Ireland has sent quite a few of its people to America over the years. The U.S. will be returning the favor this week.
The Steelers-Vikings matchup at Croke Park in Dublin is expected to draw a larger-than-usual chunk of U.S.-based fans compared to other international games.
It will be the first regular-season NFL game in Ireland, and all sides are hopeful it could lead to more.
That would be good news for fans in the States, who have shown massive interest in this one.
“It speaks to Dublin’s appeal and Ireland’s appeal to that U.S. audience,” Henry Hodgson, general manager of NFL UK and Ireland, told The Associated Press in an interview.
The league’s registry of interest for ticket purchases when the game was announced showed a higher proportion of U.S. interest compared to games in other markets, such as Britain and Germany.
“The split was essentially a third from Ireland, a third from the U.S. — with the majority being from Pittsburgh and once we announced the Vikings, from the Minnesota area — and then a third from the U.K. and rest of Europe,” Hodgson said.
“Normally you’d see the majority from the local market and then a smaller percentage from elsewhere.”
Steelers fans might feel particularly at home, not only because the Rooney family ownership has Irish roots, but also because the team has opened a merchandise shop in the city. There might even be a few fans coming who attended Pittsburgh's 1997 preseason game at Croke Park.
The capital city is also well-drilled when it comes to hosting American football fans, having staged college games for several years.
Dublin is tracking to become the biggest-ever NFL international game in hospitality sales, according to John Anthony, executive vice president of On Location, the NFL’s hospitality partner.
The deal is for one game followed by an evaluation period, Hodgson said, so no one is penciling in more Dublin games just yet. But there’s optimism.
“That’s a goal on both sides. I don’t want to preempt an evaluation that we need to do on both sides about the impact that it has, but so far there’s been a really strong partnership,” said Hodgson, noting they’ve followed a similar course in other cities.
The Gaelic Athletic Association, which owns Croke Park, stands to gain from an expected crowd of 75,000. Alan Milton, the GAA’s head of communications, said “hopefully it will not be a one-off.”
The Irish government allocated up to 9.95 million euros ($11.7 million) to support the game, according to the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, which said in a statement it is open to hosting "future NFL games.”
The government projects the game will generate 64 million euros ($75 million) “in additional economic activity for Ireland with a direct Exchequer return on the State’s investment of nearly two to one," the culture and sport department said. More than 30,000 international visitors are expected.
“It will also provide global exposure for Dublin and Ireland, with an expected TV audience in the U.S. alone of up to 20 million viewers,” the department's statement read.
Irish Times columnist Dave Hannigan, however, said it's unfair for such a lucrative league to seek taxpayer funds.
“They’re commercial juggernauts. Come to Dublin, make whatever you want from this experience, or this enterprise, make as much money as you can ... just don’t charge the Irish people for it,” Hannigan told the AP.
Hodgson pointed to some elements of the funding that “will remain in the market” like stadium upgrades.
It's a business model that works, he added, and other cities are lining up to host games.
“The NFL brings in significant economic and social impact,” Hodgson said. “Ultimately, if that’s what Ireland or Dublin or any other city is looking to do, to bring in the tourism and social impact that we can provide, and they’re willing to make that outlay, that’s how this works."
Capacity will be reduced from the usual 82,300 in part because a standing section has been fitted with seats. The pitch was replaced following several concerts, Milton said.
For the Gaelic games normally played at the stadium — which includes Gaelic football, a game that's a bit like rugby — the opposing teams each get a locker room and warmup area on the same side of the venue.
“In this instance, one American football team is going to take up those four areas on one side of the stadium,” Milton said. “It gives you an indication of the size of the guys, the equipment, the numbers ... their background teams, it’s on a different level to our games.”
The media center has been doubled in capacity.
“The interest is phenomenal,” he said.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson warms up before an NFL football game against the Chicago Bears Monday, Sept. 8, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)
FILE - A view of the Samuel Beckett bridge across the River Liffey in Dublin, Ireland, March 14, 2014. (AP Photo/Helen O'Neill, File)
FILE - Football fans cheer during American Bowl action between the Chic ago Bears and the Pittsburgh Steelers at Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland, Sunday, July 27, 1997. (AP Photo/Adrian Dennis, File)
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LA LAGUNA, Spain (AP) — Pope Leo XIV warned people smugglers on Friday that they will face God's wrath for exploiting the desperation of migrants, demanding they stop and repent during his final day in this epicenter of the African migration route to Europe.
“Break those chains and free those you hold in bondage,” Leo said in a message to human traffickers that he delivered during a meeting with humanitarian aid organizations in the Canary Islands that help migrants.
Leo wrapped up his weeklong trip to Spain in the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago closer to Africa than the Iberian Peninsula and a key point of entry for migrants who make the perilous Atlantic crossing from West Africa.
