Brazilian officials who helped win the bid for the first-ever NFL game in South America are in discussions with the league about securing a long-term contract in which Brazil could host as many as two games a year.
The discussions are happening as the NFL seeks to finalize its slate of international games in 2025. Commissioner Roger Goodell said in November that the league is shooting for eight games next season and that he expects Brazil to be among the hosting countries.
Gustavo Pires, the president of São Paulo tourism, said neither contingent is ruling out signing another one-year contract — a deal with a deadline of February or March. But Pires said they are developing plans for a four-year, five-year or six-year deal that secures more continuity and investment in their country’s efforts to establish a market for the game.
“In a long-term contract, we can work together with the NFL to make the sport even bigger in Brazil and increase job and income generation with every game,” Pires told The Athletic in a written statement.
The NFL did not respond to two requests for comment on Wednesday afternoon.
Such a multi-year deal wouldn’t be unprecedented. The Jacksonville Jaguars will return to London’s Wembley Stadium in 2025 for their 14th time within a long-term commitment. The NFL also voiced its interest in returning to Brazil before the Eagles-Packers matchup was played in São Paulo. “The vision is not a one-and-done,” Peter O’Reilly, the league’s head of international affairs, told The Athletic in June.
A sellout crowd at Arena Corinthians and a regional viewership that totaled nearly 3 million on an online stream alone confirmed there was enough Brazilian interest in American football for the NFL to pursue a second game at the very least. A long-term contract would signal a significant belief by the league that its payoff in Brazil is sustainable.
Pires said he will be attending Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans as a guest of the NFL. Pires delivered the Brazilian delegation’s first game proposal to Goodell during the Bills-Jaguars game in London in Oct. 2023. Goodell had asked Pires why he thought São Paulo would work. “If we had a 300,000-person stadium,” Pires replied, “we would sell out the 300,000 seats.”
According to São Paulo tourism, the Eagles-Packers game and its breakout events generated $61 million in economic impact and 12,500 jobs and attracted the largest number of American visitors in Brazil for a single event on a single day. Online tickets for the game sold out within two hours, according to multiple officials, and the in-person line at the Ibirapuera mall box office bustled like a bank run until the remaining seats were gone.
“The São Paulo game is solidified as one of the greatest events in Brazil’s history,” Pires said.
Other Brazilian brokers believe in the game’s untapped potential. Through a Brazilian research institute (IBOPE), the NFL saw the number of Brazilians “interested” in the league spike from 3 million in 2014 to 38 million in 2023. Marcelo Lazoski de Paiva, the marketing director of Effect Sports, the sports marketing agency the NFL retained to cultivate the country’s fan base, envisioned future games possibly being played in Rio de Janeiro and northeast Brazil.
For now, the NFL’s focus remains on returning to São Paulo. Arena Corinthians remains the NFL’s preferred stadium, Pires said. Although players and coaches have both publicly and privately complained about the poor footing on its soccer-oriented turf, the league favors the venue for its field size, capacity (just under 50,000) and parking lot.
The NFL has already announced five of its international games for the 2025 season. London will host three. Madrid, who lost out on the 2024 bid to São Paulo, will host Spain’s first-ever NFL game, which will feature the Miami Dolphins against an opponent yet to be determined. The Indianapolis Colts will be the designated home team in the NFL’s first game in Berlin. (Munich and Frankfurt have both previously hosted two games.)
Beyond finalizing terms with Brazil, Goodell has also said Ireland is “a possibility” and that the league expects to return to Mexico City. It was Estadio Azteca’s renovation project for the 2026 World Cup that forced the NFL to cancel its 2023 and 2024 games in Mexico City, which opened the door for São Paulo.
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