American Bowl
On the 15th of August 1994, more than 112,000 people crammed into Mexico City's Estadio Azteca to watch the Dallas Cowboys face the Houston Oilers in a preseason football game. That figure, 112,376 people, remains the largest crowd ever recorded at an NFL game. It was not the Super Bowl. It was not even a game that counted in the standings. It was an American Bowl, one entry in a two-decade-long experiment to sell the sport to the world.
The American Bowl ran from 1986 to 2005, staging National Football League preseason games at venues across Europe, Asia, and North America outside the United States. It planted NFL flags in cities as far apart as London, Tokyo, Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, Sydney, and Monterrey. It drew enormous crowds, sparked genuine enthusiasm, and quietly laid the groundwork for everything that followed. How did it start? Why did it end? And what came next when the league decided exhibition games were no longer enough?
Long before the phrase "American Bowl" existed, the NFL was already testing foreign soil. Between 1950 and 1983, thirteen football games involving NFL or AFL teams were played outside the United States, most of them unremarkable arrangements that left no lasting impression.
Six of those early games were played in Canada between 1950 and 1961, pitting NFL teams against Canadian Football League opponents. The NFL side won all six. The games were hybrids, blending American and Canadian rules, and they served as much as diplomatic gestures as sporting events. NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle described the cross-border scheduling as part of "harmonious relations" between the two leagues.
Not every gesture landed smoothly. When the New York Giants arranged exhibition games in Montreal and Toronto in 1960, the Montreal contest had to be canceled. The Montreal Alouettes opposed it, calling the Giants' visit an "invasion" of their city.
The AFL also sent a team north: the Buffalo Bills lost 38-21 to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, the lone AFL entry in this informal pre-Bowl history. Five other games effectively used the American Bowl format before the name existed. Tokyo hosted one in 1976 under the banner of the "Mainichi Star Bowl," a title reflecting its sponsors Mainichi Shimbun and Sports Nippon. Mexico City followed in 1978. London welcomed the "Global Cup" in 1983. The blueprint was already drawn. The NFL just had not yet given it a name.
On the 3rd of August 1986, the Chicago Bears beat the Dallas Cowboys 17-6 at Wembley Stadium, and the American Bowl officially began. London was the logical starting point: Wembley was already one of the most famous sports venues in the world, and the UK had a small but growing community of American football fans.
The series returned to Wembley every year through 1993, making London its most reliable anchor. The 1987 game produced a thriller, the Los Angeles Rams edging the Denver Broncos 28-27. By 1989 two games were held on the same weekend, one at Wembley and one at the newly built Tokyo Dome in Japan, signaling that the series was outgrowing any single city.
The 1993 London game, Cowboys versus Lions, ended in a 13-13 tie, an unusual result for an exhibition that nonetheless drew a crowd willing to sit through a result that settled nothing. That same year, the series reached Barcelona's Estadi Olímpic, still warm from the 1992 Summer Olympics, where the San Francisco 49ers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 21-14. The breadth of those 1993 venues, Tokyo, Barcelona, Berlin, London, showed just how ambitiously the league was thinking.
After 1990, the American Bowl expanded into Montreal and Berlin, and the timing was deliberate. The NFL was preparing to launch the World League of American Football, which began play in 1991. Preseason games in those cities were a way to test and prime new markets before placing franchises there.
Berlin's Olympiastadion hosted its first American Bowl in August 1990, an Los Angeles Rams blowout over the Kansas City Chiefs 19-3. The city saw four more games over the next four years, including a 1992 Miami Dolphins win and a 1993 Minnesota Vikings victory. The Berlin American Bowl appearances overlapped almost exactly with the years the World League's Berlin Thunder competed.
Montreal's situation was more complicated. The city had no CFL team in 1990, the Concordes and Alouettes franchise having folded in 1987, years before a new Alouettes club would arrive in 1996. Into that gap stepped the NFL-backed World League, which placed the Montreal Machine there for the 1991 and 1992 seasons. The August 1990 Pittsburgh Steelers versus New England Patriots game at Olympic Stadium, won 30-14 by Pittsburgh, helped introduce the city to American football at its highest level just months before the Machine took the field.
The Governor's Cup game on the 15th of August 1994 at Estadio Azteca between the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Oilers drew 112,376 fans, a figure that still stands as the largest crowd in NFL history. Mexico City had hosted a pre-Bowl exhibition in 1978, but this was something different in scale and atmosphere.
The Cowboys appeared in more American Bowl games than any other franchise, nine appearances in the official series. They won only one of those contests. Dallas was essentially the league's road attraction, a marquee team sent abroad to give foreign crowds a recognizable name, even if the Cowboys kept losing.
