If Tom Brady says a game was “one of the great football experiences I’ve ever had”, it must have been something special.
“Pretty epic” is how the NFL legend, now retired, described the atmosphere as he played in the league’s first regular season game in Germany last year.
This Sunday the NFL returns to Germany with a mouth-watering match-up, one of the most anticipated of the 2023 season, featuring Brady’s heir apparent Patrick Mahomes.
Two of the league’s most explosive offences meet in Frankfurt as reigning champions the Kansas City Chiefs face the Miami Dolphins.
Mahomes and Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa are the leading candidates to be this season’s Most Valuable Player. Only the Philadelphia Eagles, who the Chiefs beat in last season’s Super Bowl, have a better record than Kansas City and Miami.
And there’s an extra buzz around each team as a global superstar is now dating a Chiefs player while the Dolphins’ record-breaking season is set to feature on the next Hard Knocks documentary.
Why Germany?
The NFL has been staging regular-season games in London since 2007, but with Germany having surpassed the UK as the league’s largest market in Europe, the NFL’s international series expanded to Munich last year.
Brady led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to victory as a crowd of 70,000 created a party atmosphere at Allianz Arena, the highlight being a rousing rendition of John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’. Even NFL veterans were taken aback.
“I got goosebumps,” NFL executive vice-president Peter O’Reilly said. “It was quite a moment. The energy was incredible, so we’re excited to be back. Now let’s see what this year’s singalong will be!”
The NFL had already agreed to play one game a season in Germany until 2025. With Mexico’s Azteca Stadium being renovated, they gave them two this year – both in Frankfurt on back-to-back Sundays.
That made it five games in Europe this season, with three played in London last month, and about 300,000 tickets were available. More than a million people registered for the chance to buy one.
“The demand has been significant,” O’Reilly added. “But I think this game has the opportunity to be off the charts. It’s going to be electric.”
The ‘Taylor Swift effect’
On the back of their second Super Bowl win in four years, the Chiefs have been “very aggressive” about growing their fanbase. They received an unexpected boost on 24 September.
Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift had been rumoured to be dating Travis Kelce before she was spotted with Kelce’s mother Donna in a suite at Kansas City’s game with Chicago. Overnight, the Chiefs tight end earned a legion of new fans – Swifties.
In the 24 hours after that game, sales of Kelce merchandise spiked by nearly 400% on digital sports platform Fanatics. Before then, his merchandise was the 19th best-selling among NFL players. It’s now fifth.
When Swift attended the following week’s game at the New York Jets, the number of female TV viewers aged 12-17 spiked 53% from the season average.
Content featuring the new couple has attracted record views on the NFL’s social media channels and the number of Kelce’s Instagram followers has almost doubled to 4.6 million. The Chiefs’ has risen by more than 10% to three million.
It seems there has been a ‘Taylor Swift effect’ on the field too. The Chiefs have won all four games she has attended, with Kelce averaging 108 receiving yards. The rest of the season he’s averaged 50.
Are Miami the Greatest Show on Surf?
Swift did not attend last Sunday’s game at Denver – and Kansas City’s six-game winning streak ended with a 24-9 upset. Mahomes failed to throw a touchdown pass for the first time in nearly two years.
Despite their recent run, the Chiefs have not been at their fluent best and they re-signed wide receiver Mecole Hardman from the Jets to remedy that.
Both Kansas City and Miami go into Sunday’s game with a 6-2 record, but the Dolphins have looked more impressive – they lead the NFL in passing yards, rushing yards and points scored.
The same day Kelce’s new girlfriend first watched him from the stands, Miami thumped Denver 70-20, becoming the first NFL team to register 70 points and 700 yards in the same game, and scoring the most points in an NFL game since 1966.
Tua Tagovailoa’s career was in doubt in the off-season but the 25-year-old is now flourishing in a stacked offence, which some are calling ‘the Greatest Show on Surf’.
Its biggest threat is wide receiver Tyreek Hill. Nicknamed ‘the Cheetah’, the former sprinter said in July he’d be the first player to reach 2,000 receiving yards in a season.
Having become the first since 1971 to pass 1,000 inside eight games, he’s on course. Now the 29-year-old will play his first game against Kansas City since they traded him to Miami in 2022.
“It’s going to be fun,” he said. “It’ll be like backyard football with your brothers. It’ll be ‘I want to see you do good, but we going to bust you at the same time’.”
The ‘ChampionShip’ docks in Frankfurt
The Chiefs and New England Patriots are two of five teams granted marketing rights to build their brands and fanbase in Germany.
The Patriots are ‘hosting’ the Indianapolis Colts in Frankfurt next Sunday while the Chiefs have spent $1m (£820,000) in preparation for their visit. That includes arranging for a custom-wrapped yacht dubbed the ‘ChampionShip’ to be docked on the Main river to host fan events this weekend.
Donna Kelce is in town. She became arguably as famous as her two footballing sons before they met in last season’s Super Bowl and she received a rapturous welcome by fans on her flight to Frankfurt.
But local Swifties will be sorely disappointed as her youngest son’s new girlfriend will not be among the 48,000 spectators at Deutsche Bank Park.
In fact, Swift won’t be at any Chiefs games for the foreseeable future as she is focusing on the next leg of her Eras tour, which resumes next Thursday in Buenos Aires.
