Willkommen in Deutschland: Seahawks to play Buccaneers in Munich, Germany, this NFL season
The Seahawks’ newest message: Willkommen in Deutschland.
The NFL announced Wednesday the Seahawks will play Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this coming season in Munich, Germany.
The league’s first regular-season game in Germany will be Nov. 13 inside FC Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena. Kickoff is 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time, 3:30 p.m. in Germany.
Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf shares top German billing for the game with Brady.
In March the NFL announced the Buccaneers would be hosting an International Series regular-season game in Munich this fall. One of the Seahawks away games this year had already been scheduled to be against the Buccaneers.
It will be the first the first non-soccer event to take place at Bayern Munich’s stadium.
The Seahawks have a large following of fans in Germany. It stems from 10 years ago when the team was on its way to back-to-back Super Bowl appearances. Those Seattle championship games were broadcast live in Germany. During the 2013 and ‘14 Super Bowl seasons, Seattle was featured often on some of the only NFL games shown live in Germany back then, as Germans’ interest in American pro football began to rise.
The team says that per NFL data, the Seahawks are the second most popular NFL team in Germany. The following includes the German Sea Hawkers chapter that has 1,316 dues-paying members. That represents more than 10% of such groups worldwide.
That — and Schneider joking the week before the NFL draft about how his German language lessons have progressed — fueled speculation the Seahawks are going to be playing the Bucs in Munich.
“They got hard really quick,” Schneider said last month of his German lessons.
The Seahawks have a linebacker from Germany, Aaron Donkor. He is from Aachen. He joined the team in 2021 as part of the NFL’s International Player Pathway Program.
The Munich game means the Seahawks bye week will come later in the 2022 season than usual, on Nov. 20. Teams playing international games get bye weeks immediately following them.
The league announced tickets for the Munich game will be available for purchase in June. Exact dates for ticket-buying windows will be announced within the next few weeks. Fans can register their interest in purchasing tickets at www.nfl.com/internationalgames.
Munich and Frankfurt are hosting NFL regular-season games over the next four years.
The Seahawks have played one regular-season game in Europe. They beat the Raiders in London in 2018. A large contingent of Seahawks fans, an estimated 200-300, made the short trip from Germany to England for that game.
The Seahawks also played a game in Toronto in 2012, against the Bills. That was when Buffalo was playing some regular-season games in neighboring Canada, from 2008-12.
This story was originally published May 4, 2022 at 6:36 AM.
