Goodell: NFL plans to play in Australia “long term”

[Shamrock]

On 4/11/2026 at 3:48 AM, Einstein said:

https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/roger-goodell-nfl-plans-to-play-in-australia-for-the-long-term

 

That’s what? 20-ish hours in travel time from Buffalo?

Having done the reverse trip many times… it’s exhausting!

 

That said, the Rams v 49ers will play at the MCG, 100,000 sold out. Tickets upwards of $500 in the horrible seats! And it’s a 10am start on a Monday! There’s a market no doubt, just travel sux.

Edited April 13 by Shamrock

[Brand J]

38 minutes ago, Kirby Jackson said:

I agree.

 

I guess where I agree with @Mr. WEO is that even small, incremental, growth abroad is more profitable than what’s left to squeeze out of the US. It’s the only place left to grow. With football making up 92 of the top 100 watched shows in the US (actually down from some years) this market is tapped out. They’re dragging we networks in, finding new days for a stand alone game (ie night before Thanksgiving) but there aren’t many more fans to attract. To attract new eyeballs they need to go around the world. 

Yeah, I don’t disagree about squeezing money out wherever possible. There’s MUCH more in international support, not domestic. This was published last year:

Quote

1) Total global viewership: ~ 1.4 billion
Sport: Football / Soccer
Event: FIFA World Cup

 

2) Total global viewership: ~ 390 million
Sport: Football / Soccer
Event: UEFA Champions League

3) Total global viewership: ~ 330 million
Sport: Football / Soccer
Event: UEFA European Championship

4) Total global viewership: ~ 300 million
Sport: Cricket
Event: ICC Cricket World Cup

 

5) Total global viewership: ~ 260 million
Sport: Football / Soccer
Event: FIFA Women’s World Cup

6) Total global viewership: ~ 205 million
Sport: American Football
Event: NFL Season

Imagine if the NFL could convert enough fans to overtake even Women’s soccer! We know it hasn’t been for a lack of trying. Maybe more flag football leagues with American rules is the way to go, but as I and Billshredder said above, futbol and basketball will always have a global advantage because they’re much easier to access. I can’t see the NFL becoming a true global sport no matter how many teams we put in the UK, Germany, Brazil, Australia, etc. But they’ll squeeze whatever money out of those markets they can, even if stateside folks don’t like it.

[EssexBill]

One thing that will help grow the game more in the UK is that last season they started showing 2 games each week on terrestrial (free) TV each Sunday evening, at 6pm and then 9.25 ish, and it has been quite popular so far I believe. It’s always been on pay tv before (sky and the NFL pass) but making it free helps as it reaches a far larger audience.

It would help even more if the SuperBowl started just a couple of hours earlier rather than the 11.30pm kick off we have, but then I wouldn’t expect that tradition to be changed (nor should it be). The English football association messed with the FA cup final time years ago and it’s never recovered the popularity it used to have.

 

 

One thing the Aussies do with their version of of football is have their finals (playoffs) with 8 teams and the top 4 play each other straight away then the winners get a week off the losers have to play again the week after, basically getting a second chance. If the NFL made the playoffs 8 teams in future I’d love to see something similar, not sure how popular an idea it would be though 

Edited April 13 by EssexBill

[GunnerBill]

1 hour ago, EssexBill said:

One thing that will help grow the game more in the UK is that last season they started showing 2 games each week on terrestrial (free) TV each Sunday evening, at 6pm and then 9.25 ish, and it has been quite popular so far I believe. It’s always been on pay tv before (sky and the NFL pass) but making it free helps as it reaches a far larger audience.

It would help even more if the SuperBowl started just a couple of hours earlier rather than the 11.30pm kick off we have, but then I wouldn’t expect that tradition to be changed (nor should it be). The English football association messed with the FA cup final time years ago and it’s never recovered the popularity it used to have.

