NFL Plots Games in Germany for 2022 or 2023

Tee Higgins in 2020
Tee Higgins with the Bengals in 2020. Photo by Trask Smith/CSM/Shutterstock (11667075fa)

The National Football League is heading to Germany as soon as 2022. The league confirmed the news on Tuesday, announcing that Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, and Munich are currently in the running to host NFL games in the future.

According to Brett Gosper, NFL head of Europe and the U.K., eight German cities expressed interest in hosting the NFL, but the three mentioned above have the best resources in terms of stadium, infrastructure, and capacity. The NFL is expected to make the final decision in early 2022.

“We hope to announce the winning city at the Super Bowl, and so that decision needs to be made prior sometime in January,” Gosper told ESPN. “So a specialist group will examine those dossiers and work out on a scoring basis and work out our favored city, and then the owners would have to endorse that.”

Reportedly, the league would like to stage an NFL game in Germany next season. But if that isn’t doable, then the target date will be the 2023 season.

The reason why NFL chose Germany has to do with its growing base of football fans. According to NFL Network, the country now has over 19 million NFL fans, while the viewership has 20 percent growth since 2017.

The league isn’t a stranger to organizing NFL games outside the United States. The United Kingdom has been hosting NFL games since 2007, while NFL teams have also played in Canada and Mexico in recent years.