With a nine-game worldwide slate in 2026, the NFL is now wanting to increase its horizons to another continent.
Commissioner Roger Goodell instructed “NFL Daily” hosts Gregg Rosenthal and Jourdan Rodrigue Friday that the league needs to play its first regular-season recreation in Tokyo in the close to future.
“Listen, Tokyo is clearly on our list, whether it’s next year or the year after,” Goodell said. “It’s coming at some level in the close to future. We’re going to proceed to focus on our precedence markets, which a lot of them they’ve been in, but there are other cities this 12 months, we went to Rio rather than São Paulo.
“We’re planning on playing global. That’s where we’re going.”
Large helmets representing skilled NFL groups are on show in Trafalgar Square to have a good time the 2026 London Games, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. Amer Ghazzal / SplashNews.com
It wouldn’t be the first time the NFL has made its mark in Japan. The NFL performed 14 exhibition video games in Japan from 1976 through 2005, 13 of which were in Tokyo, but it has never performed a regular-season recreation in the Asian nation.
The NFL wraps up its hefty 2026 worldwide slate this weekend when the Steelers face the Saints in Paris, the first regular-season recreation to be performed in France. The recreation is still slated to be held Sunday despite the current unrest in the City of Light.
Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said he believes the league has adopted the proper protocols to make certain the recreation is protected.
“I definitely think that the NFL is alert to what’s going on,” Rodgers said on Friday. “This game means a lot to the NFL. If it was unsafe, then I’m sure we wouldn’t be here.”
NFL vice chairman of membership enterprise, worldwide and league occasions Peter O’Reilly said earlier this week that the league is “considering” increasing to 10 worldwide video games for 2027.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell speaks during a information convention at the NFL homeowners’ conferences Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, in New York. AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura
The league scheduled its first worldwide video games in Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro and Paris this season. Goodell mentioned the Week 1 Melbourne recreation as an instance of a studying alternative for groups on how to deal with that sort of worldwide journey and time distinction for a recreation.
“On 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’s opened up new opportunities for us,” Goodell defined. “The journey is something we think we can handle and do it with out impacting negatively on the groups.
“So, each of these we learned something from and we benefit and we also open those other doors.”
Under the league’s Global Markets Program, the Rams have advertising and marketing rights in Japan.