Snakes, snakes, snakes everywhere – squirming around, around barriers, behind caution tape. Already on Saturday you couldn’t walk through downtown Munich without coming across a line of people queuing up with anticipation. Every line led to the National Football League (NFL), the American professional league, which had scheduled a competitive game in Munich for the second time on Sunday. And of course it was no different on match day: four hours before kick-off (in technical jargon: kick-off), hundreds of fans were waiting in the cold before the party zone north of the Fröttmaninger Arena opened. Once inside, you had to allow an hour in front of the stand for souvenir photos.
After the premiere between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Seattle Seahawks two years ago, the Carolina Panthers and the New York Giants are now in Munich. As in 2022, the league and its teams took over the city for a weekend – and once again attracted thousands of fans.
Simon, for example, came from the bell town of Gescher in Münsterland. With his friends – “completely different fans of all kinds of teams,” as he says – he got on the train at four o’clock on Friday morning to share in the NFL experience. On Saturday lunchtime they got hold of beer mugs with the Panthers logo on them; The team gave away 500 of them at the Augustiner headquarters, the meeting place for their supporters.
In the afternoon, the Gescher group stood with their now empty beer mugs at the Viktualienmarkt, where the Kansas City Chiefs were setting up a throwing game. Next to the queue that had formed in front of it, Simon told us who they had already met: “Fans from Boston and South Carolina, a native Ghanaian from Düsseldorf.” The NFL brings the world together.
This was also easy to see and hear in the arena: “From Holland,” said a fan wearing a Panthers hat. Rich, who comes from New York but lives west of Munich, took the opportunity to attend a Giants game with his 13-year-old son. But the stands weren’t just bathed in blue, the color of both teams, they were colorful. Anyone who has ever purchased an NFL product proudly displayed it over the weekend: hats, scarves, jerseys and jackets from almost all 32 NFL teams were also on display in the stadium on Sunday. Although: When the Panthers ran onto the field, it sounded at least a little like a home game. You were nominally the host of this game.
This was an opportunity for the many fans who had traveled to stock up on additional fan paraphernalia. On Saturday afternoon, in front of the NFL’s pop-up store in the former Galeria Kaufhof am Stachus, which was open for three days, the queue of interested parties stretched back to the entrance to the Mathäser cinema. During the day in the arena you had to be careful not to miss the kick-off: If you wanted to buy something at one of the six NFL shops, you had to wait at least half an hour. The breakwaters that were set up just for the route to the shop were 1,900 meters long. Snakes, snakes, everywhere.
Also at the Panthers fan festival on Wittelsbacherplatz, where people not only dutifully lined up in front of the fan merchandise stand, but also in front of the hands-on activities. They were able to test their skills by kicking or throwing the egg-shaped football. Or at the Platzl, where the queues crossed between the Hofbräuhaus and the Hard Rock Cafe: one wanted to go to the designated meeting point of the New York Giants, the other to that of the Seattle Seahawks.
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The NFL was even represented where there is always a long line of people in the Bavarian capital – at the Munich Tafel at the Großmarkthalle. Here on Saturday morning, several dozen Carolina Panthers office workers helped distribute food to those in need. “We also want to give something back to the community,” said club president Kristi Coleman, who handed out baby formula. Panthers and Giants donated a total of 10,000 euros for food.
Their marketing director Kalen Karahalios later explained the Panthers’ commitment by saying that Germany feels “like a second home” since the club secured marketing rights from the NFL in 2021. It is not for nothing that the club from Charlotte in the US state of North Carolina flagged the Augustiner headquarters with the slogan: “This is our building”. People should be prepared to “see our brand here forever,” announced Karahalios full-bodied.
The Panthers were one of the first four clubs to have marketing rights in Germany. Since the league game premiere in 2022, the number has now increased to ten. Most of them were also present in the city at the weekend in one way or another for promotional purposes, with fan activities or team pubs. Ale Santoz, for example, who traveled from Berlin, watched the game on Sunday in a restaurant on the Platzl that was marked as the home of the Atlanta Falcons; A game by the team from the USA was then broadcast there.
The 46-year-old set up the German Falcons fan club under the pseudonym “Alesantoz”, for which he was named “International NFL Fan of the Year” and sees himself as a kind of ambassador. “I’m trying to bring Americans and Germans together,” he says, “I’m here for the fans and the community.”
The teams took care of their care in different ways. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers declared the Ned Kelly’s behind the Frauenkirche an “embassy,” as Vice President of Media and Marketing Christi Bedan explained: “A permanent place for Bucs fans to watch football games.”
The New England Patriots have been setting this up in the “Herrschaftsszeit” restaurant in the valley since the start of the season, as Chris Knower, the manager responsible for German-speaking countries, emphasizes. Patriots games, which take place early on Sunday evenings here, can be watched in a side room. When the NFL entourage has left the city again after this weekend, you will be able to get in without waiting in line.
The oversized helmets with the team logos, which stood prominently on Odeonsplatz two years ago, lined the esplanade in front of the stadium this time. The highlight before the game was a choreography across the stands, with an oversized NFL logo and German flag. Even some of the Panthers fans who stayed in America probably know Manuel Neuer: he was allowed to open the game with a drum roll – a treat for the Munich people in the audience, of whom there are said to have been a few.
