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

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

Whether at a barbecue, a gathering with friends or from the comfort of their own homes, hundreds of thousands are enjoying their dose of NFL action much like their American counterparts.

On the channel that broadcasts the German versions of “I'm a Celebrity… Get me out of here!” (I'm a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here!) 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-to-air German-language broadcast makes viewing easier and helps attract a new generation of NFL enthusiasts in Europe.

Almost 70,000 spectators will visit the sold-out Allianz Arena in Munich on Sunday when the New York Giants and the Carolina Panthers face off in the final game of this year's international series. This gives German fans the rare chance to experience the NFL live on home soil.

It is the fourth time that Germany has hosted a regular season game. The first was held at the same venue in 2022, while Frankfurt's Deutsche Bank Park hosted two games in 2023, when RTL began broadcasting NFL games in the country after acquiring exclusive free-to-air rights until 2028.

The station's audience is growing. The channel averaged 710,000 viewers during 7 p.m. regular season games in 2023, up from 660,000 the year before when it aired on ProSieben, also free-to-air. The later game averaged 490,000 viewers, an increase of 50,000 viewers compared to the previous season, RTL said The athlete.

An average of 1.71 million fans watched the Super Bowl in February on RTL, with peaks of up to 2.27 million, according to the broadcaster. In the UK, however, Sky Sports and ITV, the latter a free-to-air channel, achieved peaks of 761,000 and 996,000 viewers respectively.

“The atmosphere we are trying to bring (to the broadcast) is primarily fun and excitement for the game of American football, to get people excited and fall in love,” said Patrick Esume, a veteran NFL commentator on RTL The athletic one, “And the second step is to try to provide deep insight for the fans who have been in the NFL for a while.”

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

Esume began playing American football with the Hamburg Silver Eagles before moving to the Hamburg Blue Devils. The German balances expertise with his role as commissioner of the European League of Football, a professional American football league founded in 2020 with 18 teams spread across three conferences. However, the upcoming 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's different than any other atmosphere. “It's not football, it's not NFL in the USA. It’s different and it’s special,” Esume said.

“The free coverage was the kickstarter to take the game and the NFL to new levels,” he added. Paid options with increased reach 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 Munich's Allianz Arena (Sebastian Widmann/Getty Images)

Daniel Jensen hosts an NFL-specific podcast called “Footballerei Show” from Hamburg. He told The athlete that the now-defunct NFL Europe, a competition that existed on and off in various forms for 15 seasons until it was finally dissolved in 2007, laid the foundation for growing interest in the sport. Germany had the most – and most successful – teams in this league.

“The NFL Europe League has sparked a basic interest that has developed further,” said Jensen, adding that the lack of Bundesliga games, the top division in German football, on Sunday evenings also contributes to the popularity of the NFL.

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.

Nevertheless, Bayern's dominance has made the Bundesliga predictable in recent history. The home team at the Allianz Arena, where Sunday's NFL game will take place, had won 11 consecutive league titles between 2013 and 2023 before Bayer Leverkusen broke the spell last season.

There have been eight different Super Bowl winners during the same period. 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 found in football, a sport in which the most successful teams are often the richest and therefore attract the best players . The NFL also offers fans the physicality and competitiveness that is missing from some of the country's other popular sports.

Last year, the regular-season game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins in Frankfurt sold out in 15 minutes, and 1.42 million people were in line for online tickets within two minutes, according to Sports Illustrated. The game achieved a regular season record average of 1.35 million viewers, peaking at 1.51 million on RTL.

According to the NFL, there are around 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) have a good understanding of the game and the rules, but the vast majority actually care about American football because they love the atmosphere that the broadcast brings to their living room,” explained Esume.

“They’re there for the social part and that’s how they fall in love. It is our job to ensure that we have more football experts here in Germany.”

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

“Depending on the era, different teams become more popular,” Jensen said. “All German fans liked the Dallas Cowboys, Seattle Seahawks and Pittsburgh Steelers of the 90s, the Patriots and Green Bay Packers in the 2000s and 2010s and now the Chiefs. It’s not like we’re really rooted in the teams like we are in America, so it’s about finding a team that you like.”

Ten NFL teams have international marketing rights in Germany under the NFL's Global Markets Program, which allows franchises to build brand awareness and fan bases beyond the United States. Mexico is the only other country with the same amount.

Maybe it helps that there are also many German representatives in the NFL. Jakob Johnson is a Giants fullback, Marcel Dabo is on the Indianapolis Colts practice squad, while Minnesota Vikings running back Aaron Jones wears a German flag on his helmet after spending time there during his childhood as his parents are in the US Army were. In fact, the origins of the sport in Germany date back to the time 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 voted the 23rd best player in the NFL by his peers in the NFL Top 100 Players of 2024, has a German mother, so he has dual citizenship and can speak German.

“St. Brown is not so much a German sports star, like big football stars, 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 “That’s possible,” said Jensen.

Even off the field, Gerrit Meier, head of the NFL's international activities, is a dual German and US citizen. But at least for now, 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 see more of our on-air stars like Björn 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 true German rock stars when it comes to the NFL. They are even bigger stars than the active German NFL players because they can be seen on our television every week.”

What is encouraging for sport and RTL is that younger viewers are also interested in the NFL. RTL recorded an average of 23 percent of its market as 14- to 29-year-old men during the 2023 regular season.

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

However, as Jensen emphasizes, there is still a lot of work to be done to increase participation.

According to the sports marketing agency SPORTFIVE, the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) has 500 registered football teams with more than 70,000 members. In 2023, the German Basketball Federation (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 daunting, but that’s why flag football will be good for the future.”

The 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles will feature flag football, in which ball carriers are considered tackled if one or both of the two flags attached to their hip are knocked down by a defending player.

According to the NFL, the non-contact version of its sport is the fastest-growing sport in the world, with 20 million players in 100 countries.

“Basketball is more developed in this part. 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 represented in the NFL Academy, based at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom. Since 2019, the program has also offered full-time high school education in addition to American football training. More than 40 students have gone to the USA on scholarships, including 19 in NCAA Division 1 this season.

“The next step, in my opinion, is to bring something like this to Germany,” Jensen added.

Whether for entertainment, a change or to see local players on sport's biggest stage, more and more Germans are booking out their Sunday evenings.

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