According to former professional Kasim Edebali, the NFL game in Munich will take American football “to a new level” in Germany.
“Seattle Seahawks against Tampa Bay Buccaneers with Tom Brady is a hit. It multiplies the football hype in Germany for generations,” said the 33-year-old from Hamburg to the German Press Agency. “You have kids who are watching an NFL game for the first time, teenagers who are motivated to play the sport and older people who become even more fans.”
Munich will host the first NFL game in Germany on Sunday and will share four main round games in the world’s best football league with Frankfurt over the next four years. “I would be happy if we had many more games in Germany in the future. The NFL community here is huge by now,” said Edebali, whose first book “Dream Chaser” will be available this Tuesday.
Internationalization the big goal
Edebali does not believe that there could even be an NFL division with European teams in the future. “Of course, internationalization is the NFL’s big goal, and they also notice what’s going on here in Europe and especially in Germany. But the travel strain would be enormous,” said the book author and TV expert.
Edebali had made the leap into the American National Football League eight years ago and was under contract with the New Orleans Saints, Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions and Cincinnati Bengals. Before retiring in September, the defender played for the Sea Devils in his home town of Hamburg.
“Victory of the German football community”
For professional Jakob Johnson, the first NFL game in Germany is a credit to everyone in the German football scene. “This is the sign that the NFL takes the German football fan seriously. A multi-billion company like the NFL doesn’t just do something like that and not thoughtlessly,” said the Stuttgarter in the service of the Las Vegas Raiders of the Germans press agency. “They don’t just make a game available abroad that the teams would much rather play at home. A lot of groundwork had to be set for that to take place.”
The enormous number of NFL subscriptions, the number of viewers for the games on free TV and the enthusiasm of ex-professional Björn Werner and expert Patrick Esume, who would have done a lot of groundwork as moderators, as well as the German players in the NFL’s international talent program everyone had “contributed a small part to it,” said Johnson: “And at the end of the day it’s a victory for the German football community.”
