Patrick Esume

Can the National Football League’s appeal win over the hearts of fans in Germany and around the world for the long term? In “THE GAME – The NFL Takes Over Germany,” RTL explores this question in a high-quality, premium documentary and tells the extraordinary success story of the world’s largest sports league. Starting with the NFL Berlin Game in November 2025, the documentary traces the NFL’s rise from its historic beginnings to its status as a modern mega-event—featuring exclusive insights and interviews with, among others, NFL commissioners Roger Goodell and Gerrit Meier, as well as current and former German-speaking NFL pros such as Bernhard Raimann, Markus Kuhn, and Björn Werner.

United States, September 1st, 2016. American football player Colin Kaepernick kneels during the national anthem, protesting police brutality against black people. Part of the population regards the gesture as an unacceptable affront to the flag. Later, he loses his place on his team. Today, however, he is considered by many as a true hero.