LAS COLINAS, Texas — The NFL announced its latest expansion in Germany.
After the league’s recent games in Munich and Frankfurt, the NFL will host a regular-season game in Berlin for the first time in 2025.
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 held a preseason game at the Olympic Stadium 34 years ago, before it was home to NFL Europe’s Berlin Thunder in the early 2000s,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday morning in a statement. “Now, with almost 20 million NFL fans in Germany, we’ll make a historic return to the city playing a regular season game for the first time as we open the next chapter in our relationship with Berlin.”
The NFL will play its first-ever regular season game in Berlin in 2025. Madrid will also host a game for first time.
International slate continues to grow after expansion approval passed last year. pic.twitter.com/ck74hjHOwV
— Jori Epstein (@JoriEpstein) December 11, 2024
NFL efforts to invest in flag football in Berlin will also continue.
In recent seasons, the NFL has played four international games in addition to the Jacksonville Jaguars’ standing 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 beginning in 2025.
Expectations were that the inventory increase would be gradual. There could be just five games atop the Wembley match in 2025. As of Tuesday, a person with knowledge of the schedule expected the inventory to grow further already in 2025.
The NFL will also play its first regular-season game in Madrid in 2025 at Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu 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 games in 2025.
This developing story will be updated.