 

 

One thing the Aussies do with their version of of football is have their finals (playoffs) with 8 teams and the top 4 play each other straight away then the winners get a week off the losers have to play again the week after, basically getting a second chance. If the NFL made the playoffs 8 teams in future I’d love to see something similar, not sure how popular an idea it would be though 

 

Yea it is the first time there has ever been any free to air live broadcasting of the two Sunday time slots in the UK - there have been periods where variously Channel 4, Channel 5 and the ITV/BBC have shown prime time games live, but as we know those are never going to attract huge UK audiences because they are in the middle of the night and only sickos like me are up watching!

 

I do wonder (not seen it confirmed anywhere, but it's a theory) if that was triggered by a slowing of growth? From 2010 to at least around 2022 the SKY audiences for the NFL had grown exponentially - they were averaging around 10% a year growth - and prior to the Game Pass deal with DAZN (DAZN doesn't release any of the figures for commercial reasons) Game Pass subscriptions in the UK were up by over 25% in the previous 3 years. I wonder if they had just started to see a plateau effect from the subscription models. I don't know that to be the case but I do find the Channel 5 deal interesting. SKY has previously been dead against loosening its grip on the Sunday slots - the fact that they were convinced to by presumably Roger and the NFL is worth noting. Equally the NFL seems to have settled on 3 UK games per year as the optimum number. I know that is partly them wanting to test other European markets - Germany, Ireland, Spain etc... but I do have a suspicion that while the game and interest in it has sky rocketed in the UK the past 20 years, we might just be getting close to maxing out. 

[Since1981]

20 hours ago, Kirby Jackson said:

Flag football in the US or abroad? If you’re thinking abroad, I could be talked into it. There’s not a single person in the US that’s thinking, “now that I played flag football I think I’ll watch the Super Bowl.” It’s chicken and egg in the US. 92 of the top 100 broadcasts from 2025 were football!! There isn’t really a “new market” to find here. They have to go wider.

 

If you’re suggesting that the growth of flag football and the Olympics will turn more people internationally onto the game than a random NFL game, maybe. I don’t necessarily agree but that’s a sensible position. National pride does a lot for sport. Look at the World Cup or the Olympics. 

I know flag football is gaining popularity and if a girl likes flag, your viewerships go  up-no question a better investment for NFL. Australia in context of all the other options….dumb. 20 hr team flights.  There’s a reason it is called ‘down under’ 😮

[Urban Achievers]

Imagine the angry whistles at Goodell when the draft is hosted in Europe … it will be worse than the booing! 

[Mr. WEO]

13 hours ago, Brand J said:

This may surprise you: there was a point in time the NFL wasn’t popular. College marching bands would play the halftime show. What changed? Massive support for the sport? Where/when did that begin? Hint: it wasn’t because millions of Americans decided to pick up a remote and turn on a game “just because.” It started with the atmosphere that is varsity football (homecoming, pep rally’s, rivalries, boosters, cheerleaders, etc) and it carried over into college. That’s where the growth began. That’s what we have that these countries abroad do not. That’s why the game has reached gladiator arena status.
 

Did you read the original article that was referenced stating the NFL has been struggling to gain a foothold abroad despite sending teams every year? You have fans in those crowds wearing 32 different jerseys. We’re talking about growing the game to the point where fans show up with one of the two team jerseys. You know, like their futbol teams. Not 32. These games are a novelty for them and the Super Bowl numbers you referenced were comically paltry. Should have kept that information to yourself.

 

Obviously if we could transport millions of Americans abroad, the game would grow on rooting influence alone. Those who previously had little to no interest would likely follow their American friend’s team. My argument wasn’t necessarily to “grow youth football” abroad, although that would be the easiest way to grow the interest. I’m saying the NFL has to reach the younger generation and make the game relatable for them somehow/someway. Like basketball, which has comfortably reached global status. If the youth are playing rugby in their high schools, rather than American football, which sport do you think they’ll continue to support en masse? Which sport do you think they’ll continue to support as adults? This isn’t rocket science. 

