The curtain came down on the NFL's international series in Madrid on Sunday night, with the first regular season game to be played in Spain.
It was a pretty incredible series, not always the best games, but certainly competitive and close. Six of the seven contests were decided by one score, which is kind of indicative of where the league is at right now in terms of all the close games, unpredictability, fine margins between the teams and between winning and losing.
I think the game itself was a big one for the Miami Dolphins to take home. They're not loaded with talent right now, but given their disastrous start to the season, to suddenly have won three out of four and with a chance to further put things right, that's a positive uptick in form.
I think when it comes to the international series, the league will look back on firsts in Dublin, Berlin, Madrid, and they'll be emboldened by the success of those. That's only going to add to the momentum and the speed of growth. Things aren't going to slow down anytime soon.
I think they're only going to increase the number of games, increase the profile of where they play. And I think we see that in what's coming in 2026. There are already reports of up to nine international games next season. I think that's the minimum we could expect to see. It could even be more than that if there were other deals struck by teams individually.
But we're getting to that maximum level that's agreed between the league and its players' union. And once that's renegotiated, then we are going to very quickly move towards 16 international games. I think we'll go bigger picture - there will be an 18-game NFL regular season within the next five to seven years.
I think we'll see pre-season games come right down. The league sees no value in those and we'll see more of an international footprint than ever before.
That profile I talked about in 2026 is going to kick off with Melbourne in Australia. The fact that the Brazil game is moving to Rio is a big move. I'm not sure that stadium in Sao Paulo was ever what you would call NFL quality, and when you look at the Bernabeu in Madrid or Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, those are proper NFL venues, so the league will be looking for those.
I think the commissioner, Roger Goodell, has talked about moving into Japan and Asia. I do think there is still real interest from the league in terms of playing a game in Paris, and this traveling roadshow is going to continue.
Will it be Rome in Italy? Will it be Milan? Will there be a game in the Middle East at some point? That, I think, has to come up on the radar given the global sporting landscape.
I don't think the NFL can be exempt from that or would want to be exempt from that in the long term. The future is incredibly bright, and I think Madrid was an example of what the NFL are looking to do.
I don't know numbers and statistics. I don't know how many fans in that stadium were from Spain. But I also don't think the league would mind if fans travelled from all over Europe.
I was on a plane on Saturday morning from London filled with Washington and Miami fans from the UK and from America. It's more about the destination. Now, I think the league wants to grow fans in those markets where they play.
Playing the game is the lighting of the firework in terms of increasing the popularity. But I think also this is about the perception from the US. The league is in Brazil, Ireland, Germany, Spain, we're in the UK, we're going to Australia.
It is the Formula One version of the NFL. And it's coming thicker and faster in the next few years, so it is really historic times to see what the NFL are going to do moving forward. And they will be interested in fan growth, absolutely.
But this is also about creating a new TV window and a new TV package, which is only further going to strengthen the league in the US.
We are witnessing and living in truly historic times when it comes to the NFL.
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