NFL Exec Says Scheduling Regular-Season Game in United Arab Emirates Will Be Explored

NFL executive vice president Peter O'Reilly told reporters on Monday that the United Arab Emirates has been added to the NFL Global Markets Program for the Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers and Washington Commanders and that the league will look into potentially hosting a regular-season game there in the future.

"We have more work to do there," he said.

While noting there was a "high" level of interest, he added, via USA Today's Safid Deen: “We don't know the timing, and it's really an if in terms of whether we'll play a game there. What I will say is that's a market where there's strong interest in our game on a year-round basis. I think that's why you see three clubs raising their hand with interest there. It's a market we'll continue to explore.” 

Greece was the other new addition to the program, attached to the Los Angeles Chargers.

As for the UAE, Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports reported in October that NFL executives "conducted a site visit to Abu Dhabi within the past year, five sources told CBS Sports, scouting out the United Arab Emirates capital city to potentially host an NFL regular-season game in the coming years."

He added at the time that the league has also explored the possibility of Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Dublin, Sydney and Melbourne serving as potential host sites in the future.

The NFL has continued its efforts to expand its global appeal, hosting five international games in the 2024 season—one in São Paolo, one in Munich and three in London. The UAE would be a first foray into the Middle Eastern market, however.

"The UAE is not necessarily next on the list," an NFL source told Jones in October. "But there's a feeling inside the league a little that it has 'done' Europe. The UAE feels like branching out."

"Abu Dhabi is theoretically the safest political harbor of all the places in the Middle East," a high-ranking NFL team executive added. "Saudi Arabia, clearly not. Qatar, no. If I'm in the NFL and see the fact the NBA has done it (for) three years and they're way more progressive, you're safest doing it." 

That executive was referencing the Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets playing a pair of preseason games in Abu Dhabi ahead of the 2024-25 NBA season, part of the league's three-year deal with the city's culture and tourism department.

The UAE's track record when it comes to human rights violations is concerning, however, and playing a game in the country would be controversial.

As Human Rights Watch notes on its website, "The UAE has promoted a public image of tolerance and openness through hosting events like COP28 (United Nations Climate Change Conference) while restricting scrutiny of its rampant systemic human rights violations and fossil fuel expansion. Migrant workers in the UAE face widespread abuses and exposure to dangerous heat-related health risks."