NFL announces 2019 international games; Patriots will stay in the United States

Over the years, the NFL has grown to a product that reaches an audience far beyond the United States’. The league, ever trying to increase its revenue reach, has reacted accordingly and in 2007 held its first regular season contest abroad. By the end of the 2018 season, a total of 27 games will have been played on international soil — the vast majority of which in the United Kingdom: London has hosted 24 regular season games.

The international market clearly is one that the NFL wants to reach, and playing in London has proved to be an easy way of doing that (even though the games played there have not always been up to the level of other regular season matchups). In late October, the NFL therefore announced that it will play four games in the city during the 2019 season. Furthermore, one game in Mexico City will also take place again.

Yesterday, the league announced its five international matchups for next year:

One of the 10 teams to play internationally next year was already known: the Jacksonville Jaguars, who again will lose one of their home games to play in London. What the announcement also shows is that the New England Patriots will not travel internationally next year. The team was seen as a prime candidate especially to play in London due to its international appeal and the fact that it last appeared in a game in the city in 2012.

The Patriots’ last contest outside of the United States took place in 2017, when the team blew out the Oakland Raiders 33-8 in Mexico. New England also won both of its previous games in London (2009, 2012) in blowout fashion and by a combined score of 80-14.