How the NFL Organizes International Games and Manages Overseas Logistics

The New Orleans Saints are scheduled to host the Pittsburgh Steelers on October 25, 2026, at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, just north of Paris, in what the league has called the first NFL regular-season game in France. The matchup has drawn heavy search interest partly because of the novelty of a game in Paris, and partly because of unrest in the city in the days before kickoff.

Why the Paris Game Is in the News Now

According to Fox News' OutKick, widespread unrest broke out across France on Saturday, October 17, when marches that drew between roughly 500,000 and 800,000 people turned into clashes with police, looting and property destruction; the outlet reported that the historic city hall in Limoges was set on fire and that arrest figures climbed from about 1,000 to 1,800 nationwide, including 855 in the Paris region.

An NFL source told OutKick that the league is working with local authorities and that a change of venue could be considered if conditions warranted it. In statements to CBS Sports, the NFL said preparations were continuing as scheduled for the October 25 game at Stade de France and that, as with every NFL game including its international games, the league was working closely with local authorities and partners on operational and security matters.

Saints spokesman Greg Bensel told Fox8/WVUE that the club concurred with the NFL's statement and was planning to play the game, adding that the team's football-operations and security staff had been in France for several days and had seen no disruption or impact at any team site. OutKick also reported that a full relocation would be logistically difficult on short notice: the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans is already booked for October 25, while Pittsburgh's Acrisure Stadium appeared to be open that date.

How the League Decides Where to Play Abroad

International games are not scheduled ad hoc. Under the 2021 collective bargaining agreement, the league expanded the regular season to 17 games and committed to at least four neutral-site games every year starting in 2022, according to Wikipedia's sourced history of the NFL International Series. The NFL's own football-operations site states that the 2026 season features nine regular-season games across four continents, seven countries and eight stadiums, following 62 prior games played outside the United States.

Per Wikipedia, the AFC and NFC alternate which conference plays nine home games in a given year; clubs assigned that extra, or "ninth," home date are the ones eligible to be sent abroad, so no team loses a home game to international play without another club's conference absorbing the swap. The league has said it plans to expand to as many as 10 international games in 2027.

Team assignments are tied to the Global Markets Program, launched in January 2022, which the NFL's operations site describes as granting clubs marketing and commercial rights in designated foreign territories. All 32 teams now hold rights across 22 international markets, with Italy added in 2026. The Saints received marketing rights to France in 2023 — the first such rights granted to any NFL club in that country — which the team has cited as the basis for being chosen to play the Paris game, first announced on February 2, 2026.

2026 International Game Markets

Moving a Team — and Its Equipment — Across an Ocean

Overseas games require moving far more than players. For the league's first game in Brazil, ESPN reported that each participating team shipped roughly 40,000 pounds of equipment using a three-part strategy: an ocean cargo ship sent in early June carried bulky, non-urgent items such as pylons, goalposts and benches; a shared cargo plane brought sideline game-day gear mid-week; and the teams themselves flew on individual wide-body aircraft, with one club's flight lasting 10 hours 40 minutes.

ESPN reported that every shipped item needed an ATA Carnet — described as a kind of customs "passport for merchandise" — listing manufacturer, materials and quantities, a process that took weeks to complete and required players to complete a mandatory "passport day" during minicamp. ESPN also reported that teams relied on hotel kitchens and chefs to prepare meals to the clubs' nutritional standards rather than shipping prepared food, while separately coordinating on permitted snacks and beverages.

Scheduling has also evolved around jet lag. Wikipedia's account of the International Series notes that from 2007 to 2015, teams playing in London automatically received their bye week immediately afterward; after some experimentation — including the Indianapolis Colts voluntarily skipping that arrangement in 2016 — the league restored the immediate post-game bye for all international games, including Mexico City, from 2018 onward. Wikipedia notes that Mexico City sits in the Central time zone, within two hours of every NFL team's home time zone, which is cited as the reason that a recovery bye is not strictly necessary for games there.

Security Is Handled Case by Case

The Paris situation illustrates that the NFL's international security approach is not a single fixed plan but a standing coordination process applied market by market. In its statements to CBS Sports and OutKick, the league has described its response to the French unrest as consistent with how it handles every game, while also leaving open the possibility of a late venue change if local authorities' assessment changes. As of the most recent statements reviewed for this article, both the NFL and the Saints said the Paris game was still planned to go ahead on October 25.