International Football
A few years ago, the league was bullish on putting a team or teams in London or Europe. That sentiment has cooled now; too many logistical problems that ownership feels are off-putting and potentially competitively unfair. Instead, the league wants to conquer non-U.S. markets in two ways—giving each team the chance to be the “home team” for a foreign market. The Steelers and the Rooney family as the NFL team in marketing and business ventures, say, in Dublin. Jacksonville and London, say. And expanding the schedule overseas by mandating every team play at least one game every eight years outside the United States.
I asked Chris Halpin on Friday what an ideal NFL schedule might look like in five years, in the 2026 season. “Maybe four games in London—two from the inventory of games teams voted on this year, maybe two with teams [such as Jacksonville] volunteering for games there. And maybe one in Germany and one in Mexico,” Halpin said. So six in all. That’s one more than the most the NFL has played outside the country; in 2017 and 2019, the league had four games in London and one in Mexico City. The fast-riser in international circles: Germany. The NFL is bullish on playing one game a season, starting either in 2022 or 2023, in Germany. The likely first venue would be nearly NFL-ready Allianz Stadium in Munich, home grounds for Bayern Munich. Frankfurt, Berlin and Cologne/Dusseldorf could also host.
This year, the NFL had 2.2 million people in Germany watching as an average-minute audience (that’s the way Nielsen rates NFL games here) at least part of the Super Bowl—and the game was on there in the early hours of Monday. Plus, subscriptions to the NFL’s big pay-TV model, NFL GamePass, were up 30 percent worldwide last year. That is a huge revenue stream.
because they can
And the offshoot article in that link talks about the Bucs playing Nov 13th in Germany:
Sorry for this blast from the past, but i just saw this thread.Would say that there has always been a big German contingent in the London games I have been to. Would not surprise me to see them return to one of the old NFL Europe cities, although I wouldn't have thought any of them would have the stadium capacity to host. Frankfurt/Köln/Düsseldorf certainly don't.
Acrobat7 said:Sorry for this blast from the past, but i just saw this thread.
Those 3 stadiums have a capacity of 50k. Munich and Berlin probably have higher chances of landing a game but those three stadiums should be fine capacity wise.
Pre-Registered for the Munich game....450,000 people.....WOW!
Dacomish said:Pre-Registered for the Munich game....450,000 people.....WOW!
On top of NFL Europe Germany also had (has?) a thriving amateur football scene. I went to a German Bowl final between amateur clubs from Hamburg and Braunschweig and there were 35k people in attendance. Must have been the end of the 90s though.Does not surprise me in the slightest. Sizable US expat community, was able to sustain most of the NFL Europe franchises, have travelled in numbers to the London games so game clearly has a good amount of dedicated fans domestically, plus it is the first one Germany is getting which is always going to have an added attraction
Just pleased that of the three London games they're split in favour of Spurs, outside of capacity Wembley is the inferior product in every respect
Spurs stadium is excellent, but the area surrounding the stadium is one of the most grim places in London. The transport links are also horrendous.Just pleased that of the three London games they're split in favour of Spurs, outside of capacity Wembley is the inferior product in every respect
I assume from your username you're from the UK? I miss Bramble and his more than regular catastrophes.
I'm also a Raiders/Spurs fan!Yep, Raiders fan from north west
NFL needs to just start a league over thereDacomish said:Munich Game (T.B. Vs Sea) sold out within minutes of opening today with over 600K left in the ticket queue....
When the World League was going it was huge in Germany so you could be right!NFL needs to just start a league over there
They already have a long running league in Germany….NFL needs to just start a league over there
The company I work for has several offices in Germany and I was surprised to learn that NFL football is wildly popular there. One of my colleagues (a Frankfurt-based FF commish) said there were 73,000 seats available but almost 650,000 requests for tickets.
Kenneth Walker doesn’t have a passport.
Can’t imagine they’re unable to get this resolved by Sunday, but sure would stink if he had to miss
I had the exact same reaction. How was this not flagged earlier?Kenneth Walker doesn’t have a passport.
Can’t imagine they’re unable to get this resolved by Sunday, but sure would stink if he had to miss
It’s pretty crazy someone missed this. The Lions have three personnel devoted to player wellness, a mental health professional + 2 player engagement staff. One of the football operations people is responsible for all the travel arrangements, and she has several staff under her.
(point being every org has dozens of people interacting with players every week on various aspects - one of non football staff goofed)
Somebody on the Seahawks has the equivalent of George Costanza’s job with the Yankees; verifying passports are current is a task that could have been completed months ago. It’s shocking to me there weren’t multiple people who would have taken care of this months ago.
It’ll get resolved. Forget which team but earlier this year a team had two or three players without passports a week before they traveled, and one of the players (K?) was foreign born, making it even trickier. But they got it done.
I don't know about you but I think my leagues still have our covid rules where we can ir a player for one week with no penalty. What a weird year.Thanks goodness the covid restrictions have been lifted in The EU. We'd have "out" "doubtful" "probable" and "not vaccinated"
I had the exact same reaction. How was this not flagged earlier?Kenneth Walker doesn’t have a passport.
Can’t imagine they’re unable to get this resolved by Sunday, but sure would stink if he had to miss
It’s pretty crazy someone missed this. The Lions have three personnel devoted to player wellness, a mental health professional + 2 player engagement staff. One of the football operations people is responsible for all the travel arrangements, and she has several staff under her.
(point being every org has dozens of people interacting with players every week on various aspects - one of non football staff goofed)
Somebody on the Seahawks has the equivalent of George Costanza’s job with the Yankees; verifying passports are current is a task that could have been completed months ago. It’s shocking to me there weren’t multiple people who would have taken care of this months ago.
It’ll get resolved. Forget which team but earlier this year a team had two or three players without passports a week before they traveled, and one of the players (K?) was foreign born, making it even trickier. But they got it done.
Why can't those games be played in the late afternoon/evening in Europe, which would create a more reasonable viewing window for us over here?
This AM on the Sports Junkies, they had several respected national sports journalists on. I can't remember exactly who said this, but I'm fairly certain it was Jason LaCanfora...
...it was said that the long term plan with the NFL is to develop an NFL Europe Season Ticket package, where they will hold 8 games per Season in England, or maybe a combo of England and Germany, or some other countries, where fans could purchase a Season Ticket similar to what any Season Ticket holder in the States could do - 8 'home' (European) games.
When the London games first launched, they all started at 1:00 EST/18:00 GMT and were part of the normal CBS/Fox early slate of games. But then the NFL got greedy and wanted to create a whole new window on Sunday mornings that they could own (literally, since those games are broadcast on the NFL Network).Why can't those games be played in the late afternoon/evening in Europe, which would create a more reasonable viewing window for us over here?