{"id":1907,"date":"2024-07-16T18:33:10","date_gmt":"2024-07-16T18:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/nfl-pittsburgh-steelers-would-love-nfl-game-in-ireland-rooney\/"},"modified":"2024-07-16T18:33:10","modified_gmt":"2024-07-16T18:33:10","slug":"nfl-pittsburgh-steelers-would-love-nfl-game-in-ireland-rooney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/nfl-pittsburgh-steelers-would-love-nfl-game-in-ireland-rooney\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL: Pittsburgh Steelers ‘would love’ NFL game in Ireland – Rooney"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The NFL has held regular-season games in London since 2007 and has been expanding across Europe in recent years, with Germany hosting its first game in 2022 and Spain set to follow in 2025.<\/p>\n

A feasibility study for further expansion across Europe – including into Dublin – has started and Rooney added that while he would “love” to bring the Steelers to Ireland, it is ultimately up to the NFL.<\/p>\n

“We’re awaiting some of their findings and we have told them we would love to get to the island to play a game some day,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s an exciting future ahead. It would be special no matter where we played it. <\/p>\n

“Croke Park hosted it in 1997 and that is a special venue, but that’s really in the hands of the NFL.”<\/p>\n

Rooney says “we see an appetite for our game” in Ireland and added the emergence of Charlie Smyth<\/a> through the NFL’s international player pathway (IPP) programme has helped grow the sport.<\/p>\n

Former Down GAA goalkeeper Smyth signed a deal with the New Orleans Saints<\/a> as a kicker after impressing at the NFL Combine.<\/p>\n

“We’ve seen the Gaelic football players and the talented legs that they have,” said Rooney, who added it was “exciting” to have international players challenging to make NFL rosters. <\/p>\n

“The fact guys and gals grow up kicking a ball helps transition to American football kicking, so it’s really impressive on that front.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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The NFL has held regular-season games in London since 2007 and has been expanding across Europe in recent years, with Germany hosting its first game in 2022 and Spain set to follow in 2025. A feasibility study for further expansion across Europe – including into Dublin – has started and Rooney added that while he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1909,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907\/revisions\/1909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}