The NFL is heading to Germany – and the country has fallen for American football

A weekly ritual begins when the clock strikes 7pm on a Sunday in Germany.

Whether it’s at a barbecue, meeting with friends or from the comfort of their home, hundreds of thousands are getting their fix of NFL action just like their American counterparts.

On the channel that broadcasts the German versions of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! (Ich bin ein Star – Holt mich hier raus!) and Germany’s Got Talent (Das Supertalent), fans can watch one of the early slate games live, followed by another in the later slot. Two games for, well, nothing. The free German-language broadcast makes viewing easy and helps attract a new generation of NFL enthusiasts in Europe.

Nearly 70,000 people will attend the sold-out Allianz Arena in Munich on Sunday as the New York Giants and Carolina Panthers face off in the final game of this year’s international series, giving German fans the rare opportunity to watch the NFL live on their own experience the soil.

It will be the fourth time Germany has hosted a regular season match, the first being at the same venue in 2022, while Frankfurt’s Deutsche Bank Park hosted two matches in 2023, the year RTL began broadcasting NFL matches in the country after acquiring exclusive free-to-air rights until 2028.

The broadcaster’s audience is growing. On average, the channel attracted 710,000 viewers during the 7 p.m. regular season games in 2023, compared to 660,000 the year before when it was shown on ProSieben, also free to receive. The later game attracted an average of 490,000 viewers, an increase of 50,000 viewers compared to the previous season, RTL told The Athletics.

An average of 1.71 million fans watched February’s Super Bowl on RTL, with peaks of up to 2.27 million, according to the broadcaster. In the United KingdomBy comparison, viewership peaked at 761,000 and 996,000 respectively on broadcasters Sky Sports and ITV, the latter a free-to-air channel.

“The atmosphere we are trying to bring (to the broadcast) is primarily fun and excitement about the game of American football, making people excited and falling in love,” Patrick Esume, an expert NFL commentator at RTL, told me. The athletic, “and the second step is trying to get deep insights for the fans who have been around the NFL for a while.”

Patrick Esume, commissioner of the European League of Football, takes a selfie (Jürgen Kessler/photo alliance via Getty Images)

Esume started playing American football with the Hamburg Silver Eagles before moving to the Hamburg Blue Devils. The German combines expert knowledge with his role as commissioner of the European League of Football, a professional American football league founded in 2020 and with 18 teams spread over three conferences. However, this coming weekend is one of the most exciting weeks on his calendar.

“It’s our little Super Bowl that we have every year. It has its own style, it is different from any other atmosphere. It’s not football, it’s not NFL in the US. It is different and special,” said Esume.

“Free coverage was the kickstarter to taking the game and the NFL to another level,” he added. Paid options with increased coverage are now available via DAZN, NFL League Pass and RTL+.

Tom Brady acknowledges the crowd in 2022 after his Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Seattle Seahawks at Allianz Arena in Munich (Sebastian Widmann/Getty Images)

Daniel Jensen hosts an NFL-dedicated podcast called the Footballerei Show from Hamburg. He told it The Athletics that the now defunct NFL Europe, a league that existed in various guises for fifteen seasons until it finally went bankrupt in 2007, provided the foundation from which interest in the sport grew. Germany had provided the majority – and most successful – teams in that competition.

“The NFL Europe League started with a basic interest that has evolved,” Jensen said, adding that the absence of matches in the Bundesliga, German football’s top division, on Sunday evenings also contributes to the NFL’s popularity.

Football is the national sport. Historically, Germany has always been successful internationally, winning the Men’s World Cup four times and the Women’s World Cup twice. And with Bayern Munich, the country also has one of the most successful men’s teams in Europe.

Yet Bayern’s dominance has made the Bundesliga predictable in recent history. The home team of the Allianz Arena, where Sunday’s NFL match will take place, had won eleven league titles in a row between 2013 and 2023 before Bayer Leverkusen broke the ban last season.

During the same period, there were eight different Super Bowl winners. The NFL’s ability to level the playing field with salary caps and the draft offers German sports fans a variety and unpredictability not often encountered in football, a sport where the most successful teams are often the richest and consequently attract the best players . . The NFL also offers fans the physicality and combativeness that some other popular sports in the country lack.

