About 76,000 fans filled the Stade de France on Sunday for the first NFL game in Paris, a day after protests and clashes turned the city’s streets into a police zone. Fans were relaxed, upbeat and ready for football, according to the Associated Press. The Pittsburgh Steelers and New Orleans Saints kicked off at 2:30 p.m. local time, or 9:30 a.m. Eastern.
If you’re planning to follow the NFL to Europe, here’s what matters. Check current travel advisories before you book a future international game. Read your airline’s and your travel insurance’s cancellation terms. Treat league fan events as nice extras that can vanish on short notice, because they did this weekend. The U.S. State Department even issued a security alert telling “Americans in Paris for the NFL game” to exercise caution. Big events can strain your budget in other ways too, as World Cup final tickets listed for millions show.
A calm stadium at the Steelers-Saints Paris game
AP reports a visible but discreet police presence at the stadium, with Steelers and Saints fans mingling before kickoff. That is a long way from Saturday.
AP also reported that a march that began peacefully ended badly. Protesters threw fireworks and other objects at police, who answered with tear gas, sound grenades and water cannons. Roughly 70,000 officers were deployed nationwide that day. (That’s not far off the size of the stadium crowd, just spread across a whole country.)
The protests began in early October over the cost of living and school conditions, according to NBC News. The unrest was big enough to close the Louvre and Orsay museums. It also got a Paris Saint-Germain match postponed at police request.
The fans AP talked to were mostly just glad to be there. Alicia Moore, a Saints fan from Texas, said her family was in town for her dad’s 70th birthday. They were “very excited to come to the first-ever NFL game in Paris.”
Rachel Rushing, from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, said, “We’ve not had any issues.”
What the NFL gave up to keep the Paris NFL game on
Staying on schedule was not free. After shutting its pop-up shop the day before, the league closed “NFL House” in Paris on Saturday, citing “potential accessibility issues,” according to ESPN. The Saints pushed “Saints House” to Sunday, and the Steelers had already canceled their fan event.
The NFL’s Peter O’Reilly said the league never seriously considered canceling or moving the game. Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league’s comfort level with security was “very high.” President Trump took the opposite view on Friday. He said the NFL “could have probably postponed” the game, as Front Office Sports reported.
Here’s the thing: this was a calculated bet. League security can lock down the stadium. Protest routes, however, can still make it hard to reach, which is exactly the risk NBC’s Pro Football Talk flagged before kickoff. The league wagered that Sunday would look different from Saturday, and so far that wager looks good.
Why the NFL in France is only the beginning
The Paris game follows earlier international stops in London, Berlin, Munich, Madrid, São Paulo, Mexico City, Toronto and Dublin. Goodell has called the French debut “just the beginning,” according to AFP. Macron met Goodell and both team owners at the Élysée Palace on Friday. They discussed the game and the long-term future of the NFL in Paris.
Back home, the league’s calendar keeps rolling, with Cowboys-Eagles on Monday next up.
What happens next after the NFL game in Paris
No deal for more French games has been announced. We also didn’t have the final score when we published.
Watch for two things this week. First, will the protests flare up again? Second, will the league review its security playbook for future overseas games?
If Paris pulls off a smooth Sunday, expect the NFL to point to it as proof the plan works. If anything goes wrong on the way out of the stadium, expect a much louder debate. So the league’s bet gets graded twice: once at kickoff, once at the exit gates.
