of history and loyalty: the NFL has been arriving on the banks of the Thames every year since 2007. Paris is a city in considerable sporting ferment, from football to basketball, and this year it will host its first American football game. Madrid had its turn a few months ago, and the three-day conversion of the Bernabéu proved an encouraging success.
For all the European destinations, however, a huge geographical question remains: how can the packed American sporting calendar be reconciled with the ocean distances that would come with new franchises? Evidently, the league’s organisers consider this an obstacle that can be overcome. Each team would have to follow its own travel plan, one that fits around all the others – while the hypothetical European franchise would have to get used to life on the road from the outset. And in a sense the dress rehearsal is already under way: the arrival in Australia in September, even for a single game, is no small challenge. The San Francisco 49ers, who will play in Melbourne, have said they “want to take all the time necessary to acclimatise, arriving at their destination 7-9 days early”. The Los Angeles Rams, their opponents for the occasion, would rather arrive shortly before the game. Each, then, has its own preferred method. And the NFL has billions of good reasons to go along with it.