In October of 2005, Mexico became the first country outside the United States to host an NFL regular season game when the Arizona Cardinals defeated the San Francisco 49ers (31-14). That matchup established a record for attendance at the time with 103 467 fans in Azteca Stadium.
Then, when the NFL International Series were a reality, Mexico appeared constantly in the schedule. The Texans faced the Raiders in 2016, the Raiders came back to play against the Patriots and Tom Brady in 2017, the Chiefs clashed with the Chargers in 2019 and for 2022 it was again the 49ers and Cardinals.
There were only two reasons why Mexico ended out of the NFL schedule. In 2018, the Chiefs and Rams had to play in the Memorial Coliseum at Los Angeles because the grass at Azteca Stadium was in terrible conditions. Then, in 2020 and 2021, the main problem was the pandemic. Now, when everything seemed back to normal, Mexico is out of the calendar for 2023 and these are the important reasons.
Why Mexico will not have NFL in 2023?
In June of 2022, FIFA confimed that Mexico City will be host of the 2026 World Cup. In order to meet all the requirements for the soccer tournament, Azteca Stadium needs an enormous refurbishment.
So, as a consequence of this unavoidable procedure, the NFL has decided to leave out Mexico of the 2023 schedule. In a very important detail, Guadalajara and Monterrey aren't yet considered as options to replace Mexico City. It's still not certain if the NFL will come back in 2024.
The winner of this situation might be Germany. Considering Mexico City is out of the rotation, that country could get two regular season games for 2023. This year, the NFL played a regular season game for the first time in Munich and the plan was to alternate with Frankfurt.