Mexico proved the most durable venue. After the 1994 Azteca record, the series returned to Mexico City in 1997, 1998, 2000-2001, and then continued through 2005, the last year of the series. The 1996 game moved to Monterrey's Estadio Universitario, where the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Cowboys 32-6 in front of a regional crowd less than three hours from the Texas border. From 2000 onward, every American Bowl was played in either Mexico or Japan, a narrowing of focus that reflected both where the interest held and where the logistical groundwork was strongest.
Not every game in the series fit neatly into the official American Bowl ledger. Three games from those years, two in Montreal and Gothenburg in 1988 and one in Toronto in 1993, are specifically excluded from the American Bowl record because the NFL did not arrange them. In those cases, the home team itself elected to play abroad, a distinction the league maintained carefully.
One of the series' more unexpected stops was Sydney, Australia. On the 8th of August 1999, the Denver Broncos beat the San Diego Chargers 20-17 at Stadium Australia, which had recently been completed for the 2000 Summer Olympics. That game remains one of the most geographically remote in league history.
Dublin's Croke Park hosted a game on the 27th of July 1997, with the Pittsburgh Steelers defeating the Chicago Bears 30-17. Croke Park was one of the most storied Gaelic games venues in Ireland, and watching American footballers occupy it was the kind of incongruity that the American Bowl routinely produced. Vancouver's BC Place welcomed a 1998 game between the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks. Osaka's Dome hosted a Washington Redskins blowout of the 49ers in 2002. The series touched more than a dozen countries over its run.
The last American Bowl was held in 2005, an Atlanta Falcons win over the Indianapolis Colts 27-21 in Tokyo. There was no game in 2004. The series had been shrinking for years.
When Roger Goodell took over as NFL commissioner in 2006, he outlined a different vision. Preseason games abroad were abandoned. NFL Europa, the rebranded successor to the World League, was shut down after its 2007 season. The energy that had gone into exhibition travel was redirected toward something more concrete: regular season games on foreign soil.
The first regular season NFL game outside the United States was played on the 2nd of October 2005, at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, before a league record crowd of 103,467 fans. The Arizona Cardinals beat the San Francisco 49ers 31-14. Less than two years later, on the 28th of October 2007, the New York Giants beat the Miami Dolphins 13-10 at the newly rebuilt Wembley Stadium in London, the first regular season NFL game ever played outside North America.
A game between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks had been scheduled for Beijing in August 2007 under the name China Bowl, inheriting the American Bowl framework in spirit if not in name. It was postponed to 2009 and ultimately canceled before it was ever played. The Buffalo Bills meanwhile launched the Bills Toronto Series, beginning on the 7th of December 2008 when the Miami Dolphins beat the Bills 16-3, a run that lasted through 2013. The international appetite the American Bowl spent two decades building found its next, more permanent form.
Common questions
What was the largest crowd ever recorded at an NFL game at the American Bowl?
The largest crowd in NFL history was 112,376 fans, recorded at the American Bowl on the 15th of August 1994 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. The game was the Governor's Cup between the Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Oilers.
When did the American Bowl series start and end?
The American Bowl ran from 1986 to 2005. The first game was played on the 3rd of August 1986 at Wembley Stadium in London, and the last was held in 2005 at the Tokyo Dome.
Which cities hosted American Bowl games?
American Bowl games were held in London, Tokyo, Berlin, Montreal, Barcelona, Mexico City, Monterrey, Dublin, Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney, and Osaka, among other cities. Wembley Stadium in London and the Tokyo Dome in Japan were the most frequent venues.
Why did the NFL end the American Bowl series?
After Roger Goodell became NFL commissioner in 2006, the league shifted from international preseason games to regular season games abroad. NFL Europa was also shut down after its 2007 season as part of this strategic change.
Which NFL team appeared most often in American Bowl games?
The Dallas Cowboys appeared in nine American Bowl games, more than any other franchise. They won only one of those contests.
What replaced the American Bowl as the NFL's international format?
The NFL International Series replaced the American Bowl format, beginning with a regular season game at Wembley Stadium on the 28th of October 2007, when the New York Giants beat the Miami Dolphins 13-10. That was the first regular season NFL game played outside North America.
All sources
5 references cited across the entry
- 2newsFeud Begins As Game Set For CanadaApril 21, 1960
- 3newsNFL Giants cancel Montreal exhibitionMay 3, 1960
- 4news'Banzais' for Cards, Chargers as NFL goes to JapanAugust 17, 1976
- 5newsSTEWART FINE FOR STARTERSJuly 27, 1997