The National Football League (NFL) recently struck a new partnership with Virgin Media Television in Ireland that saw the broadcaster show the 2025 NFL Dublin game on free-to-air, as well as all upcoming 2025 European games, three playoff games and Super Bowl LX. The deal marks the first ever official Irish broadcast partner for the league.

Virgin Media Television brought fans live coverage of the game between the Minnesota Vikings and Pittsburgh Steelers at Croke Park on Sunday (28 September), with a side-line production. The Steelers played as the designated home team for the game, with president Art Rooney II and his family having a long history and deep connection with the island of Ireland, having family from Newry, County Down. The late Dan Rooney, Art Rooney’s father, served as US ambassador to Ireland from 2009-2012 and was a co-founder of the Ireland Funds charity.

“We are delighted to officially bring a regular season NFL game to Ireland as part of our 2025 International Games slate,” said executive vice president international, league events and club business at the NFL Peter O’Reilly. “Both the NFL and the Steelers franchise have deep roots and history in Ireland, and we’re looking forward to making our regular-season debut in Dublin, bringing our game to a large and passionate Irish fan base and underlining the NFL’s commitment to global growth.”

On Sunday before the Dublin game SVG Europe spoke to Virgin Media Television head of sport Brian Gleeson about this new NFL partnership, and what it could mean for the future in the Irish market.

How did your collaboration with the NFL come about?

Gleeson: “It started a couple of years ago when my boss Mick McCaffrey [director of news and sport] said, ‘would you jump on a Zoom call with a guy from the Pittsburgh Steelers who wants a chat?’

“We knew the NFL was starting to open up and de-segment markets. It used to be the UK and then it got smaller and you need NFL permission to go into those markets. For obvious reasons, given the Rooney connection with Ireland, the Steelers wanted to be involved. I heard the NFL commissioner say yesterday that they always wanted to do this but maybe not as quickly if were not for the Rooneys. It was Dan senior’s life goal to get a game here.

“So it started with that brief chat. We were keen to grow a presence and knew that they were keen to have an NFL game here as soon as they could. We thought, there’s no downside really in talking to these guys. Then it grew in recent years when we started taking some programming from the NFL and put their pre-season games on air, an exposure deal where we gave them the platform and they gave us the content.

“When it came to crunch time and there was a game confirmed here, it just so happened to coincide with rights renewals across the UK and Europe. The NFL really want to grow the game, they want more people to see it, and they’re not treating markets as one homogeneous thing. So they were keen to carve out Ireland.

“When it came to the deal, the great thing about Virgin – and we pride ourselves on this – is that when we take ownership of something we give it all our support, and not every operator has that flexibility. If you watched our Ireland AM show this morning our reporter Bernard O’Toole was pitch side, we had cheerleaders coming in, we could really mobilise the whole channel. Plus we said we would do ten games including the Super Bowl. That’s really what intrigued them to grow the game. They liked our exposure and they liked what we could do as a back-up, not just around the game.

“We committed to an OB for this one, and then we’re trialing studio for the next three London games. We know that there’s a huge interest in NFL, but today it doesn’t actually fully translate into viewers. So if there’s ever a time to try it out… In Virgin it always has to be a solid business case, it has to wash its face and you obviously have to make more money than you spend.

“What’s key for us is not to just drop it off a cliff after Dublin; let’s see if we can bring some new NFL fans along with us. And if the three London games [at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in October] are successful and we have studio coverage on them, then we can probably expand it out to the rest of the season.”

NFL games are quite foreign to European eyes in terms of the language of the sport, show and television production. What made you take the decision to go on-air with your own live game presentation today?

Gleeson: “Well, when an event like this comes to town you can’t not be here. So it was a given that if you’re in Dublin you’re not going to be doing it from Ballymount. It’s funny to see the army of people who have come here, all the NFL signage around Croke Park, and the number of Americans around. It’s a great event, and I hope they’ll be back sooner rather than later.

“In Virgin of course we always keep it lean. We took our Six Nations approach, where we like to be pitch side, but the NFL don’t really do that. However it’s the way all modern sport is going, you can see it in the Premier League, Champions League. Nobody really wants to be in a studio anymore.

Read more Live from Dublin: Sky Sports keeps it compact for NFL Dublin game coverage

“There was some wiggle room so we are going to present from pitch side. The NFL actually said to me that they are getting more and more requests for this approach and they’re going to start building it into the plan to let you present there the whole time.

“We toyed with doing our own commentary and talked it out with the NFL. The feedback we got was that it doesn’t quite work, trying to do local commentary in the local market. It’s too dense as a sport.

“We have our main anchor Tommy Martin pitch side, and we decided to put our NFL pundit Efe Obada and commentator Dave McIntyre in what traditionally would be a regular commentary position. What Tommy will do, because we don’t take as many commercials as America, is go to them to explain terminology and plays that people at home might not have understood.

“Across the game there are around 12 two-minute breaks to fill that aren’t commercials, so we’re filling them with a mixture of trying to tell the story of the game and our reporter Bernard O’Toole will be trying to grab other sporting stars and celebrities to give a sense of the occasion. We have kicking coach Tadhg Leader joining Efe and Dave in our analysis booth, as we’re calling it. We’re also working with Michael McQuaid, founder of Pro Football Ireland and the biggest NFL podcaster in Ireland, to bring the passion and the view that this game is like Christmas Day for the diehard NFL fans.”

You’re working with NEP Ireland to produce the game?

Gleeson: “Alan O’Dwyer is our producer today and the camera set-up is actually quite simple; two cameras pitch side and then a comm cam in the commentary position plus a roving RF ENG camera to pick up interviews. The add-on is not huge, taking the world feed from NFL International and jumping in and out with NEP Ireland’s Spirit truck, with two EVS machines and simple graphics package.

“It’s not taxing technically – but it’s just amazing to be here. I think this is the biggest sporting event I’ve ever seen in Ireland. The buzz around all week is amazing. The Steelers and Vikings fans have come in early and they’ve worn their colours wherever they’ve gone.

“The other thing I noticed this morning, coming in on the train, was that it was full of Steelers fans – but they were not Americans. I heard about four or five different languages, all wearing NFL jerseys. German, Polish… it just goes to show that there is a market there for sure, and the NFL wants it to be a global game – that’s their ambition. To have Ireland as part of that calendar makes perfect sense to me. I hope it’s a great day.”