One week on, the confetti has been swept from Saint-Denis, but a question still hangs over the city: was the NFL Paris Game a single glamorous Sunday, or the opening chapter of something lasting? The league’s answer, delivered in Paris itself, leaves little room for doubt.
On 25 October, 78,488 spectators watched the Pittsburgh Steelers edge the New Orleans Saints 16-10 at the Stade de France, the first regular-season NFL game ever staged in France, according to the Saints’ official recap and DAZN. We told the story of that afternoon in A Historic Sunday at Stade de France. Today, the more interesting game is being played off the field.
NFL Paris: a promise to return
Speaking at a pregame breakfast in Paris alongside Saints owner Gayle Benson, commissioner Roger Goodell was unequivocal, as reported by New Orleans station FOX 8 and by The Spun.
“So, I have zero doubt that we will have the Saints back.” — Roger Goodell, NFL commissioner
Two days earlier, in an interview with AFP, he had described France as a long-term project rather than a one-off visit. “This is just the beginning,” he said. He also told the agency that the league is playing nine international games this season, and that its ambition is to reach 16, so that every one of the 32 clubs travels abroad each year.
There is, however, no date yet. No future fixture in France has been officially confirmed, DAZN notes, and the league has not announced its international slate for next season. Under the current collective bargaining agreement with the players’ union, the ceiling stands at ten regular-season games outside the United States, FOX 8 reports.
Goodell even let the word “franchise” float over the conversation. Asked by AFP whether Paris could one day have a team of its own, he said yes, adding that a Super Bowl abroad could then become possible too. A long horizon, but a striking one for a city that only met the NFL in competition this autumn.
The Saints, Paris’s adopted team
If the league has a natural partner in France, it is New Orleans. In May 2023 the Saints became the first club granted international marketing rights in France through the NFL’s Global Markets Program, according to Sports Illustrated. The logic is cultural as much as commercial: a city with a French Quarter, a fleur-de-lis on the helmet and three centuries of shared history.
The Saints have also invested at grassroots level. According to Flashscore, the club and the French American Football Federation (FFFA) staged an under-15 flag football tournament near the Eiffel Tower in September, with the winners invited to New Orleans in December to watch a game at the Caesars Superdome.
On the field, the club is catching its breath: at 2-5 after Paris, the Saints went straight into their bye week, the team confirmed.
Flag football and a French office
The quieter legacy may matter most. The NFL now has an office in Paris and has appointed Matthieu Maignal to lead its French operations, DAZN reports. Its youth NFL Flag programme, launched with the FFFA in 2023, counts 16,000 young players, 283 schools and 83 clubs, according to figures from Stratégies cited by DAZN.
The timing is no accident. Flag football, the non-contact version of the game, makes its Olympic debut at Los Angeles 2028, a decision confirmed in October 2023, the NFL recalls. For French teenagers, the road from a school playground to an Olympic podium suddenly looks real.
Brett Gosper, the NFL’s head of Europe and Asia-Pacific, said in a March interview cited by DAZN that the success of a market is measured over several years. Paris has made a dazzling first impression; the NFL House weekend at Pavillon Cambon showed how quickly the capital embraced the game. Now the city waits for its second date.
Sources
- Flashscore / AFP — 2026-10-23
- Flashscore France / AFP — 2026-10-23
- FOX 8 WVUE (via WLOX) — 2026-10-25
- The Spun / Yahoo Sports — 2026-10-25
- New Orleans Saints (official) — 2026-10-25
- New Orleans Saints (official) — 2026-10-26
- DAZN — 2026-10-30
- Sports Illustrated — 2023-05-23
- Flashscore — 2026
- NFL Football Operations — 2023
Cover photo: Photo: Like tears in rain — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
