Hello, Germany

[RiverDog]

Unless the pandemic throws us another curve, 2022 will see Munich, Germany added to the international slate of games:

The league announced Wednesday that Munich has been selected to host the first-ever regular-season game in Germany during the 2022 season. The NFL also announced that Frankfurt will host future games in Germany.

"We are very pleased to welcome Munich and Frankfurt to the NFL family and are excited to reward our fans in Germany for their passion by bringing them the spectacle of regular-season NFL football," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. "We look forward to staging our first game in Germany at FC Bayern Munich's fantastic stadium later this year and to exploring areas of broader collaboration with the Bundesliga."

The game in Munich is one of five international NFL games scheduled for 2022, along with one in Mexico and three in the United Kingdom -- two will be played at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as well as a Jacksonville Jaguars home game at Wembley Stadium. Home teams for the international slate will be announced in the coming weeks, though dates and matchups won't be released until the 2022 NFL schedule announcement later this year. With the advent of a 17-game regular season, each team is required to stage at least one international game every eight years.

Germany will host four International Series games over the next four seasons, with the 2022 matchup and an additional one at FC Bayern Munich Stadium, the home of the Bundesliga champions. The two other games will be played at Frankfurt Stadium.

The country has emerged as a major market for the game, with an estimated 19 million NFL fans residing in Germany. Weekly viewership on partners ProSieben and DAZN has grown by more than 20 percent annually since 2017, while Super Bowl LV marked the third consecutive season of record German Super Bowl viewership. Fantasy football participation and sales at the NFL Shop and of the Madden video game have also steadily increased.

A recent survey by AFG Videoforschung found that American football is the second-most popular television sport in Germany, with one in three people having watched in the past year.

I didn't realize that there had been that big of an increase in popularity in Germany, but I don't doubt it. When I went to our game in England a few years back and attended a prefunction in a London bar two nights before the game, we met two young ladies, native Germans speaking fluent English, that had flown in for the game.

I would expect that requirement that as more agreements are obtained, that the requirement of each team host at least one international game every 8 seasons will be shortened, and as I mentioned in another thread, would love to see that 17th game become a neutral site game that would include out of market venues in North America.

[RiverDog]

Ooops, wrong forum. Oh, well.