LAS COLLINS, Texas – The NFL has announced its latest expansion into Germany.
The NFL will host a regular-season game in Berlin for the first time in 2025, following the league’s recent games in Munich and Frankfurt.
The move reflects the game’s continued expansion internationally, as the league reaches new cities and increases the size of its international inventory.
“We first hosted a preseason game 34 years ago at Olympic Stadium, home of NFL Europe’s Berlin Thunder in the early 2000s,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement Wednesday morning. “Now, with nearly 20 million NFL fans in Germany, we will make a historic return to the city by playing a regular season game for the first time as we begin the next chapter in our relationship with Berlin.”
The NFL will play a regular season game in Berlin for the first time in 2025. Madrid will also host a game for the first time.
The international slate continued to grow after the expansion was approved last year. pic.twitter.com/ck74hjHOwV
— Jori Epstein (@ZoriEpstein) December 11, 2024
NFL efforts to invest in flag football in Berlin will also continue.
In recent seasons, the NFL played four international games in addition to the Jacksonville Jaguars’ permanent annual contest at Wembley Stadium in London. The league passed a resolution in December 2023 allowing schedule-makers to expand the international slate from four to a maximum of eight games starting in 2025.
The expectation was that inventory growth would slow. In 2025 there could be just five games above Wembley matches. As of Tuesday, a person with knowledge of the schedule expected inventories to rise further in 2025 already.
The NFL will also play its first regular-season game in Madrid in 2025 at Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu Stadium.
So far, the NFL’s announced 2025 international slate will include games in Berlin, Madrid and London. London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium will host two matches in 2025.
This will be updated on developing stories.
