The NFL’s first regular season game on German soil casts its shadow and not only has wowed the local football community for a long time. The world event of enormous appeal represents a sporting milestone for this country, certainly not to be underestimated, but not to exaggerate. But it’s still spectacular!
There was a time when it wasn’t really easy to emulate an American sport in Germany. Back then, people would order VHS cassettes from printed catalogs to watch games with some delay, hang in front of the television at ungodly times to watch every little fragment of a fanatical cult magazine with a cold bias, some of which was broadcast on TV channels, which today we only know by hearsay. Magazines still had real and indispensable informational value at the time, because the internet was just something surreal in Silicon Valley’s mind. Good old days… in many ways it is certainly fair to say this against the backdrop of many modern problems. As for life as a German sports fan of the United States, probably not.
The NFL match in Monaco is the expression of a new era
Because today, as you know, things look a little different. Not perfect, we don’t want to go that far, but life as a US sports fan in this country has grown to a size that was once almost unimaginable over the World Wide Web and new technical possibilities. One expression of this is the upcoming NFL’s first regular season game on German soil. If Sunday 13 November the Tampa Bay Buccaneer in the Allianz Arena on the Seattle Seahawks meet, then it is something very special. Not only for the local NFL community, but also for Germany as a sporting location. As a special it is open to debate.
Without a doubt, a lot is promised by this mega event, by the way or especially for American football in this country. This notion is quite valid, because everyone knows the causal chain of attention, interest, flows of funds and new emerging opportunities. At the end of the day, the NFL Munich game may just be the first of a series of four, but media coverage starts weeks and months in advance. There will be plenty to see, do and experience around the stadium, even for many of the unfortunate who have not been able to secure a ticket for the match itself. See, experience, it’s the things that create emotions, when it happens at your door, they usually get a little stronger too. This also applies to local sponsors, who light a flame and then, on the contrary, restart new events.
Germany comes into direct contact with the NFL
The special appeal of the NFL host game in Munich is that, for various reasons, it should be more visible to the general public in Germany than American football otherwise is. The German football community celebrates the NFL in one way or another, with or without a game in their own country. But there are many, yes certainly most of the people, who do not dream of Sundays every day of the week, who for years have not organized a trip across the pond to see their team live, who do not make their existence as a fan in a Live in a world where there is no weekly stadium visit, no players to touch and often no clubs around the corner. These people may be the ones who accidentally tune in on Sundays, whose interest is piqued by an article in the local newspaper, who may also be intrigued by the brief synopsis of the news.
🏈 The #NFL is coming to Europe!
On November 13, the Seattle Seahawks take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the Allianz Arena in Munich.
Demand for the game was exceptionally high, with NFL fans looking forward to seeing Tom Brady in action! pic.twitter.com/MWqp8AYfQk
– SeatlabNFT 🎟️ (@SeatlabNFT) 11 August 2022
Yes, it will likely be one of the few days of the year that the National Football League will hit the main German newscast. You might smile at it, dismiss it as unsustainable or silly, but in the end it’s an expression of the brilliance of a game that can achieve more on many levels than the big campaigns planned over the years that ultimately miss the “all right” target. . A match like the one in Monaco nowadays has multipliers, for example if the players show up on social media at the stadium or if the sponsors know “important” people and they in turn know other important people, then maybe something really important could come along. they emerge, as a youth project, a transatlantic partnership or something similar. All these things already exist, but a match like the one in Monaco pushes them forward.
The NFL will not be able to work miracles in Monaco
Of course, the NFL Munich game won’t work miracles either and it’s an illusion that you should perhaps say goodbye to beforehand. Although Germany has long been a country where American football is played by large numbers of people, it remains for the moment a cultural phenomenon in this country without a traditional soil or widespread substructure. There is nothing wrong with that, quite the contrary. However, there will still be many people who will remain firmly of the opinion that a game where there is only about 15 minutes of real action in three hours of broadcast does not interest them. This is as understandable and correct as it is understandable and correct for someone else to be overjoyed when their team’s running back encounters a gap somewhere in a distant country at 9:47 pm on Sunday.
Despite all the idealism and desires that become the fathers of great ideas, American football is not going to become a German game overnight and that’s fine too. However, it can definitely grow as a hobby, pastime, sport and cultural asset if International Series matches are used and ranked correctly in this country. Authenticity and self-awareness are certainly crucial here, and despite all the hustle and bustle, you shouldn’t forget that ultimately it’s about the game itself. Sports. It has to fascinate, it has to inspire. But it can only do this if it is visible. When it is in the list, when it is present. Due to the NFL game in Monaco, American football is definitely more than before.
If only for a few weeks a year, if only for a short news report. But these few moments could become more in the future. Maybe not with Judith Rakers and Co, but in the hearts of many people who know nothing about it today.
