Berlin (AFP) – The NFL will play a regular season game in Berlin in the 2025 season, the fifth match to be played in Germany, the league announced on Wednesday. At a joint press conference between the governing body and the Berlin Senate, the NFL also announced it would play games in the capital in 2027 and 2029.
All three matches will be played at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, but the league did not announce which teams will be playing in 2025 or when the match will be. Berlin will be the third German city to host a regular season NFL game, with two games so far in both Munich and Frankfurt.
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Alexander Steinforth, the general manager of the NFL in Germany, said Berlin was “made for the NFL.” “It’s a great day, we’ve been looking forward to it. Munich and Frankfurt are great, but Berlin is the capital,” said Iris Spranger, whose portfolio as a Berlin senator includes sport. Berlin applied to host NFL games in November.
German media reported the Berlin senate will invest up to 12.5 million euros ($13.2 million). With space for 74,500 fans, Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, opened for the 1936 Olympics, boasts a larger capacity than the other two when converted to all-seated arenas and is regularly used for football matches. Home to second division side Hertha Berlin, the Olympic Stadium has hosted the finals of the 2006 World Cup, the 2015 Champions League, and Euro 2024.
The NFL first played in Europe in London in 2007 and has since played games in Mexico City and Sao Paulo, with Madrid set to host a match in 2025. The NFL’s first regular season game in Germany was in Munich in 2022 between Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Seattle Seahawks. The NFL boasts high TV viewership in Germany, while demand has far exceeded supply for tickets in each of the regular season games played on German soil.
© 2024 AFP
