Two days before the NFL’s first regular-season game in France, Commissioner Roger Goodell went to the Élysée Palace. Goodell, Saints owner Gayle Benson and Steelers owner Art Rooney II met with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Friday, Oct. 23, to talk about Sunday’s game at the Stade de France and what the Saints called “the long-term future of the NFL in France.”
The meeting lasted about two hours, according to New Orleans columnist Jeff Duncan, and covered both the plans for Sunday and ways the league could grow in the country. Neither the league nor the French presidency released details of what was said.
Saints Owner Gayle Benson, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Steelers Owner Art Rooney II met with French President Emmanuel Macron today at the Élysée Palace in Paris to discuss Sunday’s game and the long-term future of the NFL in France 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/KeHaULEmlW
— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) October 23, 2026
A busy week at the Élysée
The visit came on a heavy day for Macron. He chaired a defence and national security council on Friday morning, met with high school students and student organizations in the afternoon, and was due to visit police forces in Paris in the evening, ahead of another nationwide day of protests on Saturday. France has been shaken since early October by protests over the cost of living and the state of the country’s schools, and the government has said 70,000 police officers and gendarmes will be deployed on Saturday. Our Paris weekend report has the latest on the security plan, the closed fan festival and the Steelers’ canceled walk-through.
The league has said all week that the game will go ahead. Goodell said on Wednesday that his comfort level with the security plan was “very high,” that he had spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and that the league was “involved at the highest levels” with French and U.S. officials. “We’re guests in the country, we’re going to be good guests,” he said. Peter O’Reilly, the executive vice president in charge of international games, said moving the game had never been close to being discussed. Cathy Lanier, the NFL’s chief security officer, has been in Paris with the league’s events team.
Goodell said Friday that the Saints are “the perfect team” for the game “because of their connection obviously to France, and they take such great pride in that,” and called the Steelers “a global brand” with fans worldwide. Pittsburgh played in the NFL’s first game in Ireland last season, beating the Vikings at Croke Park in Dublin, while all three of New Orleans’ previous international games were in London.
Goodell: Tokyo is “clearly on our list”
Earlier on Friday, in an interview from Paris with Gregg Rosenthal and Jourdan Rodrigue, Goodell said the next new stop could be Japan. “Listen, Tokyo is clearly on our list, whether it’s next year or the year after,” he said. “It’s coming at some point in the near future.”
“We’re going to continue to focus on our priority markets, which a lot of them they’ve been in, but there are other cities; this year, we went to Rio rather than São Paulo,” Goodell said. He pointed to the Week 1 game in Melbourne, where the 49ers beat the Rams, as proof that the league can manage long trips. “On a Friday morning at 10:30, to have 100,000 people in the stadium, it was just an incredible feeling for us. I think it’s opened up new opportunities for us,” he said. “The travel is something we think we can manage and do it without impacting negatively on the teams.”
“We’re planning on playing global. That’s where we’re going,” he added.
Japan would be a new country for a regular-season game but not new ground for the league. The NFL played 14 preseason games there from 1976 to 2005, all but one in Tokyo, the last a Falcons-Colts game in August 2005. The Rams hold the marketing rights in Japan under the league’s Global Markets Program.
Up to 10 games in 2027
Goodell’s comments follow what O’Reilly told reporters at the fall owners meeting in New York on Tuesday: the league is “considering going up to 10” international games next season, the most the current labor deal allows. This season has a record nine, with three in London and one each in Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Madrid, Munich and Mexico City. Melbourne, Rio and Paris are all first-time hosts. More from that meeting is in our fall meeting report and in Goodell’s closing news conference.
After Sunday, the international schedule moves on to Bengals-Falcons in Madrid on Nov. 8, Patriots-Lions in Munich on Nov. 15 and Vikings-49ers in Mexico City on Nov. 22. Steelers-Saints kicks off Sunday at 9:30 a.m. Eastern, with Burna Boy at halftime.
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