An exterior view of the Stade de France with NFL branding on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, ahead of Sunday's game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New Orleans Saints.
An exterior view of the Stade de France with NFL branding on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, ahead of Sunday's game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New Orleans Saints.
PARIS — Before Friday arrived and Steelers fans flooded the streets, there was little evidence in recent days that a historic sporting event would take place here this weekend.
Paris, for the most part, looked like Paris. The smell of French bread, fresh coffee and cigarette smoke filled the air. Sure, some neighborhoods had wreckage left behind after protests and riots that made international news. Otherwise, life seemed normal in the French capital.
Many of the residents seemingly had no idea or little care that the NFL had come town.
The Steelers on Sunday play the New Orleans Saints at Stade de France in the first NFL game held on French soil. It is one of nine international games the league will host in 2026.
[Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney II arrives for the NFL owners' meetings Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, in New York.
Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney II arrives for the NFL owners' meetings Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, in New York.](https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/steelers/2026/10/22/nfl-paris-game-protests-security-measures/stories/202610220043)
If you happened to stroll past the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe on Wednesday and Thursday, the only hint of the league’s presence was the occasional tourist wearing a Steelers jersey or a Saints hat.
So what is the NFL doing here anyway? And what is the league’s international endgame?
The answers center on the millions of Parisians who know nothing about America’s most popular sport — and the billions of dollars in potential revenue they represent.
“The NFL has always been keen to grow its brand on an international stage and keen toward growing its brand internationally and become a truly global sport and property,” said Brett Gosper, head of NFL Europe & Asia-Pacific.
It’s why the NFL began playing these international games regularly, has considered the feasibility of putting an NFL team — or teams — in Europe and will push to continue playing more and more games overseas in the years to come.
Global ambitions
The NFL’s first major international foray was NFL Europe, a developmental league that debuted in 1989.
At its peak, NFL Europe featured six teams in England, Germany, the Netherlands, Scotland and Spain. The league’s alumni included Kurt Warner, a Super Bowl champion and future Hall of Fame quarterback. NFL Europe folded after the 2007 season, largely due to a lack of commercial success.
[Steelers fan Collin Heaney and his friend, Berat Kales, enjoy a drink together in Paris.
Steelers fan Collin Heaney and his friend, Berat Kales, enjoy a drink together in Paris.](https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/steelers/2026/10/22/steelers-game-fans-paris-protests-riots/stories/202610220044)
Undeterred, the NFL began to schedule regular-season games overseas.
In 2005, Arizona and San Francisco played in Mexico City, marking the league’s first international regular-season game. The NFL came to Europe two years later, kicking off its “International Series” with a regular-season game in London.
London became a frequent host, and 34 games have now been played there. Sixteen have featured the Jacksonville Jaguars, leading to speculation several years ago that the Jaguars could one day relocate to the capital of England.
The Steelers played in London in 2013. Last year, they hosted a game in Dublin attended by 74,512 fans. Sunday’s matchup in Paris marks their third international football affair.
As in-person attendance and television viewership continued to grow in the London market in particular, the NFL has been inspired to expand across the globe.
Mexico was added back into the fold in 2016 followed by Germany in 2022. The NFL went to Brazil in 2024. Ireland and Spain hosted games last year. Last month, Australia hosted its first game. France is next on the list.
“Playing games internationally is certainly one of the levers the commissioner can pull on to make the game accessible to larger and larger numbers,” said Rick Burton, a professor emeritus of sport management at Syracuse University.
In 2026, the league will play a record nine international games spanning four continents and seven countries. That will up the all-time total to 71.
“There’s definitely now a feeling that if we prioritize a certain number of markets, we know it will get us a certain return over a period of time,” Gosper said.
The NFL reportedly hopes to play 10 international games next fall, meeting the maximum number allowed under the current collective bargaining agreement.
Some believe the NFL plans to push for a maximum of 16 games when the league’s next CBA is negotiated. Friday in Paris, Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said that idea was actually floated in CBA negotiations six years ago.
“The league has a pretty far reach, and there’s more coin to be made,” Rodgers said.
A work in progress
In a back corner of the Moose, a popular sports bar in Paris, a lonely Saints scarf dangles above a restroom door.
That is the only piece of NFL memorabilia found among the decorations, which include the flags of countries and promotional beer posters on the wall. A local soccer game played on the television Wednesday night.
