Japan has emerged as the NFL’s next preferred International Series destination as the league attempts to turn a collection of overseas games into a genuinely global regular season calendar.

Commissioner Roger Goodell identified the country when asked by Sportico which international market he would most like the league to enter next. His answer, however, made clear that Japan forms part of a considerably broader map.

“Not one, I’ve got about 10,” Goodell said, before explaining his preferences. “We had a game in Tokyo, but it was a preseason game so we want to do a regular season game now.”

That would make any future visit a return rather than an introduction. The NFL staged a dozen preseason games at the Tokyo Dome between 1989 and 2005 as part of its former American Bowl series, while Osaka also hosted the league on occasion, although never with a game carrying consequences for the standings.

Goodell’s comments move that prospect back into view without providing a date or confirming that negotiations with a city, venue or government have advanced. Indeed, league executive Peter O’Reilly suggested in May that Japan was unlikely to join the schedule as early as 2027. The interest nevertheless reflects a clear change in the geography of the NFL’s international ambitions. London remains its most established overseas base and European expansion continues, but the league is now moving decisively across the Pacific.

The 2026 season will open with the first NFL regular-season game in Australia, as the Los Angeles Rams face the San Francisco 49ers at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It is one of a record nine international fixtures spread across seven countries and four continents this coming season, with Paris and Melbourne joining the calendar for the first time and Rio de Janeiro replacing São Paulo as the league’s Brazilian host. Japan would extend that route into Asia, fulfilling the ambition Goodell outlined while discussing the Melbourne game in 2025.

“I think we’ll get to Asia pretty soon,” he said at the time. “I think we can be worldwide with our game.”

The Rams provide the most obvious bridge. Los Angeles holds commercial rights in Japan through the NFL’s Global Markets Program, as it does with Australia, allowing the franchise to pursue sponsorships, fan events, merchandise sales and other promotional activity that would ordinarily be restricted outside its domestic territory.

Those rights do not guarantee that the Rams would participate in a Japanese game, but the programme is designed to develop precisely the kind of local connection that can eventually support one. The franchise also holds rights in China, Mexico, New Zealand and South Korea, making it central to the league’s Pacific strategy.

L.A’s Week 1 meeting with San Francisco in Melbourne will test several of the issues that a Japanese fixture would present. Long-distance travel, a substantial time difference and recovery after returning to the United States all complicate scheduling beyond the challenges encountered in Europe — especially as Goodell previously confirmed that the teams travelling to Australia would not receive an immediate bye.

Japan would be somewhat less distant from the United States’ west coast than Melbourne, but it would still require careful placement within the schedule. The most natural broadcast window for a daytime game in Tokyo would fall during the previous evening in America, creating possibilities for a standalone audience but also placing further demands upon participating teams.

The NFL has given itself additional room to pursue such markets. Owners voted in May to permit as many as 10 league-operated international games from 2027, up from eight, while also removing teams’ ability to protect two home fixtures from being moved abroad.

The league’s longer-term ambition, however, is to reach 16 overseas games per season, enough for every franchise to make one international appearance each year. That cannot happen under the existing collective bargaining agreement, which limits the NFL to 10, and would therefore need to form part of future negotiations with the NFL Players Association. Moving from nine to 16 games would also require more than a succession of new host announcements, and the league must decide which markets can support repeat visits, how many home games teams can reasonably surrender and whether its increasingly elaborate travel demands remain competitively fair.

O’Reilly has insisted that the aim is to establish durable relationships rather than briefly occupy a city before moving elsewhere.

“There’s a path to 10 [international games] in 2027,” O’Reilly said following the spring meeting. “Our strategy is not one and done [but] to go back to those markets that we’re establishing.”

That principle may delay Japan even as it strengthens the country’s long-term case. The NFL is already committed to maintaining games in established territories while consolidating newer ventures in Brazil, Ireland, Spain, France and Australia. With only one additional league-operated slot available in 2027, revisiting those locations could take precedence over another debut.

The league nonetheless has advantages in Japan that were absent in several of its newer markets. American football has an organised domestic structure there, while the country has previously supported both the NFL’s American Bowl games and the Japan Bowl, a college all-star fixture which ran from 1976 to 1993. The first Japan Bowl drew 68,000 spectators to Tokyo’s National Stadium.

Japan also offers major enclosed venues, an affluent commercial market and a history of successfully staging North American sports events. What the NFL must establish is whether residual interest from its preseason era can be converted into sustained demand for the modern league.