Because the New York Giants face the Carolina Panthers in Munich this weekend, native followers surprise if American soccer would ever kick off within the nation’s capital after commissioner Roger Goodell mentioned final November that Berlin has “loads of curiosity” in internet hosting an NFL sport.
And Goodell answered, hinting at a sport to be performed in Berlin subsequent season.
“I normally say don’t imagine rumors,” Goodell mentioned at a fan occasion in Munich on Saturday. “On this case, I say imagine them.”
Whereas it’s a robust chance, nothing is finalized for 2025, Goodell mentioned.
Two German cities beforehand hosted NFL video games, with two video games performed in Frankfurt Stadium in 2023. The league’s inaugural sport in Germany — a November 2022 assembly between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Seattle Seahawks at Allianz Area in Munich — was an enormous success, producing 70.2 million euros for the Metropolis of Munich, per the NFL.
This yr, near 70,000 followers will go to the sold-out Allianz Area on Sunday.
Goodell once more mentioned Saturday that the objective is to increase the worldwide schedule even additional previous the eight video games to be performed overseas yearly beginning in 2025. As soon as the NFL reaches an 18-game schedule, Goodell desires to play 16 worldwide video games per season. The league elevated the variety of regular-season matchups from 14 to 16 in 1978 and capped it there till 2021, when it upped it to 17 video games.
Goodell has been vocal about increasing the schedule once more as a part of the league’s long-term plan. That enormous a rise in each home and worldwide video games may play out in “three to 5 years,” Goodell mentioned Saturday.
The 2024 Worldwide Schedule is ready! 🏈🗺️@NFLBrasil | @NFLUKIRE | @NFLDeutschland
📺: NFL Schedule Launch — Tonight 8pm ET on NFLN/ESPN2
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/HMwi7SLZ8h— NFL (@NFL) Might 15, 2024
The NFL held 5 video games abroad this season as a part of its Worldwide Collection, with the Giants-Panthers matchup serving because the intercontinental finale. The Inexperienced Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles opened up the overseas slate with the league’s first journey to Corinthians Area in São Paulo in September.
The Minnesota Vikings then beat the New York Jets at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium within the first of three London video games in October. The Jacksonville Jaguars fell to the Chicago Bears at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium the next week earlier than reigning victorious towards the New England Patriots at Wembley Stadium on Oct. 20.
The NFL has now performed regular-season video games at stadiums internationally for practically twenty years, for the reason that Arizona Cardinals picked up a Week 4 win over the San Francisco 49ers in 2005 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico Metropolis. It has plans to play in a brand new metropolis — at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid — subsequent yr.
“Lots of groups need to go to Spain,” Goodell mentioned Saturday. “The Dolphins are one which need to go there.”
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(Photograph: Richard Heathcote / Getty Photographs)
