NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell expects a game in Tokyo soon.
Goodell, who is currently in Paris as the league prepares to play its first game there, said that the first regular-season game in Japan is coming in 2027 or 2028.
“Listen, Tokyo is clearly on our list, whether it’s next year or the year after. 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 São Paulo,” Goodell told Gregg Rosenthal and Jourdan Rodrigue on NFL Daily.
Goodell said the successful NFL game in Australia in Week 1 showed that the league can play anywhere in the world.
“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 said. “The travel is something we think we can manage and do it without impacting negatively on the teams. 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.”
The NFL is about as popular as a sport could be in the United States, which means the NFL sees foreign markets as the key to the league’s continued growth. Tokyo may be the next foreign market. It certainly won’t be the last.