Based on the way tickets have sold for the National Football League’s first regular-season game in Germany, the NFL is probably wishing it made its Deutschland debut much earlier.
In advance of tickets going on sale for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers taking on the Seattle Seahawks at Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena on November 13, more than 700,000 fans queued up digitally before seats became available. Sadly, the majority of those fans walked away from their computers, smartphones or tablets in disgust as Allianz Arena only holds around 75,000 people.
“If everyone who has expressed an interest in the first NFL regular season game in Germany (by registering on the official website) would only order ONE ticket, the Allianz Arena in Munich could be sold out 7 times,” NFL reporter René Bugner wrote on Twitter back in May.
Similar sentiments were expressed by NFL Germany general manager Alexander Steinforth on LinkedIn. “The numbers we saw just now were absolutely crazy,” he wrote. “All tickets taken within minutes. Never witnessed a similar demand for any other sports event in Germany.”
Predictably, the secondary market for NFL tickets in Germany quickly got hotter than temperatures on the European continent. Face value ticket prices for the game were about $65 to around $165, but those tickets are now being sold for anywhere from $560 to $34,000 on StubHub.
“We are overwhelmed by the demand for tickets for our first ever regular-season game in Germany,” an NFL spokesperson told ESPN. “More than 770,000 fans accessing our ticket shop at the same time is proof of the excitement we see in the market. Tom Brady and the Bucs facing the Seahawks in November will be the biggest sporting event in Germany in 2022. Our fans can’t wait for the NFL to finally touch down in Germany.”
The NFL, which will also play three games in London and one in Mexico City next season, has got to be hoping Brady hangs around for at least one more season and heads to another team during the offseason that it can schedule for another game in Germany next year. The league is already reportedly planning a regular-season game in Frankfurt.
As for this year’s game, it should be a bloodbath as the Seahawks do not project to be very good this season and the Bucs are coming off a year when they were a play or two away from knocking off the eventual Super Bowl champs in the playoffs.
Seeing Brady might be worth something, but it ain’t worth $34,000.
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