Analysis: American college teams and thousands of their fans have been travelling to Dublin for football games since 1988
By John Affleck, Penn State University
A billboard just outside Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport heralds its return. "American football is back!" the advertisement proclaims, touting a game on August 27th at the Aviva Stadium between Northwestern University and the University of Nebraska.
The question some Dubliners may be asking is "what do you mean by 'back'?" Others, who know about the occasional appearance in Ireland of American college football teams and their legions of fans, may be wondering just why it is that US footballers are returning.
America's game
A little context might be helpful here in understanding just what an oddity the Irish games are. The first thing to know is, despite regular controversies and concern about concussions, American football is the most popular sport in the United States. American football accounted for 82 of the top 100 telecasts of all types in the United States last year. 75 of these were from the professional National Football League (NFL) and seven from college games.
The NFL is the big brother to college football. Top players routinely make upward of $10 million, the season ends with the Super Bowl – an unofficial US holiday – and the league has been playing games in London annually since 2007. College football acts as a feeder system for the pros, but the college game engenders deep passion among fans, not to mention revenue and attention for the approximately 130 schools that play at the highest level.
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From RTÉ 2fm's Jennifer Zamparelli Show, interview with Kerryman David Shanahan who won an American football scholarship to play for Georgia Tech
American football was not unknown in Ireland and the UK in the 1980s. I was a graduate student in Scotland at the time and, as in Ireland, we saw an edited-down version of one game a week, plus highlights. Major college teams had not played on this side of the pond before, but sometimes sporting events grow organically.
The origin of the Ireland games starts with former Boston College and NFL player Jim O'Brien, who visited Ireland for the first time in the 1980s to get in touch with his ancestral roots. According to an account in The New York Times, O'Brien – a big guy, as football players tend to be – got a lot of questions about whether he played the game. He then struck on the idea of putting on a college game in Ireland.
It so happens that O’Brien’s alma mater is one of two schools particularly suited to playing in Ireland, the other being my alma mater, the University of Notre Dame. Boston College was founded by the Jesuits as a school largely for Irish immigrants, while Notre Dame, a couple of hours by train from Chicago, long ago nicknamed its athletic teams the Fighting Irish. Both Catholic schools have facilities in Ireland today.
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From RTÉ Archives, Charlie Bird reports for RTÉ News on the first American football college league game to be played outside of the US at Dublin's Lansdowne Road in 1988
In the end, O’Brien succeeded in staging his game. Boston College defeated Army 38-24 on November 19th, 1988, at Lansdowne Road and the event was a success. About 10,000 Americans made the trip over, a significant number at a time when many fewer US citizens travelled abroad.
"One of the things that I remember is the people loved all the trappings of it, you know, the bands, the cheerleaders, the razzmatazz," retired Boston College spokesman Reid Olson told me in an interview. "And people in the stadium never sat down."
The Irish hospitality got high marks, as it did in 1996, when Notre Dame played its first game in Ireland, defeating Navy 54-27 at Croke Park. That was the third of six major-college games that have been played so far. It also marked the start of the involvement of key organiser John Anthony, a Notre Dame graduate and entrepreneur.
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From RTÉ Archives, Vere Wynne-Jones reports for RTÉ News on preparations for the second American football Emerald Isle Classic, Pittsburgh University vs Rutgers, in Dublin in 1989
Anthony owned a travel agency and recalled that, in ‘96, the number of hotel rooms in Dublin at the time was small enough that hotel guests either had to start their stay in the capital the day of the game or leave the city after the game. There simply wasn’t room for all 16,000 Americans who had come over.
Anthony eventually co-founded an American and Irish partnership, Irish-American Events Ltd, that has organised the games over the last decade: another Notre Dame victory over Navy in 2012 (with an estimated 35,000 American fans at Aviva, per Anthony); a last-second Penn State win over Central Florida in 2014 at Croke Park (20,000 American fans); and a Georgia Tech triumph over Boston College in 2016 (18,000) back at Aviva.
The pandemic wiped out big plans for a Notre Dame-Navy game in 2020 – it’s now on tap for 2023 – while Northwestern and Nebraska will see how they like playing a long way from home this August.
Why Ireland?
Notwithstanding the intense interest college football always creates, flying over the Atlantic presents a logistical nightmare for the teams, which typically travel with about 70 players. Making sure everyone has a passport, and transporting all the squad's equipment and medicine are just two considerations that involve a lot of red tape. Then, there is the cost of staging the game, which is much higher than normal, making sponsorships and other financial support essential.
So given all these hassles, why play in Dublin? There are several reasons the game has a special attraction. At some level, from the universities’ perspective, playing in Ireland is always eye-catching. For instance, Notre Dame travels all over the United States every season, which is part of its identity, and Ireland adds to the luster of "traveling the brand," as ND Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick put it in an interview with me.
Further, for the American fans, there’s simply a love for Ireland, which manifests itself in a couple of notable ways. Particularly a few decades ago, when people traveled abroad less, it offered an appealing destination and a reason to get on the plane for Americans who might have otherwise been a bit intimidated by a foreign destination.
But Ireland was different, friendlier. I spoke with five officials involved in setting up these games and all agreed on this point. Anthony recalled several conversations with somewhat older couples in 1996 in which the woman said, "Thank you so much. I always wanted to go to Europe, and you finally found a reason that he said ‘Yes.’"
The day may come when tens of thousands of Americans pouring into Dublin to watch their own sport might not be a quirk so much as an annual celebration
And then there’s the diaspora. According to the US Census Bureau, 31 million Americans – about one in 10 – claimed Irish heritage as of last year. The chance to go back to the homeland and see a favorite football team? It’s just too good to pass up. Just once, why not spend the money? Then the visitors arrive in Dublin and create memories.
Again, Anthony recalled the moment that illustrates the point. "At halftime in ‘96, I saw a Notre Dame fan that I knew, young guy, recent graduate at the time," Anthony said. "And he just said, ‘This is great. We've got a bunch of Americans who want to be Irish, and a bunch of Irish who want to be Americans.’"
Aer Lingus has stepped in as the title sponsor and Anthony says support from Irish officials for the games has been key to keeping them on the calendar. With the next two years locked in, he’s hopeful more schools will sign up for future seasons. The day may come when tens of thousands of Americans pouring into Dublin at the end of the summer to watch their own sport might not be a quirk so much as an annual celebration.
John Affleck is the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society at Penn State. He attended both the 2012 Notre Dame-Navy game and the 2014 Penn State-Central Florida game, which his students covered for Pennsylvania newspapers.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
