The NFL International Series expands into Germany for the first time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Seattle Seahawks preparing for a contest in Munich on Sunday. It will also be the first game that two teams leading their respective divisions have matched up in abroad.
As expected, there has been a ton of demand for the game with the possibility that this will be the final international matchup of Buccaneers' quarterback Tom Brady's career.
In July, head of NFL Germany, Alexander Steinforth, stated that there were "around" three million ticket applications for the game.
“We were able to anticipate it a bit in advance due to the approximately 600,000 registrations for the presale in the past weeks,” Steinforth said to German news outlet, Ran. “At the peak, however, there were about 800,000 people in the virtual queue at the same time.
“Ticketmaster told us afterwards that they could have sold around three million tickets," Steinforth continued. "This level of demand — whether for sporting events or concerts — is usually only seen at the Super Bowl. So, this advance sale for the NFL’s German game has once again exceeded all expectations.”
With the contest set to be held in FC Bayern's Allianz Arena, which holds a max capacity of 67,000 for Sunday, the stadium could've been sold out over 447 times. The immense number somehow even made it to Tom Brady.
I have heard there's 3 million ticket requests for 67,000 seats," Brady said on Monday. "So the place is gonna be rocking and if it's anything like what I see in those German Bundesliga games this is gonna be one of the epic games that we've ever played in. So I'm super excited."
While most of the fans who applied to attend the game in person will likely have to watch from a television, the NFL will be back in Germany soon. The league is planning to hold a game in Frankfurt in 2023 with the goal to schedule international contests in the country annually.
Tampa Bay and Seattle will kick-off at 9:30 a.m. eastern time in the United States. That equates to 3:30 p.m. local time in Germany.
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