 

 

Somehow you’d disagree with these two as well. 

 

Of course the was a time when the NFL was not as popular as it is now--that's not even worth mentioning.  Television is what made the sport take off--many cite the 1958 Championship ("Greatest Game Ever Played") as the takeoff point for pro football in this country.  fast forward to now--the NFL completely dominates all of US broadcasting on every platform.  It is available to anyone around the world.  Baseball might be global--but MLB would kill to get the viewers the NFL gets in UK, Europe and Mexico.  So would the NBA. If the NFL was losing money hand over fist over the past 20 years of out of country games, why on earth would they keep expanding their global reach with more and more games and more countries?  Is that a hard question for you to anticipate or answer?

 

If I'm an owner in the NFL and I see all 32 team jerseys in the stands in London, I'm lighting a cigar and putting on my monocle as I check my investment portfolio as I have Goodell fan me with $100 bills---obviously, this means that those in attendance are there simply to watch the game.  To expect that people in London or Germany or Mexico or Australia have to first have allegiance to a specific team for the sport to catch on is absurd, beside being demonstrably false.  If at some point significant allegiance to some random NFL team by groups of UK or European fans develops---that' the cherry on top for the NFL owners.

 

This is the information I "should have kept to myself"?: 

 

Super Bowl LVIII was the most watched NFL game on record for Sky Sports and ITV in the U.K. on television, with a combined total of 3.4M unique viewers (+48% YoY) tuning in to watch the Kansas City Chiefs' victory over the San Francisco 49ers (25 – 22) in Las Vegas at Allegiant Stadium.  Super Bowl LVIII also saw growth across key demographics with a +91% YoY growth in under-35 viewership with almost three quarters (74%) of U35s watching TV during that time watching the Super Bowl, compared to just over half last year (53%). Additionally, there was a 13% YoY increase in female viewers.

 

Thats' not "comically paltry growth"--it's exactly what the NFL was hoping for---especially in the demographic you claim it's not reaching.  You're also insinuating that, because British youth may grow up playing soccer or rugby, this precludes them from also becoming interested in or viewers of the NFL. That make zero sense intuitively and is obviously disproven by the growth in viewership year over year and in that specific demographic--you probably should have kept that unique argument to yourself....

[Kirby Jackson]

43 minutes ago, Since1981 said:

I know flag football is gaining popularity and if a girl likes flag, your viewerships go  up-no question a better investment for NFL. Australia in context of all the other options….dumb. 20 hr team flights.  There’s a reason it is called ‘down under’ 😮

It’s certainly not close but that’s where the NFL has to go to get new eyeballs. Yao Ming did wonders for the NBA in China. There are more people now following the NBA in China than in the US. That’s insane. I’m not suggesting that will happen in other countries with football. I’m simply suggesting that the opportunity to attract new fans is far, far, far greater outside the US than within.
 

I agree, that you may grow the young female market some with flag football participation. More than with Taylor Swift? Doubtful. Is that a profitable audience for the NFL? Are females under the age of 15 their target? Sure, it’s nice to bring them under the tent and you’re doing that now between Taylor Swift, the halftime shows, flag football and different women in football initiatives (may of which have been around for decades). 
 

I’ve led various sales teams for 19 years at this point (I’m getting old). There are 2 goals at all times, “keep the customers that you have and find new customers.” There are other branches that stem off the tree like, “sell your current customers more product.” The NFL excels at that piece. They continue to find new ways to create standalone windows. They are bulletproof in the customer retention piece. The focus is on “finding new customers.” That’s not really something that can be done domestically. They have been working their way through Europe. They are gaining traction in South America and Australia now. They still have Asia and Africa as untapped markets, with Asia being incredibly profitable. We are only about 5 minutes into the first quarter in terms of international expansion. This isn’t slowing anytime soon. You’ll see more and more games abroad, and their hope is that flag football in the Olympics expands interest. It’s the only option left for the NFL. 

