The NFL has been one of the fastest-growing leagues in sports over the past few decades. It surpassed baseball as America’s favorite game some time ago, and now commissioner Roger Goodell has hinted at expanding that success internationally.
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The idea of establishing NFL franchises overseas—most likely in London in the United Kingdom—is not a new one. This is a notion that has been floated and pondered among the NFL’s elite for several decades now. And there’s no debating that in 2025, we are closer to that reality than we have ever been before. However, that’s not to say it will actually happen.
Recently, long-time NFL talking head Rich Eisen spoke about the NFL and its international ambitions. While he acknowledged the fact that the NFL’s international fandom is growing exponentially year over year, he pointed out that it’s an enormous leap from playing a handful of games in Europe compared to actually housing a real NFL franchise there.
“Everybody keeps asking me about the international games… I don’t think they’re playing these games internationally to create international teams abroad,” Eisen said on the Games With Names podcast.
“Or, you’re hearing we’re gonna have a pod or a division, we’re gonna expand, and it’s gonna be four teams playing internationally. And they’re gonna play each other a lot, and they’re gonna go on the road, and they’re gonna come to America and have like a four-game road trip,” he continued, highlighting some of the speculation.
This is the most common idea floated for bringing the NFL to Europe. Because one team there by itself would be at an immense disadvantage. So why not have a full division be put at the same disadvantage?
Host of the show, Julian Edelman, made the point that there’s not enough money in the international NFL game right now, but if there were, it would make the prospect of an NFL team in Europe a lot more realistic. Eisen shot that idea down as well, though, saying this was more a competition issue than a financial one.
“It doesn’t work competition-wise, but also trying to get a team together. Suddenly, hey, guess what, you’re now drafted and playing in Munich. You now live in Germany. Or free agents, who wants to go home and say, ‘Hey, we can get a boatload of money, but you’re gonna leave school, you’re gonna leave home, our beautiful dream home that we built with my first contract. Let’s put it in mothballs.”
Eisen’s points are tough to refute. You can already see how players regularly talk about the difficulties they face in the NBA when they are shipped to Toronto in neighboring Canada. If that tiny move causes issues, just try to imagine the clusterf*ck that will occur with guys from Alabama and Mississippi being forced to move to London and Munich. It’s just not realistic.
