Roger Goodell envisions more overseas games, more streaming and more cities hosting the NFL Draft

Detroit —NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Thursday night that he expects the number of international competitions to increase significantly in the coming years.

“Honestly, I think if you retire for 10 years, we’ll play 16 games internationally,” Goodell said in an ESPN TV interview. “I think we’ll try to do eight or nine in the next couple of years.”

The 2024 league will have three matches in England, one in Germany and one in Brazil.

“Every time we play in a new market, the response from the fans has been incredible,” Goodell said, “so we’ll continue to play in London, we’ll continue to play in Germany and I hope to continue to play in Brazil. We will be back in Mexico, but there are many other markets – obviously, we’re going to Spain next year, we’ve planned for that – but there are many markets that want us to be involved there and we’re actively looking at them, exploring them.”

Goodell also said that streaming is here to stay.

“As you know, we strive for maximum possible distribution. We want to make our games available to the largest audience possible,” Goodell said. “But I think streaming platforms give us more interaction There are more opportunities to broadcast alternatives If fans want to interact, they can interact more

“So we’re really happy with our Thursday night package on Amazon Prime YouTube introduced Sunday Ticket this year Again, huge growth and I think the fans are really loving it Across each platform, our average audience has shrunk by eight to ten year, so we need to reach a lot of people and that is why we are investing.”

Goodell also said the league will continue to rotate the draft between different cities, as it has done since the 2015 draft moved from New York City. The only exception is 2020, which was virtual due to the pandemic.

This year’s draft was held in Detroit. It will be held in Green Bay next year.

“We have a lot of communities that want to draft, and I think we’re going to continue to try to change it up and share with other communities and engage the fans, but we’re always trying to invent something new every year,” Goodell said.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL