NFL owners voted Tuesday to eliminate teams’ ability to protect home opponents from being scheduled for international games.

Until now, teams could shield two home matchups per year from being moved abroad. That number had already been cut down significantly — teams once had the ability to protect four or five home opponents — and the league has been chipping away at it for years. Now, it’s zero.

The NFL is also eliminating teams’ ability to protect games against specific home opponents from being played abroad. Until now, teams could protect two home games each year. https://t.co/utRnTQaEaA

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) May 19, 2026

Owners also voted to raise the cap on international games from eight to 10 starting in 2027, per NFL EVP Peter O’Reilly. That cap doesn’t account for the Jaguars’ annual game at Wembley Stadium, which sits outside the standard international series framework under a separate agreement the team has held with the league for years. Add that in, and the NFL could play as many as 11 games overseas in 2027.

NFL EVP Peter O’Reilly announces that owners voted through a measure to increase the cap on international games from eight to 10 in 2027. That doesn’t include the Jags’ game at Wembley, so we could have 11 international games next year.

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) May 19, 2026

The protection change is the more consequential of the two. As Mike North explained on a media call last week, teams tend to protect their best opponents, which quickly limits what the league can send overseas. Once Baltimore gets used in one market, it’s off the table for the others. Teams like Philadelphia and Cincinnati, which have been eager for international appearances, kept getting squeezed out because their opponents kept protecting games against them.

“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 is playing nine international games in 2026 across seven countries, already the most in history and surpassing the previous cap. Ten is a step forward, but it’s not where the league wants to end up. Goodell has said his target is 16 international games per season — one for every team — and you can’t really run a protection system in a world where every team is going overseas every year.

Getting rid of it now is the logical move, but it also makes financial sense for the league.

The NFL has been targeting a dedicated international rights package worth potentially billions, separate from its domestic deals. The value of that package comes down to the quality of the games it contains, and teams shielding their best opponents have been an obstacle to putting together a compelling slate.

With the protections gone, the league can finally put its best games in that package starting in 2027.

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ORLANDO — The NFL’s pursuit of global domination has taken a critical procedural step.

Team owners on Tuesday at the league’s spring meeting approved a plan that will increase the maximum number of league-run international games beginning with the 2027 season from eight to 10. The NFL is all but certain to hit that upper limit next year, particularly given its keen interest in staging more non-U.S. games. 

With the Jaguars’ separate agreement to play part of their home schedule in the U.K., the total number of international games next year could ultimately reach 11, but that would require a supplemental agreement with the NFL Players Association. 

Regardless of how that nets out, the NFL is set to move beyond the league-record nine such contests planned for 2026. As it does so, the league will focus primarily on existing global markets, but also potentially include new ones that the NFL is looking to develop.

“We’re in the process of exploring what ’27 looks like and there’s a path to 10 [international games] in 2027,” said NFL EVP Peter O’Reilly. “There’s some new markets that we’re looking at … parts of the world that we’re also looking at, maybe not 2027 but beyond. Asia would be an example of that. Japan would be an example within that. It’s a market that has complexity, like Australia does this year, from a time-zone perspective, but is an important part of the world for the league.”

All Fair Game

Parallel to that, the NFL also approved Tuesday a rule in which teams can no longer protect any home opponents on its schedule from being designated as international games. Teams previously could protect up to two games each year from being allocated for international play. 

Beyond the league’s worldwide ambitions, that move was made to help give its schedule makers maximum flexibility in developing the overall slate each year.

Elephant in the Room

Like many other parts of league business, the accelerating international push also intersects directly with the league’s desire to ultimately play an 18-game regular season. Team owners such as the Patriots’ Robert Kraft have openly talked about their aim for an 18-game schedule. That enlarged plan would include two bye weeks for each team, and also open up additional inventory to create a 16-game international slate each season in which every team would play globally. 

The NFLPA remains reluctant at best toward the prospect of the expanded regular-season schedule, but the global expansion is one of the foremost underpinnings in management’s push on this topic.

Should some sort of agreement develop there, though, it’s also uncertain whether the NFL would immediately push from 10 international games annually to 16, or pursue a more gradual path.

“That’s all part of the conversation,” O’Reilly said. “We’re evaluating every year, and I can envision any of those scenarios.”

The NFL’s International plans, meanwhile, dovetail with the newly expanded Netflix media rights deal that includes worldwide distribution. 

Full Steam With Flag

The NFL, meanwhile, continues to advance on plans to begin play in a newly formed professional flag football league, operated in conjunction with TMRW Sports. The league and TMRW intend to have the men’s and women’s leagues up and running in 2027.

That pro-level effort runs along with continued development of the sport at the scholastic and amateur levels, including the planned competition at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

“We’re seeing continued momentum across the board surrounding flag,” O’Reilly said.

The post NFL Moves Closer to 10 International Games—and Could Hit 11 appeared first on Front Office Sports.