Edited April 13 by Kirby Jackson

[Briscoe89]

I live in Melbourne.  They sold 90,000 tickets in under 30 minutes when they went on general sale at an average price of around $400 per ticket.  It’s all about the $$$…

 

[Goin Breakdown]

How about Narnia next. 

[GunnerBill]

13 hours ago, Brand J said:

Yeah, I’m not discounting the NFL’s effort to popularize the game abroad (and specifically the UK). There certainly is more interest today versus what it was before the games started. What I’m saying is that it can’t be a global sport like the others because it’s not relatable to their youth in the same way it is ours. The NFL would love nothing more than rabid international fans, that’s why they keep sending teams abroad, but there’s a ceiling to the popularity unless something changes that turns it from a novelty to a passion.

 

EDIT: and now that I’m looking at it again, maybe that’s where WEO was getting tripped up. The game has grown on a small scale, yes, but is absolutely nothing like futbol, basketball, or any other global sport and won’t ever be until we reach their younger generation in a comparable way.

 

There is a ceiling, and as I said above, I think we might be relatively close to that ceiling now in the UK - but the growth has been exponential over the past 20 years since the games started. The first international game in London came a year after I moved here. At that point if you went into a pub or an office and talked about the NFL you were absolutely on your own. Twenty years on, I manage a directorate of 60 people among whom we have enough NFL fans for a 12 person fantasy league. I get it - that is anecdotal - but the numbers back it up too. Total viewership for an average NFL Sunday now across SKY and Game Pass is c.500,000. That doesn't sound huge, I get it..... but it is a third of what an average SKY Premier League Sunday game gets c.1.5million. In relative terms for sport on subscription TV in the UK that's pretty decent.  The NFL isn't anywhere close to as popular here as the Premier League for obvious reasons.... but that is pretty good market penetration over the last 20 years. You go back to the late 00s and NFL Sundays on SKY were pulling 80-90k viewers. 

[DD4Bills]

I hate all international games. Bad for the teams, bad for the fans.

 

...but I am old and hate pretty much everything, so...  

[13 Seconds to Mars]

On 4/10/2026 at 2:10 PM, DJB said:

I hate the NFL pushing the European and other continent games . 
 

Keep it in the USA where it belongs and not be so money hungry for the owners 

Just change it to the “IFL” at this point. Goodell is a scourge on this league ever since he joined. He betrayed the die hard fans and sold out to the casuals. 

[Brand J]

2 hours ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

Of course the was a time when the NFL was not as popular as it is now--that's not even worth mentioning.  Television is what made the sport take off--many cite the 1958 Championship ("Greatest Game Ever Played") as the takeoff point for pro football in this country.  fast forward to now--the NFL completely dominates all of US broadcasting on every platform.  It is available to anyone around the world.  Baseball might be global--but MLB would kill to get the viewers the NFL gets in UK, Europe and Mexico.  So would the NBA. If the NFL was losing money hand over fist over the past 20 years of out of country games, why on earth would they keep expanding their global reach with more and more games and more countries?  Is that a hard question for you to anticipate or answer?

 

If I'm an owner in the NFL and I see all 32 team jerseys in the stands in London, I'm lighting a cigar and putting on my monocle as I check my investment portfolio as I have Goodell fan me with $100 bills---obviously, this means that those in attendance are there simply to watch the game.  To expect that people in London or Germany or Mexico or Australia have to first have allegiance to a specific team for the sport to catch on is absurd, beside being demonstrably false.  If at some point significant allegiance to some random NFL team by groups of UK or European fans develops---that' the cherry on top for the NFL owners.

 

This is the information I "should have kept to myself"?: 

 

Super Bowl LVIII was the most watched NFL game on record for Sky Sports and ITV in the U.K. on television, with a combined total of 3.4M unique viewers (+48% YoY) tuning in to watch the Kansas City Chiefs' victory over the San Francisco 49ers (25 – 22) in Las Vegas at Allegiant Stadium.  Super Bowl LVIII also saw growth across key demographics with a +91% YoY growth in under-35 viewership with almost three quarters (74%) of U35s watching TV during that time watching the Super Bowl, compared to just over half last year (53%). Additionally, there was a 13% YoY increase in female viewers.

