The NFL is coming to the South American continent in 2024. A regular-season game will be played in São Paulo, Brazil next season, according to an announcement made Wednesday at the owners’ meetings in Dallas.
While the teams who will participate have not been revealed, Cowboys fans have already begun wondering if it’s time for their team to update their passports.
The game will be staged at Corinthians Arena, the home stadium of Brazilian soccer club SC Corinthians. The venue has been used in FIFA World Cup play as well as the Olympic Games in recent years. The arena normally has a capacity of just over 49,000, although temporary seating was added in 2014 to accommodate up to 65,000.
“There’s a lot of interest in the NFL,” league executive vice president Peter O’Reilly said during a September interview on The Adam Schefter Podcast. “I mean, we saw it. We did a Super Bowl viewing party last year down in Brazil, and it was packed, and the energy is there.”
In 2024, the NFL will play its first-ever game in Brazil! 🇧🇷
O primeiro jogo da NFL no Brasil será em 2024! 🇧🇷 @NFLBrasil pic.twitter.com/wp5tdCEgEq
— NFL (@NFL) December 13, 2023
The expansion to Brazil is part of an initiative to increase the slate of internationally-played games from four to eight per season in 2025. The NFL’s International Series currently has a regular presence in England, Mexico, and Germany.
Spain was also reportedly a finalist for the 2024 schedule. The city of Madrid, home to iconic soccer club Real Madrid, will continue to be considered as a likely site for future expansion.
But São Paulo mayor Ricardo Nunes claims that Brazil has the third-most NFL fans of any country in the world, behind Mexico and the United States. And the league was almost certainly eager to plant its flag on a new continent before setting up shop in yet another European city.
The Cowboys have not played on foreign soil since their 2014 trip to London to face the Jaguars. (Only the Steelers have gone longer without an international game.) To that end and to fill eight global games each season, owners passed a resolution Wednesday that requires every team to play an international game at least every four years.
Thanks to having an extra home date in 2024, the NFC will be designated as the “home” team for the first-ever Brazilian contest. Given that and their long absence from international play, some might naturally assume that Dallas’s number is up. But team owner Jerry Jones may not be so quick to let his Cowboys become gauchos, even if only for one Sunday, as a home date at AT&T Stadium is seen as too lucrative to just let go without a very compelling reason.
“You’re required to give up a home game, but we’re so committed to Mexico,” Jones explained Tuesday, per the Dallas Morning News. “When we talk about playing away and not having a home game, that would be my first thought. I don’t want to not remember where our design is. If we give up a game, it would be a desire to make it a Mexican game.”
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The Cowboys already have commercial rights in Mexico under the NFL’s global markets program, but the league will not return there in 2024 due to planned renovations to Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.
Theoretically, Dallas could still end up playing in Brazil- or another of the international locations- as the visiting team once 2024’s international matchups are announced.
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