108 | SPORTS VENUES 2023/24 www.stadiaworld.com Last November, the game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Seattle Seahawks at the Allianz Arena in Munich released a lot of hype. It was the first time that the North American National Football League (NFL) had played a regular season game on German soil. The rush for tickets was so great that the league said it could have sold around 3 million tickets. The match at the Allianz Arena also set various NFL records for international games in terms of merchandising sales or TV coverage. In the four major leagues of US sport, it is almost a daily occurrence that official pre-season and regular season games are played outside the USA. The beginnings of the International Games or International Series – each league calls its games abroad differently – lie far in the past. The National Hockey League (NHL) started its first international series 85 years ago. As part of the 1938 Detroit Red Wings-Montréal Canadiens European tour, the two teams from Detroit (Michigan) and Montréal (Québec) faced each other in a total of nine games for so-called exhibition games – i.e. games away from league play – in England and France. From then on, the NHL organised numerous international games under various titles, such as the DN Cup, the Friendship Tour, the NHL Challenge or currently the NHL Global Series. The first regular season game to be played outside the USA took place in Tokyo on 3 October 1997. The National Basketball Association (NBA) also played its first international regular season game in Tokyo; on 2 November 1990, the Phoenix Suns won against the Utah Jazz. Twelve years earlier, however, the NBA had already started a series in which NBA teams played against other international teams. In the first game, the Washington Bullets lost to Maccabi Elite Tel Aviv – in Tel Aviv. Break due to the pandemic Major League Baseball (MLB) started a little later with its internationalization strategy. The first time there was a game far away from the United States was in Monterrey (Mexico) in 1996. Subsequently, there were sporadic games in Tokyo, Sydney Monterrey and in 2019 for the first time in Europe (London). The NFL also started its international encounters in Mexico. In 2005, under the name Fútbol Americano, the San Francisco 49ers met the Arizona Cardinals in the Azteca Stadium in Mexico Sport abroad: The internationalisation of the US leagues Frankfurt, Paris, London, Melbourne or Abu Dhabi – the four major US sports leagues are on big trips again in the upcoming season. What are the leagues’ concrete plans? Which teams will play their games abroad and where? NFL at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium: The New York Giants won against the Green Bay Packers on 9 October 2022 in London. Picture: imago/USA TODAY Network
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