What is the NFL doing in Dublin, Ireland? The league will hold its first-ever official game there — or for that matter, anywhere in Ireland — on Sunday when the Minnesota Vikings face the Pittsburgh Steelers. The game is part of the league’s continuing push into overseas markets under commissioner Roger Goodell, and will be the second of seven international games in 2025 — after the Los Angeles Chargers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in São Paulo Brazil in Week One.
As with that contest, stateside fans will of course be able to watch the Vikings-Steelers game, which will be played at Ireland’s most historic sports venue, the 82,300-seat Croke Park, home of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and host to championship matches in such uniquely Irish sports as hurling — which with a history going back more than 3,000 years boasts of being the world’s oldest field sport — and Gaelic football.
The latter sport would appear to non-Irish fans like a combination of rugby, soccer and basketball. But American football is not unknown in Ireland. The NCAA inaugurated its now-annual “Aer Lingus College Football Classic” in 2016, and the NFL played a preseason game at Croke Park in 1997, with the Steelers taking on the Chicago Bears.
Though the stadium there has been built and rebuilt numerous times, the Croke Park grounds has been the site of various sporting events since 1864. The GAA took it over in 1913.
How to Watch the Vikings-Steelers Dublin Game
The first-ever regular season NFL game in Ireland is set for a 2:30 p.m. kickoff Irish Standard Time. For U.S. viewers, that’s a bright-and-early start time of 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, September 28, 6:30 a.m. Pacific.
The live TV broadcast will be carried by the the NFL Network, with Joe Davis handling play-by-play, and former Carolina Panthers three-time Pro Bowl tight end Greg Olsen assuming in-game analyst duties.
Fans whose cable services do not give them access to the NFL Network may live stream the game with a paid subscription to the NFL’s own NFL+ streaming platform, which streams all NFL Network programming.
Several “over the top” streaming platforms including YouTube TV, Sling TV, and Fubo also carry the NFL Network, and hence the Dublin game, as part of their more expensive paid subscription services.
Local TV stations KMSP (FOX 9) in Minneapolis, and WTAE (ABC 4) in Pittsburgh will broadcast the game on over-the-air free TV for fans in the local markets of both teams only.
Upcoming NFL Overseas Games
Stateside fans who enjoy football over breakfast have five more opportunities to check out early morning NFL games broadcast from overseas this year, including one in each of the next three weeks from London, England.
Here’s the upcoming international NFL schedule for those London games, and then two more in Germany and Spain.
All games take place on Sundays with start times set for 9:30 a.m. Eastern, 6:30 a.m. Pacific.
October. 5: Minnesota Vikings vs. Cleveland Browns, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.
October 12: Denver Broncos vs. New York Jets, also at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
October 19: Los Angeles Rams vs. Jacksonville Jaguars, Wembley Stadium in London.
November 9: Atlanta Falcons vs. Indianapolis Colts, Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany.
