Figures begin to capture impact of NFL's visit to Croke Park
Myles Smith performs at half-time during the NFL International match at Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire.
The economic breakdown of the first ever NFL regular-season game in Ireland is beginning to trickle in and the numbers confirm the enormous influx and impact of American fans and money into the capital for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Minnesota Vikings clash.
A crowd just north of 74,512 attended the game in Croke Park, won 24-21 by the Steelers, with 35% of ticket holders – over 26,000 people - hailing from the US, 30% from Ireland and 35% from the rest of the world.
That chimes with the estimate last week of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell who said that the figure of American tourists was roughly 30% of the attendance when the norm for international games is closer to one-tenth.
The knock-on effects are significant.
The Steelers welcomed more than 20,000 people to their three-day tailgate event at Merrion Square, over twice that made use of the free league events held across the city, including the NFL Experience at Dublin Castle.
An NFL store in the city centre saw a footfall of over 33,500 fans and the interest was reflected in homes across the country with more than half-a-million viewers tuning in to the game on free-to-air Virgin Media.
In the US, the Vikings-Steelers Dublin match-up was the second most watched NFL Network International Series game ever and there had been 49 of them prior to this stretching back to 2007 across various territories.
That these things are about much more than the game itself is reflected in the 17 NFL partners (both global brands and local Irish brands) that ‘activated’ at and around the first-ever game in Dublin.
The Dublin game week delivered 55 million post impressions and 30 million video views from the NFL UK & Ireland social channels alone.
“The first-ever regular season game in Dublin leads the slate of six international games to be played across Europe in the coming weeks, and it was a huge success,” said General Manager of NFL UK & Ireland Henry Hodgson.
“Dublin was flooded with NFL fans from around the world who had a chance to experience the NFL up close for the first time in Ireland. The game and the week of events that surrounded it will live long in the memories of everyone who played their part in creating NFL history.”
Other data compiled by Bank of Ireland and VISA deliver similar stats.
Bank of Ireland estimate that social spending across the weekend upped by 17% with retail spending experiencing a bump of 6% with the Dublin 1, 2 ,3 and 4 areas seeing the greatest rises. Spending in these areas was up 12% from the same period the year before.
VISA found that spending in Ireland in general was up 3% on the corresponding weekend in 2024 with the largest bump in spend coming from, unsurprisingly, America (24%) but also Germany where the NFL has a huge and growing presence.
German accents were thick on the ground at GAA HQ, as were British and other European varieties, and the whole influx fed into a boost in spending of 5% in restaurants and 8% in pubs and other sources of entertainment.