He is fulfilling a wish of Pope Francis to visit the islands to commemorate the thousands of lives lost at sea. He is also drawing attention to the Catholic Church’s biblically-mandated mantra to “welcome the stranger” amid anti-migrant sentiment in Europe and the Trump administration's mass deportation program in his native United States.
During an encounter with aid groups in Tenerife, Leo implored receiving communities to integrate people fleeing war, poverty and climate change and spare them from the “silent shipwreck” of abandonment when they are left on the streets with nothing after surviving perilous crossings.
“A human conscience, and even more so a Christian conscience, cannot remain indifferent in the face of these graveyards of the sea, to the victims of shipwrecks and the lack of aid,” Leo said. “Every life lost on these routes is a failure for the human family.”
The Canary Islands have long been a stepping stone for migrants trying to reach Europe from West Africa and Morocco.
While people smugglers and human traffickers operate the Atlantic route, there are also many self-organized boats of migrants, including many former fishermen from Senegal who were left without income due to overfishing in recent years.
Migrant arrivals in the Canary Islands peaked in 2024 at nearly 47,000. They have fallen dramatically, with over 3,000 people landing there in the first five months of 2026.
Because of the vastness of the ocean and scarcity of rescue ships or monitoring, some experts consider the Atlantic route more deadly than the more well-known central Mediterranean smuggling route from Libya and Tunisia to Italy. Since 2020, several West African boats have been found in the Caribbean and Latin America with only dead bodies on board after drifting across the Atlantic, pushed by trade winds and currents.
Leo directed his remarks Friday to the criminal organizations and individual smugglers who organize these “death routes” to Europe. Such smugglers charge thousands of euros a person and often force their passengers into prostitution or other forms of black market labor by withholding their documents to pay off the debt.
“Stop. Repent,” Leo said in his message to traffickers, emphasizing each word in Spanish and drawing a sustained applause from the crowd. “For every life lost, every family deceived, every body subjugated, every woman threatened, every worker exploited, you will have to appear before divine justice.”
“Repent while there is still time, for God’s mercy can reach even the most hardened sinner, but it enters only through the narrow gate of truth, justice and conversion,” he said.
With his two-day visit to the Canary Islands, Leo has confirmed himself as the heir of Francis’ migration preaching, which was a priority of Francis' 12-year pontificate and often caused friction with U.S. and European powers.
History’s first U.S.-born pope has not only echoed Francis’ message and gestures, he has expanded and amplified them during a deeply symbolic visit. Upon arrival on Thursday, Leo threw a bouquet of flowers into the sea from a port nicknamed the “Dock of Shame” in 2020, when migrants were forced to live in squalor during a spike in their arrivals.
Leo’s gesture mimicked the one Francis made in 2013 when he visited Lampedusa, Sicily, another flashpoint in Europe’s migration drama, and denounced the “globalization of indifference” that the world showed asylum seekers.
But in a sign Leo is making the papacy his own, the 70-year-old pope has added a new gesture: After a onetime migrant offered his testimony during Leo's encounter Friday, the pope did the viral “6-7” hand gesture that's popular with young people as he joked alongside him. That earned the pope cheers and applause from the crowd.
In the Canary Islands and in remarks on the Spanish mainland, Leo reaffirmed the right of migrants to flee but also to stay home, demanding their countries of origin provide the necessary economic and security conditions. He shamed European countries that turn their back on migrants' plights, and said Christian cannot remain indifferent.
On Friday, he noted that for the Catholic Church, the process of integrating migrants into a community can become a chance at spreading the faith, “without imposing” it and in respect of the migrants’ own beliefs.
Leo opened the final day of his trip by visiting the Las Raíces migrant camp and meeting with migrants. Leo drew a round of applause when he went off-script to tell them that he would speak in French and English, the language spoken by many of the people living in the camp.
One woman told him of the desperation that drove her to leave her homeland Senegal and family, the trauma of the crossings, and her gratitude at finding safety and a new life. The woman, identified as Bousso Diouf, asked for respect and dignity for all migrants.
Next month, on July 4, the American pope will spend U.S. Independence Day on the island of Lampedusa, where Francis in 2013 first denounced the “globalization of indifference” the world shows migrants.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
A girl plays as Pope Leo XIV arrives for a meeting with migrants at the Las Raíces reception center in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Arturo Rodriguez)
Pope Leo XIV holds a young assistant as he arrives for a meeting with migrants at the Las Raíces reception center in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Arturo Rodriguez)
Pope Leo XIV hug a child during a meeting with migrants at the 'Las Raices' center, in San Cristobal de la Laguna, Tenerife, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo XIV attends a meeting with migrants at the 'Las Raices' center, in San Cristobal de la Laguna, Tenerife, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo XIV meets a migrant at the 'Las Raices' center, in San Cristobal de la Laguna, Tenerife, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo XIV meets migrants at the 'Las Raices' center, in San Cristobal de la Laguna, Tenerife, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
