In the Corona season, the NFL again drew more German football fans than last year in front of the screens.
When it comes to the Super Bowl superstar duel between Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs on the night of February 8th, an audience of millions will be there. But does the development of US sport in Germany keep up with the great interest in the US league? A man from Hamburg wants to start a new Europe-wide project – and an NFL professional is clearly criticizing the existing structures.
EUROPE: Until 2007 the National Football League had its own offshoot. More than 30,000 spectators came to the games of NFL Europe teams such as Frankfurt Galaxy with mostly US professionals. Now there should be a new, independent European league – as a “totally different construct”, as Commissioner Patrick Esume explains. “The European League of Football is a domestic league that plays with European players and has a few Americans, the ratio is completely reversed.”
At the planned start of the season in the summer of this year, eight teams will be present, six from Germany, plus one franchise each from Wroclaw and Barcelona. Looking ahead, the EFL is aiming for five-digit audience numbers. “The medium-term goal is to have more than 20 teams in more than ten countries across Europe,” says Esume, who is also a TV expert on “ran Football”. The former French national coach had the idea for a Europe-wide league three years ago. “So far, interest has been limited to the NFL, and then college football came along. I asked myself: why in the world can’t sport take place on a similar stage here? “
GERMANY: The organizers do not want to evaluate the impact of the EFL on the largest German league to date, the German Football League. “We only have a certain pool of players in Germany, so you just have to look to what extent the GFL is affected”, says Tom Aust, Director of Communication at the American Football Association Germany. In the GFL, the entire past season was canceled due to the corona virus. It should start again in June. According to the association, the pandemic has not yet had a major impact on the number of members, which had recently risen to more than 70,000.
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Jakob Johnson played for the Stuttgart Scorpions in the GFL in 2018. The 26-year-old has since made the leap to six-time Champion New England Patriots in the NFL. He clearly criticizes the state of his sport in Germany. “I think you have the clubs here, you have the fans here, you have enough people who like to spend good money on football. But until now too many opportunities have simply been missed, ”says the fullback.
From his point of view, there is a lack of young talent. In his day, he was almost unable to take part in the camps for the national youth team because he did not have enough money. “Whoever it may be who first finds out that there are opportunities for German talent to make a good living with football in Germany, that there are prospects and opportunities to be seen, has my support,” says Johnson .
USA: In addition to Johnson, Equanimeous St. Brown (Green Bay Packers) and Mark Nzeocha (San Francisco 49ers) also have regular appearances in the NFL. There are some promising talents who want to make it into the largest league in the world. “I think so many will emerge from the colleges in the next three, four, five years that I hope that one or the other German will be there and that the number will continue to rise,” says expert Esume.
However, there has never been a German quarterback in the NFL. Opportunities are attributed to Alexander Honig, who last signed a college contract with the renowned TCU Horned Frogs in Texas. “We don’t have to talk about the fact that he has the physical talent,” says Esume. “The question is what he makes of it, how he develops. Sometimes you have to be lucky too. I hope that he will be a starter, get playing time and maybe throw the ball on a Sunday in the NFL. “
dpa-infocom, dpa: 210202-99-271960 / 3
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