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What sports fans need to know about the latest NFL game announced in Germany

The National Football League announced the matchups for its five European games - including a new one in Frankfurt - on Wednesday. Here's what to expect in the coming season.

Published: 10 May 2023 17:08 CEST
American Football: Pro League NFL, Tampa Bay Buccaneers - Seattle Seahawks, at the Munich Allianz Arena in November 2022.
American Football: Pro League NFL, Tampa Bay Buccaneers - Seattle Seahawks, at the Munich Allianz Arena in November 2022. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Sven Hoppe

In addition to three games in London, the NFL said it would play two games in Germany while dropping the game in Mexico City, which returned last year.

The NFL also announced the matchups for three big domestic games.

The league played its first regular-season game in Germany in Munich last November, when Tampa Bay and Seattle drew a crowd of almost 70,000.

The NFL has between two and three million supporters in Germany, estimated Sebastian Uhrich, a professor of sports management at the University of Cologne.

“In Germany obviously there’s a significant fanbase of American football,” he previously told The Local’s Germany In Focus podcast, adding that it’s the “largest market in Europe”.

That could explain why star player Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers faced the Seattle Seahawks at Munich’s Allianz Arena in November.

It marked the first NFL Game in Germany and tickets quickly sold out.

READ ALSO: ‘Significant fanbase’: How popular is the NFL in Germany?

What does the NFL have in store in Germany in 2023?

This year there will be two games in the Waldstadion in Frankfurt where defending Super Bowl champions the Kansas City Chiefs will be the ‘designated home team’ against Miami Dolphins on November 5th and New England will face Indianapolis a week later.

The Waldstadion was the home of the Frankfurt Galaxy, which appeared eight times in the ‘World Bowl’ played at the end of the World League of American Football and NFL Europe seasons between 1991 and 2007, winning four.

Uhrich sees the games as a big bonus for existing NFL fans in Germany.

“Playing games in Germany provides German consumers, supporters and fans an additional offering, besides all the media offerings,” he said.

“Up until last year they were only able to watch NFL games on TV or on social media. If they wanted to see a game they had to travel to the US, so this is obviously a significant addition to what they can consume.”

New ‘Black Friday’ games

Among the three domestic matchups announced on Wednesday were the inaugural ‘Black Friday Game’ when the Dolphins will visit the Jets on November 24th.

Amazon, which hold the rights to the Thursday night games, is moving one back a day to Black Friday, when retailers in the United States traditionally attempt to kick-start Christmas shopping with sales.

The New York Giants will visit the Philadelphia Eagles on Christmas Day and Kansas City will host division rivals Cincinnati Bengals on New Year’s Eve.

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SPORTS

Bayer Leverkusen win first Bundesliga title, ending Bayern Munich’s 11-year run

German football team Bayer Leverkusen lifted the Bundesliga title for the first time in their 120-year history with a 5-0 victory over Werder Bremen, breaking Bayern Munich's 11-year stranglehold on the top league.

Published: 15 April 2024 09:02 CEST
Bayer Leverkusen win first Bundesliga title, ending Bayern Munich's 11-year run

Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen knew a victory on Sunday would secure the title with five games to spare, and there were no signs of nerves in a dominant performance.

A hat-trick from Florian Wirtz and goals from Victor Boniface and Granit Xhaka extended their unbeaten run to a stunning 43 games in all competitions.

Leverkusen’s maiden title, coming after five second-place finishes in their history, keeps their dream of a remarkable treble alive while shedding their unwanted ‘Neverkusen’ nickname for good.

With 10 minutes to go, the long-suffering fans began making their way to the sidelines and a few jumped the gun, storming the pitch with the match still ongoing.

Leverkusen’s players ushered the fans back and some obliged, albeit briefly, with the stands swiftly emptying on the 90-minute mark as tearful supporters made their way onto the turf to celebrate with the players.

Leverkusen are now on 79 points – the best tally after 29 games in German league history – and are 16 clear of second-placed Bayern Munich and third-placed Stuttgart.

“It’s impossible to describe. Personally I can’t quite grasp what we did. I needed to go back to the changing room to clear my head,” Wirtz told DAZN after the match.

“We’ve already started the party with the supporters.”

Wirtz, who moved from neighbouring Cologne at the age of 16 and grew up just 20 minutes away in Pulheim, told DAZN he “could not imagine what we would achieve at the start of the season”.

“It was when we started winning some matches, with a dominant style of play, that’s when I realised we could do a little better than just making the Champions League.”

‘Sea of red and black’

The Leverkusen bus arrived at the stadium 90 minutes before kick-off, wading through a sea of fans clad in black and red on the way to the 30,000-capacity BayArena.

Normally known as Bismarck Street, fans had stuck temporary signs saying ‘Xabi Alonso Street’ along the main road in honour of the club’s coach.

Alonso looked ahead to Thursday’s Europa League trip to London to face West Ham, making seven changes to his starting XI and benching stars Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong and Alex Grimaldo, the latter for the first time in the league this season.

Piero Hincapie, Grimaldo’s replacement, had an early effort at goal saved but it would be the fit-again Boniface, making his first start since mid-December, who put the home side in front.

With 22 minutes gone, Jonas Hofmann was felled in the box by Bremen’s Julian Malatini, with the referee pointing to the spot after VAR urged him to view the contact again on the monitor.

Boniface stepped up and nervelessly slotted the penalty past a helpless Michael Zetterer to send the home fans into raptures.

Hofmann was almost the provider again shortly before half-time, his pass finding Amine Adli who fired against the crossbar.

Bremen started the second-half strongly but their hopes of spoiling the party were snuffed out on the 60-minute mark, Boniface finding Xhaka who unleashed a long-range rocket before slapping his badge in front of the ecstatic home fans.

Wirtz, who came on at half-time for Adli, replicated Xhaka’s effort eight minutes later from almost the same spot on the pitch.

Wirtz added another with seven minutes remaining before sealing his hat-trick in the 90th minute as Leverkusen rid themselves of their nearly men tag in style.

Earlier on Sunday, a 36th-minute goal from Ritsu Doan took Freiburg to a 1-0 win at Darmstadt, pushing the last-placed hosts closer to immediate relegation.

Winless since October and with only two victories all year, the loss leaves Darmstadt dead last, eight points from second-last and 13 points from safety with five games remaining.

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