{"id":939025,"date":"2026-10-24T07:52:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T07:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/939025\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T07:52:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T07:52:24","slug":"roger-goodell-wants-nfl-to-expand-international-play-to-toyko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/939025\/","title":{"rendered":"Roger Goodell wants NFL to expand international play to Toyko"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a nine-game international slate in 2026, the NFL is now looking to expand its horizons to another continent.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Roger Goodell told \u201cNFL Daily\u201d<\/a> hosts Gregg Rosenthal and Jourdan Rodrigue Friday that the league wants to play its first regular-season game in Tokyo in the near future.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, Tokyo is clearly on our list, whether it\u2019s next year or the year after,\u201d Goodell said. \u201cIt\u2019s coming at some point in the near future. We\u2019re going to continue to focus on our priority markets, which a lot of them they\u2019ve been in, but there are other cities this year, we went to Rio rather than S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re planning on playing global. That\u2019s where we\u2019re going.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LargeLarge helmets representing professional NFL teams are on display in Trafalgar Square to celebrate the 2026 London Games, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. Amer Ghazzal \/ SplashNews.com<\/p>\n

It wouldn\u2019t be the first time the NFL has made its mark in Japan. The NFL played 14 exhibition games in Japan from 1976 through 2005, 13 of which were in Tokyo, but it has never played a regular-season game in the Asian nation.<\/p>\n

The NFL wraps up its hefty 2026 international slate this weekend when the Steelers face the Saints in Paris<\/a>, the first regular-season game to be played in France. The game is still slated to be held Sunday despite the recent unrest in the City of Light.<\/p>\n

Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said he believes the league has followed the right protocols to make sure the game is safe. <\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely think that the NFL is alert to what\u2019s going on,\u201d Rodgers said on Friday. \u201cThis game means a lot to the NFL. If it was unsafe, then I\u2019m sure we wouldn\u2019t be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

NFL vice president of club business, international and league events Peter O\u2019Reilly said earlier this week that the league is \u201cconsidering\u201d expanding to 10 international games for 2027.<\/p>\n

\"NFLNFL Commissioner Roger Goodell speaks during a news conference at the NFL owners\u2019 meetings Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, in New York. AP Photo\/Yuki Iwamura<\/p>\n

The league scheduled its first international games in Melbourne<\/a>, Rio de Janeiro and Paris this season. Goodell discussed the Week 1 Melbourne game as an example of a learning opportunity for teams on how to handle that kind of international travel and time difference for a game.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a Friday morning at 10:30, to have 100,000 people in the stadium, it was just an incredible feeling for us. I think it\u2019s opened up new opportunities for us,\u201d Goodell explained. \u201cThe travel is something we think we can manage and do it without impacting negatively on the teams. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, each of these we learned something from and we benefit and we also open those other doors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the league\u2019s Global Markets Program, the Rams have marketing rights in Japan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a nine-game international slate in 2026, the NFL is now looking to expand its horizons to another…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,28598,85,11804],"class_list":["post-939025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-roger-goodell","tag-sports","tag-tokyo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=939025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}