NFL owners are increasingly linking schedule expansion to the league’s push beyond US borders, and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft made clear Tuesday that he expects both to accelerate together.

Speaking during an interview on the Zolak & Bertrand Show on 98.5 The Sports Hub, Kraft said the league is visibly moving toward an 18-game regular season that will be offset by a further reduced preseason slate, before adding that he expects the extra competitive game to result in all 32 franchises committing to playing an overseas game each year.

“I want to tell you guys, we’re going to push like the Dickens now to make international more important with us,” Kraft said. “Every team will go to 18 (regular-season games) and two (preseason games) and eliminate one of the preseason games. Them, every team, every year, will play one game overseas.”

The NFL has already expanded its international footprint, playing a record seven games abroad in 2025 and exploring the possibility of growing to nine in 2026. Commissioner Roger Goodell has previously suggested that a longer regular season could dramatically increase that number, in line with his own ambition of 16 overseas games each year.

“Our goal is to be a global sport,” Goodell insisted at a London fan event last October. “We want to have our game played on a global basis, and we want to bring our game to a global audience. So we’re looking at markets that we’d like to be in, [where] maybe we haven’t [yet] gotten fan development.”

Any move to 18 games would, of course, require positive negotiations with the NFL Players Association. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement runs through 2030, but Kraft expects that discussions could begin much sooner than that. The union agreed to a 17th regular season game in the 2020 CBA, which owners implemented from 2021 and, despite player concerns over the physical strain an 18th game would likely bring, further expansion — with the potential for a second bye week — is thought almost certain to be passed by the purse holders.

Kraft explained that financial growth remains central to the league’s labour strategy, pointing to the NFL’s dominance in television ratings and attendance.

“Part of the reason is so we can continue to grow the cap and keep our labour happy, because we’re sort of getting near the top here,” Kraft said. “Some 93 of the top 100 programmes on television are NFL games. Think about that. It’s really amazing. And then look at the size of our crowds versus the other sports… As long as we can keep growing revenue, we can keep long-term labour peace.”