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NEW YORK: Despite a massive spike in interest in American football on the back of Jarryd Hayne's success, the NFL says the chances of playing a regular season game in Australia are "almost non-existent".
The NFL has made inroads into the London sporting market since 2007 and now play three games a season at Wembley Stadium each year. 
But unfortunately for Australia, who hosted the 2014 Major League Baseball opening series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks, it isn't even one of the six countries on the agenda for those at NFL headquarters.
NFL executive vice president of international, Mark Waller - who is the man in charge of the London campaign - said there was very little chance the NFL's priorities will change any time soon. "I think that you have to be realistic - the likelihood of us playing a regular season game in Australia is almost non-existent," Waller told Fairfax Media.
"The time difference and the strain that would put on the two teams logistically, to be able to go there and play at the highest level and and go back to the States and play the rest of the season is difficult. Where that has been do-able in other sports so far with the sports that have done it, they've tended to use it as a season opener. I think baseball opened the season with the Red Sox in Japan.
"For our teams, we don't get a bye until week four, so you'd be asking a team to go to Australia, open the season, come back and play the following week. The thing to remember is that our teams only get 16 games. I remember when the Red Sox went to Japan, they started the season 2-8 or 3-7 and then ended up winning the world series. It affected them in the short term, but their season is so long that they are able to make it up. In our season, if you start out 0-2 or 0-3, that's it, it's all over."
While the NFL's push into the United Kingdom has been a success, they've also identified Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Germany and China as their other major market priorities. It had been suggested Australia may be in line to host an NFL preseason game with Hayne's San Francisco 49ers a potential interested party, however Waller says even a trial match isn't in the plans.
"A pre-season game, again, I'm not sure the value in a preseason game to the Australian fans," Waller said. "The games are not that competitive and a lot of the things that go on in a preseason game are about player selection. Quite often the stars don't play or play very little. I'm not sure if I was an Australian fan, the idea of going to watch any team and not see it play at its best would be a great way to treat fans. If you're in soccer and basketball, you can play friendly games and it's not a bad experience.
"I think soccer particularly has had a lot of success with preseason tournaments. You can watch those games and they are not bad games, but to be honest for us, one of the beauties of our game which is a bit like rugby league, is that there's an intensity to it you don't really get in the preseason. What you do get in the preseason is very much around individuals competing for a spot than the whole team playing at its highest. I'm not sure if that's a great fan experience."
The last time the NFL played a game in Australia was at the Olympic stadium in Sydney in 1999 when the Denver Broncos played the San Diego Chargers in front of a crowd of 73,811.
But given Australia's already crowded sporting landscape and smaller population in comparison to the NFL's six priority regions, not even Hayne's expected success looks like making a difference. "Australia, to be honest, is not an area we've prioritised," Waller said.
"We have limited resources and as a result of that we are very focused on half a dozen geographies that are a combination of big economic markets, big sports markets and with relatively high likelihood of success. If you look at Australia, population wise it's not huge. It's very well developed as a sports market and actually have very successful sports and lots of them.
"So us breaking in there is potentially harder than other markets. If you take Mexico for example, there's soccer and we're, to be honest, No.2. I'm not yet clear in my mind how we can make more of this opportunity to grow the sport in Australia beyond the short term interest Jarryd has generated. We probably need to do some thinking, but it's not as clear to me."