Roger Goodell inherited a thriving domestic product when he became NFL commissioner 20 years ago and nurtured it into a global empire. Yet somehow the most consequential years of his lengthy tenure may still lie ahead.The NFL is about to embark on a series of negotiations that could reshape the league and how the world consumes it. Goodell’s hand will remain on the rudder for all of it. His newly signed extension runs through March 2031 — when he will be 72 — aligned, not coincidentally, with the expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is 74 with no plans to retire, so age alone does not settle the question. But it is reasonable to believe this could be Goodell’s last contract.What the game looks like by then — who it rewards and whether growth made it better or just bigger — will be his answer for everything that came before it.A labor negotiation, a fight over expansion, and an international schedule still being written will define the next four years. On top of all of it sits a media rights cycle that has grown lucrative beyond anything the league imagined when Goodell took office, and complicated beyond anything fans were promised. There may come a point in the years ahead when Goodell has to look at the people who pay him and tell them that what they want is not what the league actually needs. That moment, if it comes, will tell us more about his legacy than anything that came before it.Two decades of his commissionership have been a sustained exercise in giving the 32 owners more — more revenue, more games, more of everything that makes the NFL the dominant force in American sports. That is not necessarily a criticism so much as a description of the job as it has been defined. He has done it exceptionally well.The league is worth more than ever before. Even its lowest-rated broadcasts outperform almost everything else on television. Measured purely by what ownership hired him to produce, Goodell has delivered beyond any reasonable expectation. The question his final years in office are now posing is whether delivery was ever the whole job.Roger Goodell signs contract extensionJonathan JonesEarlier this year, Goodell was asked during a Yale University speaker series whom he ultimately serves. His answer? The game. That’s a heavier responsibility than making 32 owners wealthier. It includes the players who make the NFL worth watching and the fans who pay to do so. The next few years will test whether he is willing to protect those interests when it also means disappointing the people who employ him.Owners want an 18th game, 16 international dates a year, and most teams eventually crossing an ocean to play them. This week it was the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers, an intrastate rivalry rerouted to Melbourne, Australia, because proximity is apparently negotiable when the revenue is sufficient. Goodell himself has said he has no doubt the league will eventually place franchises outside the United States. If he is right, the league’s international games have advanced from an experiment to a foundation.