After the National Football League expanded its footprint into South America this season with a game in Brazil, the league will head to another new market next year—Berlin, Germany, for a regular-season game.
The league announced its plans at a meeting held in Dallas on Wednesday. At the meeting, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell remarked about the long history between the league and the city, which hosted the Berlin Thunder of NFL Europe for nine years until that developmental football league ceased operations in 2007. The Thunder were one of the most successful NFL Europe franchises, winning three championships.
“We first held a preseason game at the Olympic Stadium 34 years ago, before it was home to NFL Europe’s Berlin Thunder in the early 2000s,” he said.
“Now, with almost 20 million NFL fans in Germany, we'll make a historic return to the city playing a regular-season game for the first time as we open the next chapter in our relationship with Berlin.”
The league said it will work with Berlin government officials to grow and develop flag football in the city, including schools and clubs, ahead of the sport’s introduction at the next Summer Olympics in 2028 in Los Angeles.
The NFL Berlin game will be held at Olympiastadion, also known as Olympic Stadium in English. The stadium has hosted sporting events ranging from FIFA World Cups to the 1936 Summer Olympics to matches for the German national soccer team. It also hosted five American Bowls from 1990 to 1994, which was an NFL preseason series that took place at various international locations.
The NFL is familiar with Germany, not just with preseason games but also with regular-season contests. The NFL Germany games have been held since 2022, with Munich hosting games both that year and in 2024 and Frankfurt hosting two games in the 2023 NFL season. Germany was already the first foreign country to host regular season games in two different cities, and now it will become the first to host regular season matchups in three different cities.
The teams participating and the date of the game have not yet been announced, but it’s worth noting that all four previous games in Germany took place between Nov. 5 and Nov. 13. These November games allow the NFL some breathing room between them and the London games, as 33 of the 39 to take place in the United Kingdom have been played in October.
Work in Progress
The NFL International Series is very much a work in progress, as more games could be added to the slate. The owners previously approved the league scheduling up to eight international regular-season games per year, starting with next season.Speaking of going back, Goodell also said in November that Brazil and Mexico City were potential locations to return in 2025. He also threw out yet another new market, Dublin, Ireland, as a possibility.
To date, the league has played regular-season games in six cities outside the United States: Frankfurt, Munich, Sao Paulo (Brazil), Mexico City, London, and Toronto.
A total of 55 NFL regular season games have occurred in those six locations, all since 2005.
When you include preseason contests, there have been 106 games held outside of the United States. NFL preseason games have been held in places like Tokyo, Japan (13 games); Montreal, Canada (two games); Barcelona, Spain (one game); and Sydney, Australia (one game).
One can only expect the NFL’s international presence to increase going forward, and even a bigger increase than the eight possible international games in 2025. Goodell has said that within the next five years, he wants every NFL team to play internationally every season, which would mean at least 16 international games per year.
