THE widely anticipated NFL Dublin game featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Minnesota Viking’s will finally go on sale at noon on Tuesday June 17th.

American Football has been dubbed the ‘fastest growing’ foreign sport in Ireland, and the NFL has its sights set firmly on the capital after the success of last year’s College Football game.

Last year Dublin witnessed a sold out Aviva Stadium play host to Georgia Tech and Florida State University in the 2024 Aer Lingus Classic. This fall the Pittsburgh Steelers are set to host the Minnesota Vikings at Croke Park on Sunday 28th of September 2025.

Daniel Rooney, Steelers Director of Business and Development Strategy, spoke on the first ever NFL game in Ireland.

"The Steelers are excited and honoured to play in the NFL's first-ever regular season game in Ireland," he said. "The Rooney family has deep ties to the island, having immigrated from there in the 1800s, eventually settling in Pittsburgh, where my great grandfather would go on to found our franchise in 1933."

The Steelers Associate also commented on his family and their Irish roots.

"More recently, my late grandfather, Dan Rooney, proudly served as the U. S. Ambassador to Ireland and co-founded the Ireland Funds, a now-global institution that aims to help make the island a better place for all. He loved Ireland and was very passionate about the game and growing the game of American football there." 

The announcement became official in May when the NFL officially confirmed their ‘European Games’ line-up, with the likes of London, Madrid and Berlin also playing their part in hosting the National Football League on European soil.

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London has become a second home for the sport, with up to three games annually played in England’s capital city. 

Almost two decades have passed since the first official game was held at Wembley Stadium in October 2007, which saw the New York Giants defeat the Miami Dolphin’s 13-10, en route to the franchise’s third super-bowl title.

This year is the first time a competitive NFL fixture is set to take place on Irish shores, although, it is not the first game to have been played on Irish soil, and not even the first time the Pittsburgh Steelers have played within the confines of Croke Park.

In 1997, the Black and Gold did play the Chicago Bears in a preseason game at Dublin's historic stadium, marking the first time the NFL had played a game on the island of Ireland, albeit in a pre-season warmup.

Both franchisees are set to face each other for the 20th time in NFL history, with Pittsburgh winning nine games in comparison to Minnesota’s ten so far but the most recent edition saw the Viking’s victorious in a thrilling game which ended 36-28 back in 2021.

The home-team in Dublin will be the Steelers, who face the small 3,427-mile trip to their ‘home-ground’ of Croke Park to host Minnesota.

Their monopoly on the Irish NFL market circles back to 2023, when the Steel City made their mark through a series of events including watch parties and youth football camps with current and former players across Ireland since then.

The tie is a battle of old versus young with the 2011 Super-Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers recently signing for Pittsburgh as their main quarterback and he will face-off against one of the league’s rising stars in Minnesota’s JJ McCarthy.

The game will be flush with talent as two of the NFL’s best wide-receivers in the form of Steelers star-man George Pickens and Viking’s hero Justin Jefferson will take the field this September.

Tuesday 10th June will see the initial sale of some tickets for the event, with hotel and matchday packages available from £350 for the more discerning fan, however, the game ticket’s themselves will be sold the following week at a much more reasonable price.

To get your tickets, make sure to join the Ticketmaster queue from 11am, as no doubt Ireland's fastest growing sport will be a sell-out in no time.