Gameday made an impact, and not just in and around the stadium in Frankfurt’s City Forest district. Much further afield, there was an almost literal explosion of colour. The National Football League (NFL) chased away the grey of an autumn Sunday afternoon and replaced it with jerseys of every imaginable origin. From San Francisco to New York, from Dallas to Green Bay, from Detroit to Seattle, from Atlanta to Baltimore… the fans who came to the second part of the 2023 NFL Frankfurt Games on the banks of the River Main were proud to wear the colours of their favourite clubs from the North American professional league – and to demonstrate how much American football means to them. It was almost incidental for most of them that it was the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts who were facing off on Sunday in Week 10 of the regular season.
Frankfurt goes football-crazy as countries unite
The main language of communication in public transport en route to the Deutsche Bank Park was English. And of course Hessian dialect, with some ‘Hessenglish’ thrown in. For some die-hard Patriots fans who had travelled to the match from overseas, the Germany trip was just another away game like any other.
The Deutsche Bank Park was bathed in an American football ambiance. A huge event area was set up around the stadium, featuring food and drink stands, stores, DJs and stages with plenty of fun to keep the fans entertained. The Germany flag football team also posed for photos on the huge stage during the half-time show in the stadium.
NFL takes over the Frankfurt City Forest
You could hear the noise all around the stadium, and that only got louder once you were inside. Out on the pitch, the teams were warming up. In the press stand, Sebastian Vollmer – a two-time Super-Bowl-winner with the New England Patriots – was heading up to the RTL commentary box, sporting his two enormous championship rings of course. Beside the pitch, former New York Giants player Markus Kuhn was whipping up the 50,144 crowd which included some of the Eintracht Frankfurt Women’s team and former skier Lindsey Vonn. The clock was counting down, and the atmosphere was ramping up.
Behind the scenes in the Deutsche Bank Park, people were also enjoying the exchanges. Brett Gosper, NFL Head of Europe, and Peer Naubert, Chief Marketing Officer Bundesliga International, took part in a discussion before kick-off with Julien Zamberk and Timm Jäger, the CEOs of Eintracht Frankfurt Stadion GmbH and EintrachtTech GmbH respectively. The talk was moderated by Daniel Schleidt and featured Eintracht Frankfurt Fußball AG CEO Axel Hellmann, and the CEOs of the two clubs, Robert Kraft and Jim Irsay. The various bosses exchanged special gifts with one another, with everyone having a souvenir of this memorable day to take home with them.
The football kicked off on the pitch at 15:30 CET, and the party followed suit in the stands. The action on the pitch obviously drove much of the noise, but then there was the unofficial German NFL anthem “Sweet Caroline”, sing-along classics like “Don’t stop believing” and “Country roads”, and fun interactions with the kiss cam and the beard cam, as well as other games on the video screen.
At the end of the four quarters, it was a 10-6 win for the Indianapolis Colts, but for most of the fans the final result was secondary to the experience. It was a special day that was part of a special footballing fortnight in the heart of Europe. Frankfurt and American football belong together!
