Why The NFL's First Game In Germany Was A Massive Success
Why The NFL's First Game In Germany Was A Massive Success
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Hey Friends,
The National Football League held its first-ever regular season game in Germany this past weekend, and it was a massive success.
Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated Geno Smith and the Seattle Seahawks by a score of 21-16 at Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany. But more importantly, a sellout crowd of nearly 70,000 showed up and created an unforgettable atmosphere.
Thousands of people waited outside the stadium hours before kickoff, and many others even attended without tickets just to tailgate. Tickets on the secondary market were selling for as much as $2,500 the day before the game, and the NFL says they received more than three million ticket requests in total.
But while many people were surprised at just how successful the NFL’s first-ever regular season game in Germany was, they shouldn’t have been.
Germany’s love affair with American football dates back to the 1970s. The story is that American soldiers stationed in Germany routinely played the game, and local kids would emulate their moves, and interest grew from there.
So in 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the NFL decided to host a preseason game between the Chiefs and Rams in West Berlin. About 55,000 fans showed up to the game, and while many didn’t understand the rules, they reportedly liked the “Americana aspects like tailgating, cheerleaders and frisbee-chasing dogs.”
Roger Goodell calls it a “turning point,” and interest has only escalated from there.
Because next up was NFL Europe, the NFL’s developmental league that ran from 1991 to 2007. Of course, the league was initially designed to spread interest across Europe, with early teams being placed in the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK. But by the time the league folded in 2007, five of six teams were based in Germany, and the top team, the Frankfurt Galaxy, was attracting tens of thousands of fans for each game.
“If you could have seen a Frankfurt Galaxy game, oh my god,” former European League of Football commissioner Patrick Esume told The Ringer. “Between 40,000 and 60,000 people. And for the pregame tailgate party they called the Power Party, 30,000 to 40,000 people in front of the stadium going nuts.”
But perhaps the most significant turning point came in 2015 when NFL games became accessible on ProSieben, a popular free-to-air television channel in Germany.
That investment in growth has paid off tenfold for the NFL.
According to the NFL, Germany now has 3.3 million “avid” NFL fans and 17 million casual fans. That’s a total of 20.3 million fans, and it represents nearly a quarter (24%) of the country’s entire population (84.4 million).
More than 500,000 German fans watch the country’s NFL doubleheader on television every Sunday, and Germany is now the NFL’s biggest European market — yes, it’s even bigger than the UK, despite the NFL regularly hosting games there since 2007.
“Game Pass has more subscribers, consumer products sell more in Germany than in the UK, Madden video game sells more, TV rights are comparative,” Brett Gosper, NFL Head of U.K. and Europe, told The Associated Press in an interview.
So don’t be surprised if we see more of this in the future.
The NFL has already said there will be three more games in Germany over the next three NFL seasons — one in Munich and two in Frankfurt. But they are also opening a permanent league office in Dusseldorf, and with Roger Goodell recently hinting at NFL expansion via a four-team Europe-only division, Germany might end up being the perfect location (alongside London) for the division’s other two teams.
I hope everyone has a great day. We’ll talk tomorrow.
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Joe, do you think the NFL should consider an international location for the Super Bowl?