As the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins prepare to play a key midseason matchup in Germany this week, it’s time to look back on how the NFL got to this point in its international history.
All the way back on Aug. 5, 1978, the NFL played its first international game. It was a preseason game between the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles. The NFL did not play another international game for eight years.
In 1986, the NFL tried the American Bowl, a series of preseason games played in England, Japan, Canada, Germany, Spain, Ireland and Australia.
There were a total of 40 games played over 20 years.
The first regular season game outside of the United States was played in Mexico City on Oct. 2, 2005, between the San Francisco 49ers and the Arizona Cardinals. The 49ers won 31-14. The NFL did not return to Mexico for 11 years.
When Roger Goodell became the NFL commissioner in September 2006, he wanted to create a more extensive international market for the NFL. He decided to get more regular season games played internationally, emphasizing overseas games.
On Oct. 28, 2007, the NFL played its first regular season overseas game, featuring the Miami Dolphins and the New York Giants in Wembley Stadium in London.
The game sold 40,000 tickets within the first 90 minutes of sales being opened. There were 81,176 people in attendance that day.
That game was the only international game that year, and the NFL kept it a once-a-year occurrence through 2012.
In 2013, there were two games played in London, and there have been at least two games played there every year since. 2017 and 2019 are the only two years that had four games played in London.
There have been 36 total games played in London. Twenty five of them have been played in Wembley Stadium, 8 of them have been in Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and 3 of them have been played at Twickenham Stadium.
In 2016, the NFL returned its international play to Mexico City when The Houston Texans took on the Oakland Raiders.
There have been five games played in Mexico City.
The Monday Night Football classic between the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Rams in 2018 was supposed to be played in Mexico City, but it was moved to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum due to concerns about field conditions at Estadio Azteca, the stadium in Mexico City.
There were games in 2017 and 2019, but none in 2020 or 2021 due to COVID-19. The 49ers trounced the Cardinals in Mexico last year, and there will be no game in Mexico this year or next year due to stadium renovations. The NFL will look to return to Mexico City in the years after.
Last year, the NFL played its first game in Germany when the Seattle Seahawks took down the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 21-16 in front of nearly 70,000 people. 2023 will be year two of the NFL’s four-year deal to play in Germany and will feature two games.
The first, as previously stated, will be the Dolphins and Chiefs, and the following week will be the Indianapolis Colts against the New England Patriots.
The Buffalo Bills tried their own international series in Toronto for a few years, but when Terry and Kim Pegula bought the franchise in 2014, they ended it because they felt there was little involvement from the Canadian fans.
The previous owners had made the mistake of assuming fans across the border were Bills fans by a large majority. However, surveys show a handful of teams had the same amount of Canadian fans as the Bills did.
This resulted in poor turnouts for the Bills when they played in Toronto, and the games felt more like neutral site games rather than home games.
They played two preseason games in Toronto and won both but were just 1-5 in their six regular season games from 2008 through 2013.
When asked about what makes the international games a success, Goodell credited the fans.
He stated how the fans overseas having a good understanding of the game of football and coming out to watch is what makes the atmosphere so great.
“You see the way the fans have reacted to it, and you see the passion that they have for this,” he said. “Frankly, how smart they are as fans. I mean, they really understand the game and the strategy.”
The NFL has played 48 regular season international games, and the two in Germany in the coming weeks will put the NFL at the 50-game mark.
The international series has certainly been a success. Excluding the Bills failed experiment in Toronto, no international NFL game has had less than 85% attendance.
The NFL will look to continue to expand the international market in the future.
Goodell has mentioned that Spain, France, and Brazil are countries he would like to have games played in, as well as possibly having two teams in London and, ideally, a whole European division.
Demetri Manousos is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].
