Panthers officially announce 2024 ‘home’ game in Munich

Two years of marketing and outreach will take a step forward when the whole team travels to Germany

The NFL and the Carolina Panthers have announced that the team will be playing one of their nine home games at the Allianz Arena in Munich Germany, home of FC Bayern Munich. No further information about the game, including opponent, has been announced at this time.

The 17-game schedule that the NFL switched to in 2021 left teams in an awkward spot of rotating between nine home games and eight away games or eight home games and nine road games year-to-year. The NFL is trying to even that inequity by designating each team with a ninth home game as the host at an international site. This is an expansion of the league’s international efforts that have, to date, seen 36 games played in London since 2007, five games played in Mexico City since 2016, two in Munich, Germany and one in Frankfurt, Germany since 2022, and a projected game this season in São Paulo, Brazil.

In 2022, the NFL divided much of the world and then subdivided it further in 2023 such that teams had semi-exclusive rights for marketing in every global market. The Panthers only international marketing region is Germany, which they share with the Atlanta Falcons, the Kansas City Chiefs, the New England Patriots, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

This will be the second game the Panthers have played over seas after their 37-26 win over the Bucs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London in 2019.

This will make for an interesting test of a new head coach as any international game, even if one team is designated as the “home team”, is like an amped up road game. It will be many players first time in Munich, even if the league is intelligent enough to not schedule the game during Oktoberfest (September 21 to October 6, 2024), novel distractions and entertainments will abound.

Keep your eyes here for more information on the game itself and potential fan meet ups for those of brave enough to travel for this game.