Last year, the regular season game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins in Frankfurt sold out in 15 minutes, with 1.42 million people in the online ticket line within two minutes. Sports illustrated. The match averaged a season record of 1.35 million viewers and peaked at 1.51 million on RTL.

According to the NFL, there are approximately 19 million fans in Germany, of which 3.6 million (18.9 percent) follow the NFL closely.

“I think about 20 to 25 percent (of viewers) understand the game and the rules well, but the vast majority are actually involved with American football because they like the atmosphere that the broadcast brings into their living room,” Esume explains out. .

“They are there for the social part and that’s why they fall in love. Our job is to make sure we get more football experts here in Germany.”

On Instagram, as shown in the table below, the Chiefs and the New England Patriots are the most popular teams in Germany.

“Different teams become popular depending on the era,” Jensen said. “All German fans were interested in the Dallas Cowboys, Seattle Seahawks and Pittsburgh Steelers from the 90s, the Patriots and Green Bay Packers in the 2000s and 2010s, and the Chiefs right now. It’s not like we have real roots with the teams like in America, so it’s about finding a team you like.”

Ten NFL teams have international marketing rights in Germany as part of the NFL’s Global Markets Program, which allows franchises to build brand awareness and fandom outside the US. Mexico is the only other country with the same amount.

It might help that there are also plenty of German representatives in the NFL. Jakob Johnson is a fullback for the Giants, Marcel Dabo is on the Indianapolis Colts practice squad, while Minnesota Vikings running back Aaron Jones has worn a German flag on his helmet after spending time there growing up when his parents were in the U.S. Army sat. The sport’s origins in Germany date back to when American soldiers were stationed in the country after World War II.

Amon-Ra St. Brown, a wide receiver for the Detroit Lions who was ranked as the 23rd best player in the NFL by his fellow players in the NFL NFL Top 100 Players of 2024has a German mother, therefore has dual nationality and speaks German.

“St. Brown is not so much a German sports star, like big football stars for example, but more of an NFL superstar at the moment, but the next step would be to become more of a public figure in Germany and it would be very interesting to see if that too so it will be. is possible,” says Jensen.

Off the field, Gerrit Meier, head of the NFL’s international operations, is also a dual German and American citizen. But for now, at least, some of the country’s biggest stars are former players who have become part of RTL’s expert line-up.

Esume said: “The vast majority of viewers are seeing more of our on-air stars like Bjoern Werner (former first round pick and global ambassador for the Colts), Markus Kuhn (who played with the Giants) and Sebastian Vollmer (two – time Super Bowl champion with the Patriots).

“They are the real German rock stars when it comes to the NFL. They are even bigger stars than the active German NFL players because they are on our TVs every week.”

It is encouraging for the sport, and for RTL, that a younger audience is showing interest in the NFL. RTL registered an average of 23 percent of their market as 14- to 29-year-old males during the 2023 regular season.

Duke Dennis returns an interception for a touchdown during a celebrity football game on February 9, 2024 in Las Vegas (Ian Maule/Getty Images)

However, as Jensen points out, there is still work to be done to increase participation.

According to the sports marketing agency, the German Olympic Sports Federation (DOSB) has 500 registered football teams with more than 70,000 members. SPORTS FIVE. As of 2023, the German Basketball Association (DBB) had 242,344 members.

“Participation (in Germany) is the part that the NFL needs to develop and work on,” Jensen said. “Issues with concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) can be unpleasant, but that is why flag football will be good for the future.”

Flag football, in which ball carriers are deemed to have been tackled when one or both of the two flags attached to their waists are pulled off by a defensive player, will appear at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

Says the NFL the contactless version of his sport is the fastest growing sport in the world, with 20 million players in 100 countries.

“Basketball is more developed in that regard. It’s much more of a domestic sport, people play in our own league. But the NFL is more popular than the NBA right now,” he said.

There are 14 German players in the NFL Academy, based at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom. Since 2019, the program has also offered full-time secondary education in addition to American football training. More than 40 students have gone to the US on scholarships, including 19 in NCAA Division 1 this season.

“The next step, I think, is to bring something like that to Germany,” Jensen added.

Whether it’s for the entertainment, the variety or seeing homegrown players on the sport’s biggest stage, more and more Germans are booking their Sunday evenings.

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Meech Robinson)