 

Thats' not "comically paltry growth"--it's exactly what the NFL was hoping for---especially in the demographic you claim it's not reaching.  You're also insinuating that, because British youth may grow up playing soccer or rugby, this precludes them from also becoming interested in or viewers of the NFL. That make zero sense intuitively and is obviously disproven by the growth in viewership year over year and in that specific demographic--you probably should have kept that unique argument to yourself....

I’m sorry, did I ever argue the NFL hasn’t grown in the UK after 20 years of sending teams over there? Of course it has! Thats true for all these countries, even if the numbers are paltry relative to the international sports watching public, sorry if that hurts your feelings. The stands are filled with novelty fans rather than passionate ones. All those team jerseys you see watching the Jags and the Texans kickoff at 9:30 EST will miss a portion of “their” games by the time they get out of that stadium and back home, or to the pub. And they probably don’t care.

 

Did you see the numbers I referenced earlier? The Super Bowl was the 6th most watched sporting event in the world, trailing the 5th place Women’s World Cup by over 60 million. 60 million. 60,000,000 more people watched the Women’s World Cup globally than they did the Super Bowl and you’re talking about 3 million viewers in the UK 😂

 

Having an international fanbase that competes with the most watched sporting events in the world isn’t the NFL’s “cherry on the top,” it’s their mission. It’s why we’re sending teams to so many countries. They want passionate fans that will follow and support an NFL team. You know, like they do futbol and like we do here in the US. Until something shifts - globally - that enables the game to grow on that scale, it’s simply a little added pocket change. Don’t know why that’s so difficult for you to grasp.

[EssexBill]

6 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Yea it is the first time there has ever been any free to air live broadcasting of the two Sunday time slots in the UK - there have been periods where variously Channel 4, Channel 5 and the ITV/BBC have shown prime time games live, but as we know those are never going to attract huge UK audiences because they are in the middle of the night and only sickos like me are up watching!

 

I do wonder (not seen it confirmed anywhere, but it's a theory) if that was triggered by a slowing of growth? From 2010 to at least around 2022 the SKY audiences for the NFL had grown exponentially - they were averaging around 10% a year growth - and prior to the Game Pass deal with DAZN (DAZN doesn't release any of the figures for commercial reasons) Game Pass subscriptions in the UK were up by over 25% in the previous 3 years. I wonder if they had just started to see a plateau effect from the subscription models. I don't know that to be the case but I do find the Channel 5 deal interesting. SKY has previously been dead against loosening its grip on the Sunday slots - the fact that they were convinced to by presumably Roger and the NFL is worth noting. Equally the NFL seems to have settled on 3 UK games per year as the optimum number. I know that is partly them wanting to test other European markets - Germany, Ireland, Spain etc... but I do have a suspicion that while the game and interest in it has sky rocketed in the UK the past 20 years, we might just be getting close to maxing out. 

100% agree, I think we’re close to the ceiling in the UK, but like we said I think channel 5 games will help as people don’t have the money to pay for various subscriptions nowadays when there so damned many of them. 
 

For sure people are a lot more aware of the NFL nowadays than 20 years ago, but it doesn’t really translate into the hardcore fandom that we’d like to see. I have to admit I’m not a fan of seeing 32 teams shirts at the London games, especially when I had to listen to some gobby p**** in a patriots shirt saying how Josh is a loser for almost the entire game at spurs in 2023 🤬

[GunnerBill]

4 minutes ago, EssexBill said:

100% agree, I think we’re close to the ceiling in the UK, but like we said I think channel 5 games will help as people don’t have the money to pay for various subscriptions nowadays when there so damned many of them. 
 

