The San Francisco 49ers will bookend the NFL 's largest ever international slate, playing the 2026 season opener in Melbourne against the NFC West rival Los Angeles Rams and facing the Minnesota Vikings in Week 11 in Mexico City.
Covering eight stadiums, seven cities and four continents, this year will feature nine games outside of the U.S. for the most the league has ever staged. Sixteen teams, exactly half of the NFL, will play internationally in 2026.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has declared the goal of 16 games annually outside of the U.S. After this season, the league will have played 71 games in 12 different international cities. Melbourne, Paris and Rio de Janeiro are first-time hosts in 2026.
The league had months ago announced the Melbourne matchup as its first game in Australia in addition to several of the participating teams for the nine-game slate, which was fully unveiled on Wednesday. The complete 17-game schedules for all 32 teams will be released on Thursday.
The 49ers have long been one of the NFL's most prominent brands, and they'll be the road team for the Thursday night opener on Sept. 10 against the Rams on Netflix. That game will kick off on Friday morning at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which is 17 hours ahead of California time.
San Francisco will be the home team at Estadio Banorte in Mexico City, where they have marketing rights as part of the league's global markets program along with the Rams and eight other teams. The Rams also have rights in Australia.
The 49ers will then play the showcase Sunday night game on NBC on Nov. 22 against the Vikings, who last year played the NFL's first international multi-city road trip with a game in Dublin in Week 4 followed by a game in London in Week 5. The Vikings were the road team in both of those games last year, too.
San Francisco last played in Mexico City in 2022. The league has also committed to playing there in 2027 and 2028.
The Dallas Cowboys will be the home team in Rio de Janeiro at Maracana Stadium against the Baltimore Ravens on Sept. 27, a late afternoon Week 3 game that CBS will broadcast. Neither team has marketing rights in Brazil, where the league has staged games in Sao Paulo in each of the last two years. The NFL has committed at least three games in five years to Rio.
All six games in Europe will kick off at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, an exclusive broadcast window before the traditional afternoon start times that cover the majority of the schedule each week.
There are three games in London, the league's most common international site with 45 regular-season games since 2007. The Jacksonville Jaguars for the first time are moving consecutive home games abroad as a renovation begins on their home stadium. They're one of 10 teams with rights in Britain.
The Jaguars will play the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 5 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Oct. 11 and then face the AFC South rival Houston Texans in Week 6 at Wembley Stadium on Oct. 18. The Washington Commanders will be the home team at Tottenham on Oct. 4 when they face the Indianapolis Colts.
The New Orleans Saints will be the home team for the first game in Paris in Week 7, facing the Pittsburgh Steelers on Oct. 25 at Stade de France. The Saints are the only team with marketing rights in France. The Detroit Lions will be the home team for the league's third ever game in Munich, facing the New England Patriots on Nov. 15 in Week 10 at the home of German soccer club Bayern Munich. The Lions are one of 11 teams with rights in Germany.
As previously announced by the NFL, the Atlanta Falcons will be the home team in Madrid in Week 9 against the Cincinnati Bengals on Nov. 8 at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. This will be the second game in Madrid, where neither team has marketing rights.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
FILE - A general view during the second rugby union test between Australia and the British & Irish Lions at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake, file)
FILE - Fireworks go off at the halftime during the international friendly soccer match between Mexico and Portugal at the Estadio Barnorte in Mexico City, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, file)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired at least 800 drones in a massive daytime attack Wednesday on about 20 regions of Ukraine, killing at least six people and wounding dozens, including children, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
The prolonged barrage began in midmorning and lasted for hours, hitting the capital of Kyiv, the western city of Lviv near Poland, and the port of Odesa on the Black Sea, among other population centers, he said on the Telegram messaging app.
“Our soldiers are defending Ukraine, but Russia’s obvious goal is to overload air defenses,” Zelenskyy said, as the bombardment stretched into the late afternoon. He cautioned that a cruise and ballistic missile attack could follow the drone barrage.
It was “one of the longest, massive Russian attacks against Ukraine,” he said on social media.
Moscow’s attacks on its neighbor are unrelenting, even as Ukraine is emboldened by its recent military accomplishments and as U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin said — without providing evidence — that the 4-year-old war could be approaching an end.
On Tuesday, Zelenskyy said, 14 Ukrainian regions came under attack, followed by overnight strikes on Ukraine’s residential, energy and railway infrastructure.
“It is important to support Ukraine and not remain silent about Russia’s war. Every time the war disappears from the top of the news, it encourages Russia to become even more savage,” Zelenskyy said, apparently referring to the world's attention being focused on the Iran war.
Trump said Tuesday said he believes Moscow and Kyiv will soon reach a deal to end fighting.
“The end of the war in Ukraine I really think is getting very close,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a summit in Beijing. “Believe it or not, it’s getting closer.”
Putin said in a speech last weekend that his invasion of Ukraine is possibly “coming to an end.”
Neither leader elaborated on what persuaded them about the possibility of peace in Europe’s longest conflict since World War II. U.S.-led diplomatic efforts over the past year to end the war have fizzled after making no progress on key issues, such as whether Russia gets to keep Ukrainian land it has seized and what can be done to deter Moscow from invading again.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated Wednesday that Moscow’s fundamental terms are unchanged, with Putin insisting that Ukraine pull its troops from the four regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — that Russia illegally annexed in September 2022 but hasn't fully captured.
“At that point, a ceasefire will be established, and the parties can calmly engage in negotiations, which, incidentally, will inevitably be very complex and involve a lot of important details,” Peskov said.
Zelenskyy vowed to keep pressure on Moscow to make concessions in talks.
“We’re not giving up on diplomatic efforts, and we hope that pressure on Russia, together with negotiations in different formats, will help bring peace,” he said in a speech Wednesday in Bucharest, Romania, to representatives of countries on NATO's eastern flank.
“Sanctions are working, our long-range (drone and missile) capabilities are working, and every form of pressure is working,” he said.
Meanwhile, European governments are assessing the merits of opening talks with Putin. Europe has for years tried to isolate the Russian leader and punished his country with international sanctions.
The correlation of forces in the war has shifted in recent months. Ukraine has gone from pleading for international help with its defense to offering foreign countries its expertise on how to counter attacks, thanks to its domestically developed drone technology.
Ukraine’s long-range drone and missile attacks have disrupted energy facilities and manufacturing deep inside Russia, with three regions reporting strikes Wednesday. The Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces intercepted and destroyed 286 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions, the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula, the Azov Sea and the Black Sea.
On the 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line, the advance of Russia’s bigger and better-equipped army has been slowing every month since October, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
Russia’s spring offensive has floundered, with Russian forces recording a net loss of territory last month for the first time since 2024, the Washington-based think tank said.
“Not only are Ukrainian defensive lines holding, but Ukrainian forces have managed to contest the tactical initiative in several areas of the front line even as Russia continues to lose disproportionate amounts of manpower to achieve minimal gains,” the ISW said Tuesday.
Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives at the Bucharest B9 summit held at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at the awarding ceremony for the Order "For Valiant Labor" to employees of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, part of the Roscosmos state space corporation, in Moscow, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives at the Bucharest B9 summit held at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian drone attack on a gas pipeline in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian drone attack on a gas pipeline in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
