So, it turns out that the championship game for the German Football League (GFL, the pinnacle of American football in Germany) was on Saturday down the street from our apartment. Naturally, we had to go check it out. You probably have some questions, so here we go:
American football? Aren't you in Europe? Go to a soccer game!
I know, but the local team here doesn't have a home game coming up soon. I checked.
New Yorker? Like the magazine? You said this was Germany.
So, New Yorker is a clothing brand based out of Braunschweig, Germany (where the New Yorker Lions also call home). As far as I can tell they are the only team with naming rights like that in the league. They are the most successful team in the history of the league and definitely had the bigger fan base at the game.
Both the team and the event are sponsored by this New Yorker?
I know I thought that was kinda shady, too.
Alright, let's see some proof.
Here you go:
That doesn't look very big, this is for the championship?
Indeed it is. The stadium is actually deceivingly large. It can hold 20,000, but the stated attendance was 12,531 which is not bad for American football in Germany, I guess. Here's the Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns section:
Here's the New Yorker Lions Fan section:
Note the fans with the drums. They were the much louder fans.
OK, so how was the game?
The first thing I noticed was how bad the kickoff was. More running plays than passing, which makes the game go fast. The Unicorns drove down the field on the opening drive but had to settle for a field goal. Things went severely downhill for them from there. They had three turnovers and just generally couldn't make anything happen. The Lions meanwhile, were marching up and down the field. You could tell their offense was better. The game was over at halftime, basically. The Unicorns did finally score a touchdown in garbage time. Your final score: 47-9. I don't really watch any college football, but I imagine it was much closer to a random college game than anything in the NFL.
So, if this was basically the German Super Bowl, did they have an elaborate halftime show?
Not so much. First there was all the cheerleaders doing routines separately. They apparently have the cheerleaders from every team in the league come. Or maybe they were from elsewhere, I don't know.
Then two people sang and tried to get the crowd into it, but they didn't seem to be having it.
To be fair, they were singing to the side of the crowd whose team just took a 34-3 whooping in the first half. There was actually better entertainment before the game, including a rock band and a drum corps.
OK, were there any sweet mascots?
Glad you asked, I did enjoy the Lions mascot.
The Unicorns mascot was pretty good, but I have no good shots of him as he had less to celebrate and was on the other side of the field. There were some random mascots to go along with the random cheerleaders though.
Anything else interesting or strange come to mind?
You bet. There was no merchandise on sale for either team but a bunch of NFL and NCAA merchandise available. I saw a guy in a Gronkowski jersey talking in German with a guy in a Manning jersey like they were best friends. There was only one scoreboard that just had the clock and the score on it and we couldn't see it from our seats. You had to look at the downs marker on the field to figure out the down.
This all sounds pretty good. Was it awesome?
Yes, it was.
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