Sam McDowell: The Chiefs want to play in Spain this season. They're making 'aggressive' push.

Sam McDowell, The Kansas City Star on Apr 8, 2026

Published in Football

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Chiefs’ full schedule of games for the 2026 NFL season will be revealed in about six weeks.

But team officials are lobbying the league for one game in particular:

A trip to Spain.

The Atlanta Falcons were announced last month as one of the teams that will head to Madrid, Spain, this fall for a game at Bernabéu, home to soccer giant Real Madrid C.F.

Atlanta’s opponent? To be determined.

The Chiefs, though, have determined they want to be that opponent.

“We’ve been very open and aggressive with the league — as we have been since the beginning — that we want to play in Spain this year,” Chiefs team president Mark Donovan told The Star. “We think it would be a great market, game (and) matchup.”

It’s not yet clear when the NFL will make a decision. But in announcing last month that the Falcons would be one participant in the game, the league said the matchup would be revealed when the full schedule is released in May.

The Chiefs are ready, if called — as they always are for international opportunities. They added Spain as one of their international rights markets last year through the NFL’s global markets program (GMP). The Chicago Bears and Miami Dolphins were also awarded branding and commercial rights in Spain.

“It’s perfect timing for us,” Donovan told The Star. “And to play in Real Madrid, and for our fans to experience that stadium and city, I think it’d be amazing for our fans.

“So we’re all in.”

Will the league be all-in? That’s not exactly a lock.

The Chiefs have been a TV cash cow for the past few seasons. That’s what sent them to São Paulo, Brazil, for their season opener last fall.

The game in Spain is expected to be scheduled for November — as it was a year ago, when the Dolphins and Washington Commanders met in the NFL’s first game there. And mid-season overseas contests have been less likely to draw prime-time windows than international matchups played in the league’s opening week.

The league is almost certainly considering the Chiefs for other prime-time windows, too, with games scheduled for Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Christmas Day. The NFL has also floated the possibility of Thanksgiving Eve and Christmas Eve games. The Chiefs have been a regular feature over the holidays.

Games played in the later weeks of the season — such as the game in Spain — optimize the chances that Patrick Mahomes will take part.

Chiefs chairman and CEO Clark Hunt told reporters at the NFL’s annual league meeting that the Chiefs aren’t expecting to play the Seahawks in the NFL’s season opener, set for Wednesday, Sept. 9, in Seattle. Donovan said the same.

The Chiefs do travel to Seattle this year. Mahomes is progressing in his rehab from knee surgery, but it’s not exactly a foregone conclusion that he will be ready and able to play in Week 1.

That’s one standalone game likely gone.

The others? They’re in play.

The Chiefs have long raised their hand for international games — but an overseas date with the Falcons would have a unique backstory. The two teams from opposite conferences played just two years ago, but the Falcons are on Kansas City’s schedule (as a road opponent) because each finished third in its respective division — the criteria for the 17th game added in 2021.

The Falcons’ home opponents this season are the Chiefs, Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Bears, Detroit Lions, Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals and San Francisco 49ers.

The Lions and 49ers are already scheduled to play overseas this season, and the Panthers, Saints and Buccaneers are division opponents. That leaves the Bears, Ravens and Bengals as more likely competition. It’s certainly worth noting again that the Bears, like the Chiefs, have secured marketing rights in Spain.

In the Mahomes era alone, the Chiefs have played in Brazil (2024), Germany (2023) and Mexico City (2019).

In São Paulo last September, they were greeted with an ovation when they stepped off the plane.

“We landed late, so it’s really cool to see that the Chiefs are known here in Brazil and known well,” Mahomes said then. “We want to take American football worldwide.”

In what’s essentially a tagline now, Donovan has often said the Chiefs want to become the “world’s team.”

They have GMP rights in a league-high seven countries or territories: Austria, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland and United Kingdom. No NFL team has more. The Los Angeles Rams also have seven.

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