Common ground: NFL teams link up with Bundesliga soccer clubs and both sides look to score

By Canadian Press on November 6, 2025.

BERLIN (AP) — Borussia Dortmund and the Pittsburgh Steelers say their partnership goes way beyond jersey swaps.

“We’re both rooted in coal and steel industries, blue-collar history, emphasizing hard work, character is what matters, with a very strong sense of community,” said Marc Lingenhoff, Dortmund’s managing director of the Americas region.

Their agreement is one of several formal partnerships between Bundesliga clubs and NFL teams as both sides look to make inroads in each other’s territories to expand their fan bases and commercial opportunities.

Germany is a vital piece of the NFL’s aggressive international push. The country boasts the world’s third-largest economy and is home to passionate fans with a long history of supporting American football.

On Sunday, Berlin will host its first regular-season NFL game when the Indianapolis Colts face the Atlanta Falcons at Olympiastadion.

Panthers and Lions also active

Other NFL-Bundesliga partnerships include the Carolina Panthers and Eintracht Frankfurt, as well as the Detroit Lions and Cologne.

Charlotte and Frankfurt are major financial hubs. There are more than 250 German firms with operations in North Carolina accounting for more than 35,000 jobs.

Detroit and Cologne have long histories in auto manufacturing. Ford Motor Co.’s plant in Cologne started production in 1931. Ownership of the Lions has been in the Ford family’s hands for more than 60 years.

Another link for the Lions and Cologne is star wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown. His mother is from Leverkusen, just north of Cologne. The German-speaking St. Brown features heavily in Detroit’s Deutsch social media channels. Leverkusen’s own soccer team, which won the Bundesliga title in 2024, is a Cologne rival.

The Seattle Seahawks took a different approach by partnering with an American football team in Germany — the Rhein Fire, which played last season in the European League of Football.

Yellow Wall makes an impression

The Steelers and Dortmund also share colors — mostly. Pittsburgh is black and gold; Dortmund is black and yellow.

“The similarities in our regions and our fan bases — it all fits well,” Reagan Berube, the Steelers’ senior director of international development, told The Associated Press in a joint interview with Lingenhoff.

Objectives include reaching new fans, conducting in-person activities, and content collaboration. There are watch parties and flag football clinics.

In a March collaboration, the Steelers sent safety Miles Killebrew to a Dortmund game, where he got his first glimpse of the famous Yellow Wall. The clips are the most popular videos on the Steelers’ German Instagram and TikTok accounts.

The Kansas City Chiefs, who collaborate informally with Bayern Munich — Germany’s biggest club — have the most followers (155,000 total) on their German-language Instagram and TikTok accounts compared to the other 10 NFL teams with commercial rights in Germany through the league’s global markets program.

Do these types of partnerships work?

The more the teams’ brands align, the better.

“This matters because when audiences start wondering about the rationale behind a partnership, they often attribute it to purely economic motives, which can have negative effects,” Sebastian Uhrich, professor of Sport Business Administration at German Sport University Cologne, told AP in written comments.

A partnership like the Steelers and Dortmund, he added, “could still prove successful, as both teams have large fan bases in their home cities and attract significant attention.”

There are risks, too.

“A major risk lies in the potential dilution of each team’s brand image,” Uhrich noted. “Sports teams typically have a strong local or regional identity, so an international partner may not always be perceived as a natural fit. Moreover, fans — particularly in Europe — often disapprove of activities that appear to serve commercial interests above all else.”

The Steelers’ collabs with Dortmund also “will likely alienate fans of other clubs, especially Dortmund’s main rivals (Schalke, Bayern Munich, and Leipzig),” Uhrich added.

Let’s talk business

The Steelers and Dortmund both sent representatives to each other’s annual sponsor summit.

“Those deals take time,” Lingenhoff said. “We’re making good progress on a few leads, but nothing to announce quite yet.”

A year ago, the Bundesliga entered into a long-term deal with U.S. promotions agency Relevent — co-founded by Stephen Ross, owner of the Miami Dolphins — to boost its media rights and regional sponsorships in the United States and the Americas. They’ve set up offices in New York and Guadalajara, Mexico.

The Bundesliga said it has opened a “first-of-its-kind local content studio in Mexico” and has launched Spanish-language social media channels.

Bundesliga eyes growth in US

Among soccer fans in the U.S., the Premier League is the dominant foreign league. So, there’s work to do for the likes of Dortmund, which opened a New York office in 2024, and the Bundesliga.

“We know that the Premier League leads the way. There’s also a cultural advantage that they have, with English being the language,” Lingenhoff said.

The Bundesliga said more Americans have played in its league than in the other elite European leagues. And indeed, Dortmund was home to U.S. internationals Christian Pulisic and Gio Reyna.

There’s room to grow in the U.S. Lionel Messi playing at Inter Miami has raised interest in the sport, and the U.S. is co-hosting next summer’s World Cup.

“In the U.S., we know that there is a favorite team in England, Italy, Spain, Germany. That may change as players transfer,” Lingenhoff said. “We have to work harder for loyalty of each individual fan.”

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Ken Maguire, The Associated Press

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