There was great enthusiasm in Germany when the National Football League (NFL), the best football league in the world, announced that it would play regular season games in the country for the first time in 2022. Superstar Tom Brady came, fans in the Munich football arena watched the NFL win. Record sales for fan merchandise sales, increased reach on social media: The NFL says it has recorded a success story with its next games – two in Frankfurt, one in Munich and now the first at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium in front of more than 72,000 spectators.
Supporters travel in droves, including from other European countries, and celebrate peaceful football festivals that often last for days in their respective cities. Entrance ticket prices are also well above the German standard average; even the price of eight euros for a pint of beer doesn’t stop anyone in Berlin from joining the long queues at the front of the kiosks. It is not without reason that the NFL is the sports league with the highest turnover in the world, with an annual turnover of almost 20 billion euros.
Leading role in expansion plans
The public sector has been and is also asked to pay handsomely as part of NFL guest games: the Berlin Senate is spending 12.5 million euros for three football games in 2025, 2027 and 2029 (according to its own costs, the NFL is investing 48 million euros), in return the capital expects full hotels and restaurants, sustainable tourism and an increase in its image in the international spotlight resulting from NFL games in the city.
So far, you can tell representatives from the league and the city, all of whom were impressed after meetings in previous years, that the plan is working. NFL boss Roger Goodell also said in Berlin: “It’s great for us to host games in Germany. We’ve been doing it for a number of years and are guaranteed to continue doing so.” But what he didn’t say in Berlin was that the NFL has long since turned its attention to other markets. As well as games in England, there have been appearances in Ireland and Spain this season, football is also being played in Brazil – and next year an NFL team will travel to Australia for the first time. The country has a key role in the league’s efforts to introduce a low-contact variant of flag football in the Olympic program after the 2028 Games in Los Angeles. The Summer Olympics will take place in Brisbane in 2032.
Germany has long played a major role in the NFL’s expansion plans, and those efforts are paying off. But there are also warning signals that the league needs to hear: a decline in ratings and market share among German TV viewers compared to the opening year of 2022, a ticket contingent that is already free in Berlin and slow to sell: these should be considerations for the league. There may be indications that the first wave of enthusiasm is slowly ebbing. The NFL has managed to establish itself on the German sports scene for now. Now he had to light the fire again. Letting German-American star player Amon-Ra St. Brown playing with the Detroit Lions in Germany next year could be a start.
