With the NFL increasing its international footprint, commissioner Roger Goodell didn’t rule out the idea of staging the Super Bowl outside of the United States.
“We’ve always traditionally tried to play a Super Bowl in an NFL city—that was always sort of a reward for the cities that have NFL franchises,” he said Saturday at a fan forum, per the Associated Press’ Ken Maguire. “But things change. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if that happens one day.”
Goodell’s comments aren’t necessarily that revelatory. In 2007, a little over a year after he succeeded Paul Tagliabue as the league commissioner, he said putting the Super Bowl was an idea “we’ll be looking at.”
But a lot has changed in the intervening years.
The NFL was only just launching its International Series 2007. What became an annual game abroad in London has expanded to include events across multiple continents. The 2024 season features three games in London and one each in Munich and São Paulo. Madrid is entering the rotation in 2025.
Tapping deeper into international markets is also the NFL’s most straightforward path to maintaining its increasing revenues. At a certain point, there’s only so much money to mine domestically.
Taking its annual centerpiece to London, Paris, Madrid or a different major city outside of the U.S. would be a natural step in that process, though it wouldn’t be well received by American fans.
Take the most popular American sporting event and play it outside of America? Worst idea I’ve ever heard of in my entire life https://t.co/9oK2jRzG5M
— Evan Hill (@EvanHillHB) October 13, 2024
And for as much as this might feel inevitable, there will be certain logistical hurdles that might prove difficult to overcome, namely the time difference.
Staging a foreign Super Bowl during prime time in the US market would be almost impossible unless the game was in Mexico or South America. Countries in Central and Western Europe are five and six hours ahead of the eastern time zone.
It’s one thing to have a regular season contest get underway on Sunday morning, as the Chicago Bears and Jacksonville Jaguars’ matchup did in Week 6. Imagine a Super Bowl that kicked off at 3:30 p.m. ET or earlier.
In a perfect world for Goodell and the NFL, they may have already had a foreign-based Super Bowl by now. The fact that his general stance doesn’t seem to have shifted much in 17 years could actually be a sign it’s still not all that close to becoming a reality.
