New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has called for the NFL to expand its regular season to 18 games once again amid his desire for each team to play one international fixture per year.
It is no secret that Kraft, 84, wants the league to introduce an 18-game season which would include 16 international games annually.
And amid negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement, the billionaire Patriots chief has reiterated his hope for the NFL to add one more regular game to its schedule as soon as possible.
‘In our new labor agreement, I hope we go to 18 games and two preseason games,’ Kraft told Lachlan Cartwright of Vanity Fair.
‘And then if we do that, it would allow us to hopefully go to 16 international games, so we would have every team every year play an international game, which would be built mainly through a streaming audience.’
The NFL is continuing to ramp up its International Series every year, with seven overseas games taking place in 2025 and a record nine penciled in for the 2026 season.
It has also flirted with the possibility of expanding to an 18-game regular season for some time, a move which would further maximize the league’s revenue, although commissioner Roger Goodell played it down earlier this year.
‘We have not had any formal discussions about it and frankly very little of any informal conversations,’ Goodell said on Super Bowl week.
‘It is not a given that we will do that. It’s not something we assume will happen. It’s something we want to talk about with the union leadership.’
The potential expansion of the regular season hinges on when a new labor agreement is finalized.
The current agreement is due to expire in March 2031, yet even if a new one is locked in before then, the NFL would only be able to introduce an 18th game by 2028 at the earliest, given the next two Super Bowls have already been scheduled for mid-February.
Expanding the regular season and the number of international games would result in a significant change to the schedule, which could see the season either start earlier or the Super Bowl take place later.