Everybody was out to impress. American Football goalposts were hoisted at Croke Park, Dan Rooney wore a green tie, Paudie Clifford wore a black Pittsburgh Steelers jersey, bright yellow Terrible Towels were draped across every chair in the Hogan Stand conference room.
It was May 2023, and a Steelers delegation was in town to announce the franchise’s successful bid in attaining NFL marketing rights for Ireland through the League’s Global Markets Program.
Not long ago it would have been considered the genesis of a courtship, these days it’s better summed up as two organisations swiping right and agreeing to meet. But that announcement just shy of two years ago now was the start of a mutually beneficial dalliance.
‘Yours goalposts are much bigger than ours.’
‘Cute towel.’
Everybody in the room that afternoon knew where both parties wanted the fledgling relationship to wind up – with a date at the first ever regular season NFL game in Ireland. On Friday afternoon it reached that destination when it was announced the Pittsburgh Steelers will play in Croke Park later this year.
It has been speculated the Green Bay Packers are to be their opponents but that was not confirmed. All that’s certain is that it will be one of the Baltimore Ravens, Minnesota Vikings, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, Seattle Seahawks, Indianapolis Colts, or the Packers.
No date for the game has been given either, but it is expected to be scheduled in the September-November window. The details will be confirmed when the 2025-26 NFL fixtures are finalised, likely to be early May. Further information on tickets can be found at www.nfl.com/dublin.
The capacity of Croke Park will be reduced to 76,000 for the match. Hill 16 will be fitted with temporary seating while other areas of the ground will be needed to accommodate extra corporate and media boxes.
But Henry Hodgson, general manager of NFL UK & Ireland, says GAA headquarters won’t need a major overhaul to be match-ready.
“Last summer we did a feasibility study in a lot of stadiums around the world and I think Croke Park stood out,” he said. “In comparison to a lot of the stadiums, typically which tend to be soccer stadiums, the size of the field itself is incredibly beneficial for our game. Also the facilities within the stadium are pretty similar to what is required for an NFL game. Compared to other venues the modifications needed will be minimal.”
The Pittsburgh Steelers played the Chicago Bears in a preseason game at Croke Park in July 1997. Several college games have also taken place in Dublin over the years – mainly at the Aviva Stadium – but this will be a first regular season NFL fixture.
It is believed the Government will contribute almost €10 million to stage the event and with sports minister Charlie McConalogue believing the game will attract 30,000 international visitors the economic boost is expected to be north of €60 million.
Either way Ireland has become the latest pin in the map for the behemoth that is the NFL. The global growth of the game in recent years has been quite extraordinary. There have already been regular season games played in Toronto, London, Mexico City, Munich, Frankfurt, and São Paulo. Berlin, Madrid and Dublin will join that list next season.
Earlier in the week it was announced that Melbourne would host games from 2026 – as part of “a multiyear commitment”. There were no such guarantees made on Friday in the official announcement with regards to Dublin, but Dan Rooney – director of business development and strategy for the Pittsburgh Steelers – does not envisage this as a one-off event.
“We said in May of 2023 that the Steelers plans in Ireland are long-term,” says Rooney, whose great-grandfather Art Rooney founded the franchise in 1933. “We certainly do not plan to change our stance, the Steelers are not going anywhere when it comes to Ireland, and this game is going to be a tremendous launching pad for the future.”
The Rooney family’s Irish roots originate in Newry, Co Down. Dan Rooney Snr, the former owner of the Steelers, was United States ambassador to Ireland from 2009-2012. Still there is little doubt that, irrespective of any emotional pull of the old country, this event would not be happening unless it was deemed financially and strategically favourable to all parties.
American Football is the ultimate demonstration of what happens when sport and commerce combine. Indeed the NFL Global Markets Program could be viewed as a clinical slicing and dicing up of international markets for franchises to make financial gains.
The New York Jets and Jacksonville Jaguars were also granted rights to engage with the Irish market, but it’s fair to say the Steelers seized the initiative here. They have held several sold-out “watch parties” in Croke Park and organised skills clinics and youth camps in Ireland.
The growth in the popularity of the game globally can in many ways be attributed to the NFL’s innovations in TV coverage and media use. Red Zone is revolutionising how consumers watch sport, while Nickelodeon has even covered matches, complete with slime cannons to celebrate touchdowns.
Only last week Greenlanes national school from Clontarf, Dublin, represented Ireland at the NFL Flag International Championships at the Pro Bowl Games in Orlando, Florida.
It is clear the GAA can learn so much when the NFL circus pitches its considerable tent in town later this year.
Still, who could ever have imagined that Croke Park on the first or third Sundays of September would be more likely to host multimillion dollar quarterbacks than sticky miserly corner backs, or that we’d have more chance of watching the Pittsburgh Steelers there than the Sheep Stealers.
But the optics of Dublin hosting this game can surely only be positive for Ireland. The capital has been going through something of a difficult period, image-wise. Events like this can be transformative.
As for those Terrible Towels, they are a Pittsburgh institution. In a bid to drum up some atmosphere around before a 1975 playoff game, then Steelers radio announcer Myron Cope urged supporters to bring yellow dish towels to the game. The Steelers won and subsequently advanced to be crowned Super Bowl champions that season. The towels have remained ever since.
“It’s a bit of a full circle announcement today,” adds Rooney. “I do believe my grandfather is smiling down on this one.”
Among the international stadiums that will host NFL matches over the next two seasons include the Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid, Wembley Stadium in London, the Olympic Stadium in Berlin and the MCG in Melbourne – some of the most iconic and storied venues in world sport. Croke Park can be added to that list now.
It’s hard to find much terrible in that.
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