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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed that the American football league is poised to return to Mexico City for one game of the 2025 season. It would be the sixth regular-season game in Mexico and the first since 2022.
American football has enjoyed increasing popularity in Mexico over the past two decades, and Mexican fans bought hundreds of tickets to the 2024 SuperBowl, more than any other country outside the U.S.
All five previous NFL games were played in Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca but the iconic stadium was unavailable this year as it is undergoing renovations ahead of the 2026 World Cup.
The arena is a preferred destination for the NFL, but hosting a game next season depends on the venue being in optimum condition following the 900 million-peso (US $44 million) makeover.
The renovation effort is scheduled to be completed before the end of next year which means any game in Mexico City would have to be later in the NFL season.
No date for the game has been suggested as yet, and it could still be called off: The league does not take chances with player safety, as evidenced by the cancellation of a game in Estadio Azteca back in 2018 because of poor field conditions.
VUELVA LA NFL A MÉXICO? 👀#RogerGoodell acaba de decir este domingo en NFL Network que esperan 8 partidos internacionales en 2025, y mencionó a México como una de las sedes.
Los lugares serían: Londres, España, Brasil, Ciudad de México, Alemania y posiblemente Dublín, Irlanda.… pic.twitter.com/1forqCGEJw
— Bye Week 🎙 (@podbyeweek) November 10, 2024
Ahead of last Sunday’s NFL game in Germany, Goodell told NFL Network’s Colleen Wolfe that the league is looking to play at least eight games outside of the United States in 2025 after NFL team owners voted last December to authorize the league to host up to eight international games each season.
“We are definitely going to Spain, we announced that,” Goodell said from Allianz Arena in Munich. “We expect to return to Mexico City. We expect to return to Brazil. We will certainly be back in the U.K. And we’re also looking at the potential of another game … in Ireland, possibly. … And we’ll certainly be back here in Germany.”
The league hosted five international games this season in London, Munich and Brazil.
Previous NFL games in Mexico
The largest crowd in NFL history was recorded at a preseason exhibition game on Aug. 15, 1994, in Mexico City when 112,376 people filled Estadio Azteca to watch the Houston Oilers defeat the Dallas Cowboys 6-0.
The first-ever regular season NFL game held outside the United States took place in Mexico City in 2005 and attracted 103,467 spectators, setting a record for attendance at a regular season game.
Before that, from 1986 to 2005, the NFL staged 40 preseason exhibition games in cities outside the United States, including London, Tokyo, Montreal, West Berlin, Barcelona, Dublin and Sydney.
With reports from Infobae and NFL.com