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Breaking Down Why Croke Park Field Is So Big for Steelers-Vikings

The NFL’s trip to Ireland meant bringing regular season football to one of the most iconic stadiums in all of sport.

Tyler Lauletta

“I suppose it’s a cathedral of Irish sport, but it’s more than just Irish sport,” GAA director of communications Alan Milton says of Croke Park.
“I suppose it’s a cathedral of Irish sport, but it’s more than just Irish sport,” GAA director of communications Alan Milton says of Croke Park. / Blat Garcia/Sports Illustrated
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This Sunday the NFL will host its first regular-season game in Ireland when the Vikings and Steelers face off in Dublin’s Croke Park.

With a capacity of 82,000, there’s room for plenty of fans making their way from both across Ireland and overseas for the big game. But fans viewing the game at home might be struck by one particular aspect of Croke Park—the impressive size of the field.

While the football field for Sunday will be the same 120 yards that you are used to seeing every week, the field on which those football lines are painted will be substantially larger than the ones found at American stadiums.

That’s because Croke Park is not a football-first venue. It is also not a soccer first venue, which would bring with it dimensions of between 100-110 meters long and 64-75 meters wide. Instead, Croke Park, the home of the Gaelic Athletic Association, is built to host two traditional Irish sports—Gaelic football and hurling.

The standard pitch for both sports run between 130–145 meters long and 80–90 meters wide; at Croke Park, the exact measure is 145 meters long by 88 meters wide. The result is a whole lot more room on the sidelines than NFL fans are used to seeing.

Obviously we’ve seen NFL games hosted at venues mostly meant for other sports before, but those games have largely taken place in soccer stadiums, where the dimensions of the field are a bit closer to those of American football.

As the NFL continues to expand its international schedule, more and more stadiums around the world will get a 120-yard by 53.3-yard temporary makeover. Few will be as interesting as Croke Park.

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Tyler Lauletta
TYLER LAULETTA

Tyler Lauletta is a staff writer for the Breaking and Trending News Team/team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI, he covered sports for nearly a decade at Business Insider, and helped design and launch the OffBall newsletter. He is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, and remains an Eagles and Phillies sicko. When not watching or blogging about sports, Tyler can be found scratching his dog behind the ears.

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