Most patrons walk by the scarf without pausing — a microcosm of the NFL’s standing in Paris.
Abitne Vakilian is one of the few regular patrons of the Moose who recognizes the Saints logo.
The Paris resident loves American football, hosts a French fantasy football podcast and adopted the Steelers as his team in 2014. He’s excited to watch them in his home country on Sunday.
The NFL hopes to develop millions more fans like him.
“There are league fans and then there are avid fans,” Gosper said. “If you’ve got a team, you’re an avid fan.”
Vakilian became curious about American football in the early 2010s, right when the league began to regularly play games in Europe. But finding NFL broadcasts was not easy, and even then he didn’t find them engaging.
In the past decade, the NFL has tried to address that common complaint by creating local broadcasts specifically tailored for these international markets.
The goal is to move up the rankings among sports followed by fans in international markets. There’s no catching soccer, but rating in the top five sports would be a big win.
That’s already the case in some places outside of the U.S.
In Paris? Not so much.
"American football in France is pretty niche,” said Vakilian.
Perhaps another version of the game will change that?
Vakilian began playing flag football soon after he got the American football bug. The NFL believes that growing the sport is critical for international growth.
The league partnered with the International Federation of American Football in 2022, hoping to introduce the sport to youth throughout the globe. Flag football coming to the 2028 Summer Olympics will only boost those efforts.
“They want people to see the greatness of the game, but also to bump into it at the youth sports level so they can walk into it as life-long fans,” Burton said.
NFL Europe, part II?
The NFL’s exploration on the best ways of planting permanent roots in Europe continues.
Chatter about the Jaguars relocating to London has quieted in recent years. And while NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has discussed the concept of a Europe division with four teams in different markets, nothing is imminent.
“It’s not going to be immediate results or quick results,” Steelers owner Art Rooney II, asked about the NFL’s ambitions, told the Post-Gazette. “I think you have to build fan bases over here. I think the games we’ve had the last few years, Dublin and London, the attendance is great. I think we’re getting there.”
There would be significant obstacles to the league expanding overseas.
Owners of an expansion franchise would likely be expected to fund their own stadium. Or, should a current NFL team wish to move to Europe, it would presumably have to pay a sizable relocation fee to the league’s 31 other owners.
The high cost of travel to and from Europe, scheduling logistics, international relations and football’s overall popularity would also factor into the equation.
“You’re looking at a lot of math and calculations to figure out at what point will it not only break even, but make the franchise worth so much more,” Burton said.
Perhaps the time will come when the NFL goes for it. Until then, Gasper says their mission is to turn each international game into a “mini Super Bowl.”
Under normal circumstances, these international games are packed with events leading up to kickoff. They typically range from things like flag football tournaments to concerts with high-profile acts to meet-and-greets with NFL legends.
With the recent civil unrest in Paris, some — but not all — of those planned football-connected events have been canceled. But the NFL says that on Sunday, the show must go on.
France may take time
The atmosphere for this weekend’s game in Paris has been very different from what Steelers fans experienced last fall if they made the trip over to Dublin. Sunday’s game feels like more like an afterthought, especially given the recent events unrest in France.
Throughout the week, the Post-Gazette asked dozens of locals about Sunday’s game. Few were even aware the NFL was in town.
As of Friday afternoon, tickets were still available for the game at Stade de France, which has a capacity of 80,000 for football. The cost of remaining tickets started at $264.
Still, in the stands at Stade de France will be thousands of Steelers and Saints fans who traveled across the globe to watch history. The city of Paris will bring in tourism dollars. The NFL will get more eyeballs on its product.
“This thing is not going to grow overnight,” Gosper said. “… The return on investment will come in the medium term, not in the short term.”
The NFL’s work is already underway in Europe, with South America and Australia also in focus. Asia figures to be the next frontier.
The league will try to build on the success it has experienced in markets such as Mexico City, London, Berlin and Munich.
But it still not stop until there are more NFL fans, bigger broadcasts overseas and a bunch of NFL memorabilia hanging next to that Saints scarf inside the Moose.
“It’s the early days,” Gosper said. “But we’re confident in our strategy.”
Post-Gazette reporter Gerry Dulac contributed to this report.
First Published: October 24, 2026, 1:00 a.m.