The Irish NFL

The Irish NFL Show: Bringing American Football to the Emerald Isle
By Colum Cronin

In the midst of lockdowns in 2020, a group of Irish lads came together to start the Irish NFL Show. What  started as a video podcast hobby for sanity during COVID, has continued to grow and become the largest NFL outlet on the island of Ireland. It has gained acknowledgement and respect on both sides of the Atlantic, with the aim of providing an Irish slant (and insight!) on the game of American Football, as well as bringing key figures, guests and U.S. viewpoints to an Irish audience.

Over the past couple of years, Irish NFL Show has released hundreds of episodes; presented live shows at historic Irish venues such as Croke Park and Aviva Stadium; and has broadcast from the NFL’s international games in London and Munich. The crowning moment was hosting a show live from SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles for last year’s Super Bowl (supported by CBS). We have received confirmation that we have been accredited to cover this year’s Super Bowl and we will be travelling to Arizona next month.

The story of how we became interested in the sport goes back a lot further than that though … RTÉ (Ireland’s national television network) began showing NFL games in 1985. However, the highlights, which were broadcast on a Monday night, were not from the weekend that had just ended, but from the one before that!

The Super Bowl in Ireland

This was in the pre-internet era, when deferred coverage was possible. The Super Bowl was the only live game shown on Irish screens. It was slim pickings for an NFL fan, but people nevertheless grew to love the game from these tiny acorns. As the years rolled on, things grew a little more, with smatterings of highlights shows and late games broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK, as well as mythical stories from friends’ transatlantic visits and live experiences in stadiums across the U.S.

Over time, a nation fell in love with the Gridiron game; or at least a tiny niche portion of the Irish population fell in love with the game and, indeed, this love stretched across the teams in the NFL. For us specifically, I fell in love with the Broncos; Brian O’Leary with the Giants; and Mark Cockerill with the Patriots.

The Irish NFL Show podcast

Fast forward almost thirty years and recognising that we wanted to bring an Irish voice to the NFL, we started the Irish NFL Show podcast. The connections between Ireland and the US are so ingrained, they go without saying, but those roots and links also exist through the NFL – from Paddy O’Driscoll to Tom Brady, to the influence of the Rooney and McCaskey families, as well as through coaches, players and executives over the 100+ years the NFL has been in existence.

Our focus is on the wider expansion and growth of the game internationally, delivering high-quality content and insights to the Irish and a wider international audience. In addition to discussing the latest news and trends in the NFL, we also bring on a variety of guests, including current and former players, coaches, and other personalities from the league. Our guest list is lengthy, but in recent times has included the inimitable Rich Eisen, Mina Kimes, Hall of Famer Rod Woodson, Colleen Wolfe, Joe Schoen, Jane Slater, Mickey Loomis, Justin Simmons, Kalyn Kahler, Super Bowl Champion Aqib Talib, Tom Telesco, and more.

Given the history of friendship between the United States and Ireland, we are also proud to have established a strong relationship with the US Embassy in Dublin. Christopher Wurtz, then Deputy Chief of Mission, joined us for our first Super Bowl show in February 2021. We were also delighted to be invited to join Ambassador Clare Cronin at her residence in the Phoenix Park for the Fourth of July celebrations.

Our audience is a mix of people who grew up in Ireland, American expats living in Ireland, and Irish people living in the United States, as well as other international fans of the NFL. Despite coming from different backgrounds, we’ve found that these different groups of fans have one main thing in common, they all share a love for the sport and a desire to stay connected to the NFL.

Similarities between Irish and American Football

We also see the common similarities, as many Irish fans do, between the NFL and our national sports of Gaelic Football and Hurling. Like American football, these sports are physical and high-scoring and they also have a strong sense of history, tradition and are deeply rooted in their community. Indeed Croke Park, home of the GAA (and the occasional U2 concert), even hosted the Chicago Bears and the Pittsburgh Steelers for a pre-season game in July 1997.

This year we have seen some changes to the line-up of the show, as we continue to evolve in order to make it stronger and better each year, Kalle Ryan, an award-winning writer and spoken word poet, has joined as host and moderator, and Khristina Quigley has joined as a panellist.

As we gear up for this year’s Super Bowl, we are excited to bring our viewers the latest news and analysis leading up to the big game. We will be airing special episodes of the show in the days leading up to the Super Bowl, featuring interviews with players and coaches, analysis of the matchup, and discussions of the Super Bowl’s significance and history.

As fans of American football in Ireland, we at the Irish NFL Show have been excited to see the sport continue to grow in popularity in our country over the past few years. We started the show in 2020 with the goal of providing a platform for Irish fans of the NFL to stay up to date on all the latest news and analysis from around the league. Looking to the future, we are committed to continuing to grow the Irish NFL Show and bring even more coverage of the NFL to Irish audiences. We hope to expand our reach and continue to provide a platform for Irish fans to connect with the sport they love.

You can find us at www.irishnflshow.com and our verified Twitter account @IreNFL.