Overview
- Roger Goodell said Friday that the league expects to play a regular-season game in Tokyo in 2027 or 2028.
- The league staged a record nine regular-season international games in 2026 and is considering using the collective-bargaining cap of 10 international games in 2027.
- Goodell pointed to lessons from this season’s overseas debuts, including a Week 1 crowd of about 100,000 in Melbourne, and said the league thinks travel can be managed without harming teams.
- Player representatives have raised unresolved concerns about travel, workload and protections, and the NFL will need negotiated agreements with the players’ union before expanding the schedule.
- Expanding to Tokyo would be paired with efforts to build local youth programs and global media partnerships while creating commercial pressure to resolve U.S. broadcast window and rights issues.