The number of home games NFL teams can protect from being moved to international venues has been shrinking for years. The league’s VP of broadcast planning wants to get it down to zero.
Speaking on a media conference call Friday, Mike North said the league has been having many internal discussions about eliminating home-game protections for international scheduling entirely. Teams currently have the ability to protect two home opponents from being moved overseas — down from four or five in prior years — but North made clear that number may keep shrinking.
“I think there’s a lot of conversation about really just eliminating the protections in their entirety,” North said.
The league is playing nine international games this season, the most in history and the contractual maximum, and the scheduling math gets complicated quickly when teams can block their most attractive opponents. When multiple teams from the same conference — or even the same division — are hosting international games and all play each other at some point during the season, the pool of eligible matchups shrinks fast.
“As soon as you utilize a Baltimore in Rio, you can’t utilize a Baltimore in Europe,” North said. “And if we were gonna schedule Tampa Bay somewhere, then they weren’t eligible for the other places. The options get limited real quick.”
North pointed to Philadelphia and Cincinnati as specific examples of teams that have been on the outside looking in, saying both have gone a long time without an international game despite being eager for the opportunity, and that teams who keep getting blocked out are ultimately being done a disservice.
“And I think those guys are eager, and if they keep getting blocked, they’re not going to get that chance, and I’m not sure that’s the right thing for the fans or for the league.”
Eliminating the protections entirely would not be a surprise given where the league is headed. Roger Goodell has said his goal is to eventually get to 16 international games per season, which would require every team to play one overseas game per year. At that volume, protecting home opponents becomes essentially unworkable, and as North noted, it sends a bad message to the international fans the league is actively trying to cultivate.
“You can’t have a team say, ‘Well, I don’t want my two best games eligible for international,'” North said. “What kind of message does that send to the international fans?”
The league has been eyeing a separate international rights package, and the quality of the matchups in that package matters enormously to its ultimately value. Getting the best possible games overseas is easier if teams cannot keep their best opponents at home.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.