Arthur Blank: Every team having one international game per year ‘probably on the horizon’

The NFL is intent on gaining a foothold on every continent.

The NFL is like any other giant company with a growth-first mindset, in that it isn’t content to stay in its current footprint. The NFL wants to be top of mind every single day, and it wants to be on as many minds as possible while doing so.

International expansion is one way to do that, and it’s one the league has been ardent to explore. From the annual trips to England, upcoming swings through Germany, Spain, and Ireland, and last year’s big opener in Brazil set to repeat this year, the NFL is seeking to gain a worldwide toehold. The question is just how far they’ll take that, and while there’s no sign of a team from abroad joining the league, there are very obviously plans to keep growing and ginning up interest.

What sort of plans, you ask? In an interview with Steve Wyche with NFL Network, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank was enthusiastic about the reception the team and the league get abroad, and teased the idea that eventually every team will have at least one international game once per season.

Blank, who is now the seventh-longest tenured owner in the NFL, is going to know as well as anybody what the five-and-ten year plan looks like for the league’s schedule. The Falcons have marketing rights in Germany and are set to play there for the first time this year in early November, which is both awesome news for the the passionate fans over there and likely far from the last time they’ll make an appearance in Berlin (or Hamburg, or Munich).

Teams have recently been awarded marketing rights in markets as far-flung as New Zealand, and there’s a heavy footprint in Europe with six teams getting rights to Austria, nine in the United Kingdom, six in Switzerland, eleven in Germany, six in Ireland, three in Spain, and one in France. That’s also true in Latin and South America on a more nascent basis, where ten teams have rights in Mexico, four in Brazil, and one in Colombia. A limited number of teams are also focused on Africa and Asia, with the Browns and Eagles in Nigeria and Ghana marketing their teams and the Rams in China, Japan, and South Korea.

That’s a long-winded way of saying this Blank isn’t spitballing here, because the league’s efforts to grow the game close to home into Canada and Mexico and further afield into Europe and South America are intentional and will include games in those locales to build excitement and perhaps someday the possibility of teams abroad. We should expect the Falcons to start routinely appearing in games in Europe and other spots around the world in the back half of this decade,