NFL Rumors: International Series Expands to Include Germany

On Wednesday, the league announced that they have selected the city of Munich to host the first ever regular season game in Germany during the 2022 season. In the same announcement, the NFL also made mention that Frankfurt will host games in the future.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced that Munich will host a game in 2022, and there will be four total games in Germany over 4 years — two in Munich, two in Frankfurt. In addition, there will be a game in Mexico this coming season.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 9, 2022

In a statement from Rodger Goodell he expressed, "We are very pleased to welcome Munich and Frankfurt to the NFL family and are excited to reward our fans in Germany for their passion by bringing them the spectacle of regular-season NFL football."

The International Series' schedule is now set to expand to five games for the 2022 regular season and to be hosted across three different countries. Germany will join Mexico along with the United Kingdom as hosts, who has participated in the program previously. Over the next couple of weeks, it is expected that the 'Home Teams' will be announced for the international slate of games however the actual dates and match-ups definitely will not be revealed until the 2022 NFL schedule announcements takes place later this year.

The @NFL is touching down in Munich! 🏈

We're thrilled to host the first-ever NFL game in Germany! 🙌#MiaSanMia @NFLDeutschland pic.twitter.com/zt59mBV0WP
— 🇺🇸 FC Bayern US 🇨🇦 (@FCBayernUS) February 9, 2022

Germany will host the International Series over the the next four years, the first two games will be played at FC Bayern Munich Stadium in 2022 and 2023 respectively with the latter half being hosted at Frankfurt Stadium in the following years. The selection process for the series initiated last year and selected from a finalist group composed of nine cities in Germany.

Notably, last December the league nominated four teams to be granted access to Germany for marketing purposes and to lead fan engagement as apart of the NFL's International Home Marketing Areas initiative; those teams include the Carolina Panthers, Kansas City Chiefs, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots. It is a reasonable assumption to make that these four teams will more than likely be heavily involved in any league programming and events that take place in Germany over the next several seasons.

In recent years, American Football has become increasingly popular in Germany with an estimated 19 million NFL fans residing in the country so it is no surprise the league is eager to tap into what could be considered a major market for the game.