The Cowboys are known as America's Team, but they're also the most beloved team in Mexico, too.
The Cowboys have played preseason games there four times since 1994, three times in Mexico City and once in Monterrey. As the NFL has focused its international growth in London with an annual regular season game since 2007, team owner Jerry Jones has stated he would be happy to have the Cowboys playing outside the U.S., but would want the game to be in Mexico.
In 2005, the San Francisco 49ers played the Arizona Cardinals at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, the only regular season game held south of the border thus far.
Could the NFL return to Mexico soon, in a regular season game featuring the Cowboys?
During the annual state of the league press conference in Indianapolis on Friday, Roger Goodell discussed the league's international goals.
"There's a great deal of interest in Latin America to play a game," Goodell said. "We obviously, most importantly, would like to get back to Mexico with another regular season game. We've discussed that with our partners in Mexico, and it is something we'd like to get done sooner rather than later. It's going to take, though, a collective effort from our partners and the league to try to get that done, but we believe it can be successful and very good for Mexico and our fans."
Whenever the league does return to Mexico, the teams playing in the game would need to agree to site. After spending $1.2 billion on a stadium that's only three years old, Jones would likely not want to give up a home game. However, since the Cowboys are historically the league's best draw on the road, their opponents probably wouldn't want to sacrifice the gate, either.
Still, teams have been willing to take a hit for the international good of the league before.
"We want to do this strategically," Goodell said. "We don't want to just say that we're playing games in Brazil or Spain for the sake of doing that. This is all about a collective strategy to make our game more successful on a global basis. And the effort that we're putting in in the U.K. and London, as an example, are all designed to build a model that's going to grow our game in the U.K.
"If that's successful, we'll expand throughout Europe. The same thing is true into Mexico, and what we could do in Latin America if we're successful there."
