This past season alone, we saw NFL games played in three different countries thanks to the league’s International Series. But in the future, we could see a game played in a continent previously not visited by the league.
This coming 2024-25 season only adds to the list of different continents the league will have played in. Week One game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers in São Paulo, Brazil will mark the first ever game played in South America.
According to Peter O’Reilly, the NFL’s head of international affairs, the league is “looking into” a potential game in Australia in the near future.
“Australia is among a set, and it’s not a small set of markets, that we’re looking at,” Reilly said Tuesday, via the Associated Press.
It’s not exactly that big of a surprise that Australia may be on the list of potential destinations when you consider the league recently announced that an NFL Academy will open on the Gold Coast in Australia in September. So they are very clearly trying to grow the popularity of the sport in that region.
Australia is of course known to be a die-hard Rugby country. But we’ve seen players like Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman Jordan Mailata make the transition from rugby to professional football.
We could very well see even more athletes make that same transition in coming years. Especially if the league does indeed decide to host a game in the country in the near future.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.