The NFL is even more determined than Stewie Griffin to achieve world domination.
Appearing at a panel discussion in Ireland, one day before the Vikings and Steelers play at Croke Park in Dublin, Commissioner Roger Goodell reiterated the league’s objectives when it comes to making the National Football League an international game.
Via Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com, Goodell said that the league wants to stage 16 international games per year, so that every team will play one.
Sunday’s game will be the NFL’s first regular-season foray into Ireland. Coming in 2026? Melbourne.
“[O]ur next step after Australia is probably moving games into Asia,” Goodell said, per Pryor. “We are serious about being a global sport.”
If the goal is one non-American game per team per year, the 2025 experiment involving the Vikings playing a pair of road games in Ireland and London is irrelevant. That effort underscores the fact that Minnesota’s extended European excursion has nothing to do with the 16-game vision, and more to do with testing the waters for the placement of a team in a country other than the United States.
It will nevertheless take time for the NFL to get to 16. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement allows for a maximum of 10. To add six games, the NFL will need the NFL Players Association to agree.
Given the recent turmoil at the NFLPA, the chances of an extension before 2031 have diminished. Which means that, unless the union settles on a permanent executive director quickly and then pivots to doing a new CBA, 16 international games are at least six years away.