For sure people are a lot more aware of the NFL nowadays than 20 years ago, but it doesn’t really translate into the hardcore fandom that we’d like to see. I have to admit I’m not a fan of seeing 32 teams shirts at the London games, especially when I had to listen to some gobby p**** in a patriots shirt saying how Josh is a loser for almost the entire game at spurs in 2023 🤬

 

That is always going to be the case at the international games. They are a different vibe. They are true neutral site, neutral crowd games.

[GunnerBill]

12 minutes ago, Brand J said:

The stands are filled with novelty fans rather than passionate ones. All those team jerseys you see watching the Jags and the Texans kickoff at 9:30 EST will miss a portion of “their” games by the time they get out of that stadium and back home, or to the pub. And they probably don’t care.

 

That doesn't make them novelty fans. I think that's rather patronising. It's true that you likely miss a chunk of your team's game if you go to a live game and your team is a 6pm (1pm EST) kick off. I tend not to do Wembley games for that reason unless it is the Bills bye week or they are a late game - whereas I can walk home from Tottenham in pretty much 40 minutes. But there are plenty of hardcore fans of other teams at the games - I speak to plenty of them and they are knowledgeable and passionate about the game. It's just we get three shots a year to see it live in the flesh... and you can't beat live sport IMO. So for some it is worth sacrificing half an hour or 40 minutes of TV sport (even if it is their team) for the chance to see live sport. 

 

And trust me if you are just a novelty fan it is priced in such a way that you'd only go for the novelty once 🤣

[EssexBill]

4 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

That is always going to be the case at the international games. They are a different vibe. They are true neutral site, neutral crowd games.

Yes agreed, nothing that can be done about it, I was just having a vent sorry. The more people go the better. 

 

I just have zero interest in going to an NFL game that doesn’t involve the bills, same as I have zero interest in seeing a premier league game that doesn’t involve Manchester United (sorry Gunner), I guess I’m just not wired to be a casual fan, I don’t go for the atmosphere I go to see my team. 

[Brand J]

1 minute ago, GunnerBill said:

 

That doesn't make them novelty fans. I think that's rather patronising. It's true that you likely miss a chunk of your team's game if you go to a live game and your team is a 6pm (1pm EST) kick off. I tend not to do Wembley games for that reason unless it is the Bills bye week or they are a late game - whereas I can walk home from Tottenham in pretty much 40 minutes. But there are plenty of hardcore fans of other teams at the games - I speak to plenty of them and they are knowledgeable and passionate about the game. It's just we get three shots a year to see it live in the flesh... and you can't beat live sport IMO. So for some it is worth sacrificing half an hour or 40 minutes of TV sport (even if it is their team) for the chance to see live sport. 

 

And trust me if you are just a novelty fan it is priced in such a way that you'd only go for the novelty once 🤣

Yeah, I didn’t mean to discredit the fans in a way that would suggest they’re not knowledgeable about what they’re watching, or that they’re just there because it’s something to do. My main point was that to have a truly passionate fanbase watching the sport, the jerseys would have to start dwindling down from 32 teams to 2 and given all the various factors at play - including money - that’s not likely. Thats what I meant by categorizing the event and their fans as a novelty one, not a rabid matchup. 

[GunnerBill]

1 minute ago, EssexBill said:

Yes agreed, nothing that can be done about it, I was just having a vent sorry. The more people go the better. 

 

I just have zero interest in going to an NFL game that doesn’t involve the bills, same as I have zero interest in seeing a premier league game that doesn’t involve Manchester United (sorry Gunner), I guess I’m just not wired to be a casual fan, I don’t go for the atmosphere I go to see my team. 

 

I'm generally am completely the opposite. I don't think you can beat live sport, personally. I suppose I am just more used to consuming the NFL via a screen because I do try and prioritise Bills games when considering going to international series NFL.... but when it comes to the Premier League.... if I'm not at the Emirates on a Saturday afternoon I'd rather be at Barking in the Essex Senior League than sat at home watching on tv.