The Azteca Stadium in Mexico put the final point to the International Series of the NFL, the games organized by the American football league abroad. Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers faced each other in the early hours of Monday to Sunday in an enclave that has hosted two World Cup finals with victory for the Californians (10-38). The meeting also marked the return of the NFL to Mexican soil for the first time after the pandemic.
This season is the third in the entire history of the league in which five games have been played outside the United States (it also happened in 2017 and 2019). However, 2022 is the first year in which the matches have been spread over three different countries: United Kingdom (3), Germany (1) and Mexico (1). And the success of the NFL has been tremendous wherever it has gone.
Mexico City had already hosted three American football matches in the past, the first of which was in 2016. In 2018, despite an interesting Chiefs-Rams game being scheduled, the poor state of the pitch forced them to take the game back to Los Angels. The pandemic and the restrictions on it meant that, to date, 2019 had been the last year with the NFL at the Azteca Stadium. The Mexican people wanted to enjoy one of the greatest shows in the world again, and last night did not disappoint: 78,427 attendees packed the Azteca stands, which was a continuous party despite the rain.
The International Series of the NFL continue to grow and succeed in any part of the world. In addition to the Mexican return, a few weeks ago the Allianz Arena in Munich hosted the first match in the history of the league in Germany with 69,811 fans that forced to hang the ‘no tickets’. In the United Kingdom, where matches have been held since 2007, the European fans always respond: the two matches at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium saw more than 60,000 spectators, and the Wembley duel welcomed 86,215 fansbecoming the game abroad with the most spectators in the stadium in the history of the league.
Motivated by this success abroad, the NFL clearly intends to continue expanding internationally. The increase to 17 games per season instead of 16 is intended that, in the future, each franchise maintains its eight matches at home and as many as visitors, playing the rest abroad. And in these long-term plans there is already talk of the possibility of Spain as a venue (the NFL admitted having the Iberian country “very on the radar”). Because American football is no longer lived only in the United States.
