General view inside the stadium prior to the NFL match between Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on October 02, 2022 in London, England (Getty Images)
The NFL has been doing the former since 2007. The latter would reshape the league’s ownership map, revenue-sharing model, scheduling logistics, and collective bargaining dynamics in ways that all 32 owners would have to agree on collectively. The NFL last added a franchise in 2002, when the Houston Texans joined to bring the league to 32 teams. That is 24 years without expansion — the longest such gap in league history.
Speaking on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, Jones said that while the league’s global footprint keeps growing, an actual team abroad is “pretty far” off. That puts him in direct conflict with Commissioner Roger Goodell, who has publicly declared on multiple occasions that he has “no doubt” the NFL will one day plant permanent roots outside the United States. “I don’t know about an expansion,” he said. He told Prime Video last week that the NFL could eventually welcome more than one international franchise, naming Europe as the most sensible destination. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported that league executives privately consider London the “overwhelming favorite” to land a team, pointing to Wembley Stadium and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as ready-made homes. And when it happens, a commissioner as deliberate as Goodell does not say “no doubt” without laying groundwork first.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones made his position crystal clear this week — he does not believe the NFL will be adding an expansion franchise in Europe anytime soon. Why is Jerry Jones against an NFL expansion team in Europe? Jones did not slam the door entirely, but he was hardly enthusiastic. “I see the games continuing like they are. And I see the ethos, if you will, of the game, the story of the game really expanding all over the world. But fundamentally, to have an expansion team, probably is pretty far. If it’s here, it’s in the future. Read between the lines and you can see what Jones is actually saying. He supports international games as a marketing exercise. He is not opposed to building the brand in London or Berlin or Mexico City. What he resists is the structural step of creating a whole new franchise — a far more complicated, expensive, and politically thorny process than flying a team overseas for a regular-season game. That distinction matters. Playing games abroad and owning a franchise abroad are two entirely different things. Here is where things get interesting. Goodell has been unusually consistent and public about this. At some point, growth becomes inevitable.