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NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is any number of things, subtle not among them. So when Goodell drops the most obvious hints in the world that the league will schedule a game in Berlin next year, let’s all save ourselves some trouble and just book it.
“I usually say don’t believe rumors,” the commish intoned during a fan event in Munich last weekend, just ahead of the Giants-Panthers game there. “In this case, I say believe them.”
Believe this, too: Goodell and his NFL owner pals aren’t going to stop. Their international push is really just now gathering steam, and an 18-game regular season is going to be swinging into view before you know it.
And while we’re on the subject, what makes 17 or 18 a sacred number? Isn’t 20 nicer and rounder?
It sure is. Also (whispers)…richer.
The master plan is starting to roll out. The NFL is playing five international games this season, but that will grow to eight games abroad in 2025 — and that’s nowhere near what Goodell and the people for whom he fronts are ultimately planning.
As reported by The Athletic, Goodell wants the NFL to play 16 international games each year, once the league’s regular-season schedule grows to 18 games. Goodell wants an 18-game schedule as soon as he can get it. And if that seems like a quick pivot to you, you’re right: It was only in 2021 that the league expanded to 17 games, after having been set on 16 since 1978.
But, you know, $$$$. Goodell sees the 18-game schedule as both a certainty and another financial windfall from media rights partners who’ll quickly saddle up to add that extra week of broadcasts.
The leader of the NFL Players Association has already signaled a willingness to have this conversation before the 2030 expiration of the current labor contract, so you can fairly assume that 18 games is going to happen pretty quick.
It won’t be seamless, of course. For one thing, players are likely to push for two bye weeks instead of one, so that the 18 games are actually spread across 20 weeks. (This also feels necessary if the expansion of international assignments kicks in at about the same time.)
The players union is also going to want a healthier slice of the revenue pie. The Associated Press noted last summer that the players’ share of league revenue increased from 47% to 48% starting in 2021, then kicked up to 48.5% when the schedule grew to 17 games. The union undoubtedly would want to see that figure upped to at least 50% if it adds an 18th game.
And where would the league find room on the calendar for an 18th game and a second bye week? Most likely, that space would have to be carved out of the pre-season schedule, meaning teams would play only two practice games.
Not every coach loves that. As Detroit’s Dan Campbell told the AP, “If you reduce a preseason game, you have all these young guys you’re trying to develop — and you have to have them every year. You look at what we were able to do with some of our young guys last year, and how important they were to us winning, but there’s a process to it…That’s what you lose.”
That is a completely legitimate concern. But you might have to push aside a few piles of money to get to it.
Once the NFL gets to roughly five straight months of regular-season scheduling, it could actually start leaning toward the college model in terms of prep. College football programs don’t do pre-season games; they get their heavy work via spring intra-squads. It’s not out of the question that the NFL would eventually just bag its pre-season games, about which fans don’t much care but networks insist upon.
A beefed-up regular-season schedule would take up that calendar slack with games that count. And if the NFL and its media partners did everything right, they could also land the Super Bowl itself on Presidents’ Day weekend.
That would be the owners’ dream: a Monday off following the big game, which they could pretend was some sort of NFL holiday. The checks would cash. And that’s about all the calculation that the league and its commissioner are going to consider.
Mark Kreidler is a national award-winning writer whose work has appeared at ESPN, the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek and dozens of other publications. He’s also a sports-talk veteran with stops in San Francisco and Sacramento, and the author of three books, including the bestselling “Four Days to Glory.” More of his writing can be found at https://markkreidler.substack.com. He is also reachable on Twitter @MarkKreidler.
