Sarni's Scrolls: NFL going Global
By Jim Sarni
The NFL loves Germany.
The Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins played in Frankfurt on Sunday. The Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots play there this Sunday.
Both games sold out instantly. Fans can't get enough football.
The Tampa Bay Bucs and Seattle Seahawks played in the NFL's first International Series game in Germany in 2022 in Munich. It was such a success that the league scheduled not one but two games in Frankfurt this season.
"We'd play another game there as soon as possible," Chiefs president Mark Donovan told Front Office Sports.
Kansas City, which has nine home games this season, asked to play in Germany this season, and their fans showed up in droves. The crowd was 80-20 Chiefs, cheering on the red shirts to a 21-14 victory.
Kansas City has global marketing rights in Germany and sees a huge business opportunities abroad. The Chiefs already have deals with six major brands, including Burger King Germany.
New England, which also has global marketing rights in Germany, is the home team this Sunday.
■ The Chiefs became the first team to win a game in four different countries -- U.S., England, Mexico, Germany.
■ Deutsche Bank Park is the 191th venue to host an NFL game in the league's 104 seasons.
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NFL Stat of the Day
Since playoff expansion in 1990 to 12 teams now 14...
■ 84.8% of teams with two losses after Week 9 ultimately qualified for the postseason.
■ 63.4% of teams with three losses.
■ 33.5% of teams with four losses.
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Around college football
■ "CFB Primetime with Pat McAfee," hosted by McAfee and Rece Davis, debuted Saturday night on ESPN2. The show resembled the NFL RedZone-style broadcast, and included coverage of non-ESPN telecasts.
■ Georgia remains No. 1 in the AP Top 25, followed by Michigan and Ohio State, the top team in the CFP rankings. Your move, committee.
■ Most bet teams on tickets at BetMGM:
Notre Dame -3
Michigan -32.5
Texas -3.5
All lost
■ College football was played at Wrigley Field for the first time since 1938, with Northwestern defeating Iowa 10-7.
■ Saturday TV times set: 3:30 -- Miami-FSU (ABC), Utah-Washington (Fox), Tennessee-Missouri (CBS)... 7 -- Ole Miss-Georgia (ESPN), W. Virginia-Oklahoma (Fox)... 7:30 -- Texas-TCU (ABC)... 10:30 -- USC-Oregon (Fox).
■ "College GameDay" will be in Athens for Ole Miss-Georgia on Saturday; Big Noon Kickoff will be in Happy Valley for Michigan-Penn State.
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The college basketball season begins Monday with 39 of the top 50 (21 men's and 18 women's) teams in action.
Selection Sunday is 132 days away.
International
■ Notre Dame vs. South Carolina in Paris (women), 1 p.m., ESPN
Hall of Fame series (Las Vegas)
■ Women -- USC vs. Ohio State, 2, truTV; Colorado vs. LSU, 7:30, TNT
■ Men -- Georgia vs. Oregon, 4:30, truTV; USC vs. Kansas St., 10, TNT
Top 10s
■ Men: 1. Kansas, 2. Duke, 3. Purdue, 4. Michigan St., 5. Marquette, 6. UConn, 7. Houston, 8. Creighton, 9. Tennessee, 10. FAU.
■ Women -- 1. LSU, 2. UConn, 3. Iowa, 4. UCLA, 5. Utah, 6. South Carolina, 7. Ohio State, 8. Virginia Tech, 9. Indiana, 10. Notre Dame.
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ETC.
■ The NFL Network celebrated its 20th anniversary on Saturday. The league realized that football could become a year-end obsession.
■ The Vancouver Canucks unveiled a cool Diwali logo designed by artist Jessie Sohpaul.
■ There were 114 goals scored in 15 NHL games on Saturday. Most ever on a single day.
■ Shaun White has written his autobiography titled "Seaborne."
■ New mother Naomi Osaka will make her return to competitive tennis at the Australian Open in January. The four-time Grand Slam champion last played in September, 2022.
■ 50 Cent sponsors AFC Rumney, an under-14 girls soccer team in Cardiff, Wales.
■ Michael Strahan takes us through the contents of his fully stocked refrigerator, shares his current diet, and explains how his outlook on nutrition since he retired from the NFL on a Men's Health magazine video.
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■ Mt. Kilimanjaro is the highest-rated Natural Wonder, according to TripAdvisor reviews.
■ The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree arrives this week. A 12-ton, 80-foot Norway Spruce from Vestal, N.Y. "What I look for is a tree you would want in your living room, but in a grander scale," said head gardener Erik Pauze.
■ Al Pacino is in Bad Bunny's "Monaco" video, connecting over bowls of pasta at Carbone's in New York City.
■ Cher will star in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
■ Hot movie: "Killers of the Flower Moon," Martin Scorsese's epic about the deadly conspiracy against the Osage Nation. "The most sinister movie ever made about the West," "USA Today" critic Tom Gliatto wrote.
■ "Yellowstone"s Rip Wheeler has created the Free Rein Coffee Co.
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THEY SAID IT
■ "We're giving Las Vegas back to Formula One... the sport where very tidy, lean, mean men, and some extraordinary women, climb into rockets and try to stay on Earth and not achieve orbit. A little like rock and roll." -- Bono, explaining U2's 26-day hiatus at the Sphere.
■ "^I've always said if we could figure outmatch how to get all the countries to play [football], we wouldn't have wars. We'd just go play football. It'd be a great place. " -- Chiefs coach Andy Reid.
■ "I want to win a medal at the Olympics. Maybe I can get gold." -- Helen Obiri of Kenya, the first woman to win both the Boston and New York Marathons in the same year since 1989.
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Jim Sarni, BC Class of '69, is a former sportswriter for The Boston Globe and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He resides in Fort Lauderdale and watches a lot of television.