NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has teased even more international expansion, which will take a regular-season game to a new country.
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Speaking with NFL Daily, Goodell said that the coming years could see the league returning to Japan for the first time since 2005.
"Listen, Tokyo is clearly on our list, whether it's next year or the year after," Goodell said ahead of the first-ever NFL game in Paris, France. "It's coming at some point in the near future.
"We're going to continue to focus on our priority markets, which a lot of them they've been in, but there are other cities; this year, we went to Rio rather than Sao Paulo."
The league has spent time in Japan in the past, albeit under different circumstances. Fourteen exhibition games occurred in Japan between 1976-2005, with the Falcons and Colts last making the trip. Thirteen of these games took place in Tokyo.
The league has focused heavily on international expansion in the past two decades. The first occurred in October 2025 as the Cardinals and 49ers faced off. The league then continued taking games to more and more areas over the decades.
The Jaguars, in particular, made Wembley Stadium a de facto home over the decades while making annual trips to the United Kingdom.
This season's international slate featured a record nine games. Three of these games took place in the United Kingdom. Other games on the schedule included Rio de Janeiro, Munich, Paris, Melbourne, Madrid, and Mexico City.
Goodell plans on returning to Paris in the future after the Steelers defeated the Saints on Sunday. He also continues to examine the other areas where he could take regular-season games and build the audience. Japan is one of the prominent options on the table.
"The travel is something we think we can manage and do it without impacting negatively on the teams," Goodell said. "So, each of these we learned something from and we benefit and we also open those other doors.
"We're planning on playing global. That's where we're going."
