The second regular season game of the National Football League (NFL) will take place in Munich on November 10th at 3:30 p.m. The Carolina Panthers will meet the New York Giants at the Munich Game 2024 in the Fröttmaninger Arena. This major sporting event is already casting its shadow. As part of the NFL International Series, visitors to the stadium will not only be offered spectacular professional sport, but the sport of American football will also be sustainably established as a popular sport in Germany.
The NFL has been supporting the city of Munich with teacher training in flag football since the first NFL game was played on German soil in 2022. This year, the training will take place for the first time on the new flag football field in the Riem sports campus. A total of 24 sports teachers took part in the two-day workshop and were trained theoretically and practically in all the basics of flag football. In addition, each teacher received a flag football starter pack so that they could implement the new sport in physical education lessons. Furthermore, the teachers receive new units and a playbook (collection of moves) every week in order to be able to make the lessons varied. The Department for Education and Sport (RBS) is sending a clear signal for popular sport with the program and the new playing field. The field is the training facility for the Munich Spatzen, Munich’s only flag football club. The Spatzen men’s team became German champions in flag football for the first time this year, as did the women’s team in a syndicate with Augsburg. In this way, the RBS is supporting a young sport that will be Olympic for the first time at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, and is providing a unique basis for this sport to develop further. Munich is the first major city to invest in flag football.
Further training for teachers on the new flag football field at the Riem sports campus (Bernhard Hunzinger/Department for Education and Sport)
Sports Mayor Verena Dietl: “The whole of Munich is looking forward to the second big NFL football game – a highlight for our sports-loving city. I would particularly like to highlight the flag football program that the city set up together with the NFL. We want to bring children and young people even closer to this booming sport and get them excited about team spirit, physical activity and club memberships.”
Sports speaker Florian Kraus: “With the opening of the first flag football field at the Riem sports campus, we are focusing on a still young sport and a strong signal for the promotion of exercise and team spirit. A great step for popular sports in Munich.” Flag football is a contactless version of American football and is therefore suitable for all body types. This variant can be played in mixed teams (boys and girls) and can therefore be implemented in school lessons for all age groups. Instead of bringing the person carrying the ball to the ground (tackle), the defending team must pull at least one of the two flags from the flag belt that each player is wearing. The other rules are similar to those of American football: the attacking team must gain space and has several attempts to do so. The goal is to get the ball into the opponent’s end zone either by running or catching a pass, i.e. to score a touchdown, which scores the attacking team six points. The NFL flag football program plays a 5-on-5 indoor format. The attacking team has three attempts to cross the center line and then three more attempts to reach the end zone.
