Report: Texans, Raiders to play in Mexico City this season

The NFL was expected to return to Mexico this season, and now it looks like we know which teams will be playing in the country.

The Houston Texans and Oakland Raiders are expected to play their scheduled 2016 regular-season game in Mexico City, the Houston Chronicle’s John McClain reported.

The Raiders, who have yet to sign a new lease with the city of Oakland after (thus far) being left out of the league’s Los Angeles plans, will be the home team.

According to McClain, Houston owner Bob McNair and team president Jamey Rootes have expressed interest in a Mexico City game for a couple of years, as they have a growing fan base in the country, though McNair did not want to give up a home date at NRG Stadium to do so.

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With Oakland in limbo, having them as the home team is an easy fit.

“We’ve always expressed that we have an interest in participating internationally as a road team (and) we’ve made it clear that we were most interested in doing that in Mexico,” Rootes said after a visit to Mexico City last year. “Mexico City is a logical choice for a team like the Texans.”

The NFL has been staging games in London for several years, calling it the “International Series,” but it was Mexico that hosted the first regular-season NFL game outside of the United States: on Oct. 2, 2005, the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers played at Estadio Azteca in front of over 100,000 fans, the largest regular-season crowd in league history.

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Estadio Azteca underwent renovations in 2013 that reduced its capacity to 95,500, but that is still larger than the highest-capacity stadium currently in the NFL; MetLife Stadium, shared by the New York Giants and New York Jets, holds 82,500.