The NFL has never sent this many games abroad in a single season. Nine matchups, four continents, seven countries, eight stadiums — the league’s 2026 International Games slate runs from 10 September through 22 November, and for the first time it includes stops in Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro, and Paris alongside the now-familiar London, Madrid, and Munich fixtures. Planning around it looks a little like planning any major sports trip, and for fans who like to follow a matchup’s build-up as closely as its kickoff, that increasingly means checking team news and betting markets on a platform like bizbet somewhere in the same pre-trip routine as booking flights and hotels. For a travel-minded fan base, this expansion turns an entire season into something closer to a moving international tour.
Where the 2026 slate actually goes
The season opens about as far from home as it gets. San Francisco 49ers versus Los Angeles Rams kicks off at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 11 September local time — 10 September in the US, on the other side of the international date line — marking the NFL’s first-ever regular-season game on Australian soil. From there it’s on to Rio de Janeiro on 27 September. Then a three-week stretch in London. Single stops follow in Paris, Madrid, Munich, and Mexico City before the international portion wraps up in late November.
A handful of specifics define this year’s expanded schedule:
● Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro, and Paris all host their first-ever NFL regular-season games in 2026
● London hosts three separate games this season, extending its run as the league’s most-visited international market
● Madrid’s Estadio Santiago Bernabéu hosts an NFL game for a second consecutive year, with the Bengals facing the Falcons on 8 November
● Munich’s Allianz Arena hosts the Patriots against the Lions in Week 10, continuing Germany’s run as one of the NFL’s strongest overseas markets
New cities mean new logistics for travelling fans
Melbourne and Rio de Janeiro present a genuinely different kind of trip than the now well-worn London or Munich routes. Both sit outside the travel patterns most NFL-following fans have built up over years of European away games, which generally means longer flights and a less familiar set of logistics around getting to and from the stadium itself. Paris falls somewhere in between — well-connected by European travel standards, but new enough to NFL tourism that local arrangements around the game are still being worked out for the first time this season.
The table below compares travel considerations across three of this year’s host cities.
| City | Distance from US (approx.) | First NFL game |
| Melbourne | 16-17 hour flights from US West Coast | 2026 (debut) |
| London | 7-8 hour flights from US East Coast | 2007 (established) |
| Rio de Janeiro | 9-10 hour flights from US East Coast | 2026 (debut) |
What a game-day trip abroad actually involves
Travelling for an international NFL game tends to follow a fairly predictable shape regardless of destination. Booking flights and accommodation early helps, since hotel availability in host cities tends to tighten once fixtures are confirmed. Stadium logistics can differ from a typical US game day too, since several international venues weren’t originally built around NFL-scale traffic flow or tailgating culture, meaning local transit sometimes plays a bigger role in getting fans to and from the ground than parking does. General travel advice for these fixtures tends to recommend arriving a day or two early, giving enough room to navigate unfamiliar transit systems without a kickoff deadline hanging overhead. That same pre-trip window is often when fans line up the rest of their setup too — travel documents, tickets, and for some, going through a bizbet download so the app is ready to go well before they land rather than something to sort out once they’re already jet-lagged in a new city. None of that changes the basic travel math, though: the earlier the planning starts, the fewer surprises show up once the trip is actually underway.
Why the international slate keeps growing
The NFL’s push into new markets isn’t incidental. Sixty-two regular-season games have now been played outside the United States since the series began in 2007, and the league has stated an explicit long-term ambition to keep expanding its Global Markets Program into additional countries. Each new market added — Melbourne and Rio this year, Dublin and Madrid in recent seasons before that — tends to bring its own wave of first-time international attendees, layered on top of the fans who already travel internationally every season regardless of destination.
A season that doubles as a travel itinerary
Put it all together and the 2026 International Games slate stops looking like a handful of standalone away games. It’s closer to a full travel season, stretched across four continents. Want a well-trodden London weekend? That’s on offer. A first-of-its-kind stadium debut in Melbourne or Rio? Also on the table. Whichever stop gets picked, the planning fundamentals barely change — book early, expect unfamiliar logistics, and treat the travel itself as part of the experience, not an afterthought tacked onto the game.