Roger Goodell targets expansion to 18 games within five years

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wants to stage 16 international games per year. He has tied that development to having 18 regular-season games.

So when will there be 18 regular-season games? That will be driven by when the NFL wants to expand to 16 international games.

“We hope to be 16 [international games] within five years,” Goodell said Thursday at Liberty Media’s investor day, via Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal. Goodell also confirmed that expanding to 16 international games will require increasing the regular season to 18 games.

“We’re looking at a change from the 17-and-three format to maybe 18 regular season games and two preseason games,” Goodell said. “And that will open up more inventory to allow us to play more globally.”

Technically, there are 16 games that currently could be exported. With 17 games per year per team, each franchise could play eight traditional home games, eight traditional road games, and one neutral-site game. And with 32 teams playing one neutral-site game each, that's 16 total neutral-site games.

So, frankly, the NFL wants to expand to 18 regular-season games because it wants to expand to 18 regular-season games. Tying it to more international games is convenient, but hardly dispositive.

And after 18 will come 19 and, in time, 20. Mark my words, and I hope I live long enough to not eat them.

To expand to 18 games within five years, the NFL and NFL Players Association would have to strike a deal short of the expiration of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement. However, they can revise their agreement whenever they want; for example, they basically re-did the current CBA only months after it was signed, due to the pandemic.

The players have more leverage if it happens before the 2031 termination of the existing CBA. The owners' hammer is to lock the players out. Before the contract expires, the owners can't lock the players out — and the players can hold firm and ask for more.

Sixteen international games and 18 regular-season games also would land just in time for the current TV deals to end, if the NFL exercises its prerogative to pull the plug on all broadcast contracts after the 2029 season.

And, given what the NBA recently received, the NFL absolutely will pull said plug.