Snakes, snakes, snakes everywhere – squirming around, around barriers, behind caution tape. Already on Saturday you couldn’t walk through downtown Munich without coming across a line of people queuing up with anticipation. Every line led to the National Football League (NFL), the American professional league, which had scheduled a league game in Munich for the second time on Sunday.
After the premiere between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Seattle Seahawks two years ago, the Carolina Panthers and the New York Giants now played here. As in 2022, the league and its teams took over the city for a weekend – and once again attracted thousands of fans.
Simon, for example, came from the bell town of Gescher in Münsterland. With his friends – “completely different fans of all kinds of teams,” as he says – he got on the train at four o’clock on Friday morning to take part in the NFL experience. On Saturday lunchtime they got hold of beer mugs with the Panthers logo; The team gave away 500 of them at the Augustiner headquarters, the meeting place for their supporters.
Waiting and queuing, this time in front of the Augustiner headquarters. (Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
In the afternoon, the Gescher group stood with their now empty beer mugs at the Viktualienmarkt, where the Kansas City Chiefs were setting up a throwing game. Next to the queue that had formed in front of it, Simon told us who they had already met: “Fans from Boston and South Carolina, a native Ghanaian from Düsseldorf.” The NFL brings the world together.
Simon and his friends have tickets for the game on Sunday, but they are not necessary to celebrate in Munich. Ale Santoz, for example, arrived without tickets. The Berliner, who is well-known in the fan scene, is watching the game on Sunday in a restaurant on the Platzl that is marked as the nest of the Atlanta Falcons; A game by the team from the USA will then be broadcast there. He set up the German Falcons fan club under the pseudonym “Alesantoz”. The 46-year-old was named “International NFL Fan of the Year” and sees himself as a kind of ambassador. “I’m trying to bring Americans and Germans together,” he says, “I’m here for the fans and the community.”
Despite his official status, Santos paid for his trip to Munich himself. “I would never go to the Falcons and bill them,” he asserts. The football fans in this country certainly put a price on their passion, and that cannot be overlooked. Anyone who has ever purchased an NFL product will be proudly displaying it this weekend in Munich: hats, scarves, jerseys and jackets from almost all 32 NFL teams. And of course fan paraphernalia was bought diligently. On Saturday afternoon, in front of the NFL’s pop-up store in the former Galeria Kaufhof am Stachus, which was open for three days, the queue of interested parties stretched back to the entrance to the Mathäser cinema.
Snakes, snakes, everywhere. Also at the Panthers fan festival on Odeonsplatz, where people not only dutifully lined up in front of the fan merchandise stand, but also in front of the hands-on activities. They were able to test their skills by kicking or throwing the egg-shaped football. Or at the Platzl, where the queues crossed between the Hofbräuhaus and the Hard Rock Cafe: one wanted to go to the designated meeting point of the New York Giants, the other to that of the Seattle Seahawks.
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The NFL was even represented where there is always a long line of people in the Bavarian capital – at the Munich Tafel at the Großmarkthalle. Here on Saturday morning, several dozen Carolina Panthers office workers helped distribute food to those in need. “We also want to give something back to the community,” said club president Kristi Coleman, who handed out baby formula. The Panthers and Giants donated a total of 10,000 euros for food.
Their marketing director Kalen Karahalios later explained the Panthers’ commitment by saying that Germany “feels like a second home” since the club secured marketing rights from the NFL in 2021. It is not for nothing that the club from Charlotte in the US state of North Carolina has flagged off the Augustiner headquarters with the slogan: “This is our building.” You should be prepared to “see our brand here forever,” announced Karahalios full-bodied.
The Panthers were one of the first four clubs to have marketing rights in Germany. Since the league game premiere in 2022, the number has now increased to ten. Most of them were also present in the city at the weekend in one way or another for promotional purposes, with fan activities or team pubs.
New home for football fans? The Ned Kelly’s at the Frauenkirche (Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers immediately declared the Ned Kelly’s behind the Frauenkirche as an “embassy for the foreseeable future,” as vice president responsible for media and marketing Christi Bedan explained: “A permanent place for Bucs fans to watch football games. “
The New England Patriots have been setting this up in the “Herrschaftsszeit” restaurant in the valley since the start of the season, as Chris Knower, the manager responsible for German-speaking countries, emphasizes. Patriots games, which take place early on Sunday evenings here, can be watched in a side room. When the NFL entourage has left the city again after this weekend, you will be able to get in without waiting in line.
