The Oakland Raiders and Houston Texans will play a regular-season game in Mexico City next year, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced on Friday. It will be the first game in Mexico City since 2005, when the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers faced off in front of 103,467 fans at Estadio Azteca.
Texans and Raiders will play 2016 ‘Monday Night Football’ game in Mexico City
It will be the first time since 2005 that the NFL has held a game in Mexico City.
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Three other regular season games are scheduled to be sent next season to London, which has hosted 14 NFL games since 2007. This will be the first Monday Night Football game to be played internationally, as the game is already set for Nov. 21.
The decision to move a game to Mexico City is assumed to be linked to next year's Super Bowl being played in Houston. The league would like to expand its fan base south of the border and the Texans would like to become Mexico's team.
“We’ve always expressed that we have an interest in participating internationally as a road team, we’ve made it clear that we were most interested in doing that in Mexico,” Texans president Jamey Rootes said last year, according to the Houston Chronicle. “It’s an amazing opportunity for teams and the league. Mexico City is a logical choice for a team like the Texans. We’d be a great ambassador for the league.”
The matchup will count as a home game for the Raiders.
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