DALLAS — The NFL, which already plays games each year in the United Kingdom and Germany, will head to a new continent in 2024, with a regular season game to be played in São Paulo, Brazil, the league announced on Wednesday. The date and time of the game and the teams that will play it have not yet been announced.
São Paulo was chosen over Madrid, Spain, although Peter O’Reilly, the NFL’s executive vice president of club business, international and league events, said Madrid could host a game as soon as 2025.
“The good news is both are really viable and interested in hosting games,” O’Reilly told NFL.com. “Pending having the opportunity to play in Madrid and Brazil in the future, we would be excited to do that. The reason we went first with Brazil really ties to going to a new continent for the first time, into South America for the first time for the regular season.”
The 2024 Brazil game is likely just the start of the NFL’s plans to play in more international cities. Owners, on Wednesday, passed a resolution that compels each team to play an international game every four years — meaning the NFL could schedule as many as eight international games starting with the 2025 season. The Jacksonville Jaguars have a separate agreement to play a game at London’s Wembley Stadium, which is not counted as part of the league’s total. In 2024, the Jaguars will play at Wembley, there will be two games at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and a game in Munich, Germany, in addition to São Paulo.
The Brazil game will probably be played in one of the NFL’s prime-time windows or at 4:25 p.m. ET as part of a doubleheader. In the early part of the NFL season, São Paulo is one hour ahead of the Eastern time zone. In the latter part of the schedule, it is two hours ahead, which means that, unlike the games played in Europe, the Brazil game could not be played as part of the 9:30 a.m. ET window that the NFL is also hoping to expand in coming years. The popularity of Premier League soccer games in the United States has shown that fans will watch games in the morning. And that 9:30 a.m. ET window is particularly appealing for the NFL’s efforts to cultivate fans in Asia and Australia, for whom the Sunday afternoon windows occur overnight.
Brazil has been on the NFL’s radar for a while. The league counts 38 million fans in Brazil, and has seen increased interest in recent years around league events, like a Super Bowl watch party it hosted, and broadcasts of the Super Bowl and playoff games over free television. The NFL also has a strong social media presence in Brazil, and that has helped attract younger fans. São Paulo is the most populous city in Brazil and a commercial capital. And São Paulo has an NFL-suitable stadium in Corinthians Arena. The stadium was completed in 2014, and seats about 49,000 people, which is slightly less than the capacity for the Frankfurt games played this season. Corinthians Arena has already hosted historic events. Six matches, including the opener, were played there during the 2014 FIFA Men’s World Cup and it also hosted soccer matches as part of the 2016 Summer Olympics that were based in Rio de Janeiro. O’Reilly said Rio could be in the mix to host an NFL game in the future.
The expanded inventory of international games means the NFL can continue playing two games at Tottenham, have games in Germany and Brazil, resume playing in Mexico City when stadium renovations are completed, and schedule even more games in new places, including Madrid and potentially France. When the NFL went to a 17-game regular season, there was considerable conversation about how many of the additional games would be played internationally. At the time, the league settled on four games because, O’Reilly said, other locations had not been fully vetted. Until recently, there had also been some hesitation among owners about having their teams play overseas because it could mean giving up a game played at their home stadium. But momentum seems to have shifted with the success and popularity of games in Tottenham and Germany, the assignment of team marketing rights to international markets and the recognition that international growth is a top strategic initiative for the league.
