AMERICAN COLLEGE football will be coming to Dublin in 2023. Notre Dame will head to Ireland for the Aer Lingus College Football Classic Series.
The fixture will bring a game to the Aviva stadium every year for the next five years, with Irish officials looking to make Ireland "the home of college football in Europe"
This news came through in a press conference on Notre Dame's campus. The fighting Irish have agreed to play a home game away from South Bend for the first time ever. The game will be broadcast on NBC.
🚨 Attention all American Football fans! 🚨 The @cfbireland classic is set to touchdown in Dublin! See @NDFootball host @NAVYFB on August 26th, 2023 in the @AVIVAStadium: https://t.co/QY0MJPwULX 🏈#LoveDublin #GoIrish #GoNavy https://t.co/KC6jxb4KL5
— Visit Dublin (@VisitDublin) November 5, 2021
Director of Athletics Jack Swarbrick said,
“We’d be delighted to present this opportunity to our student athletes under any circumstance because we love giving them different experiences as part of their time at Notre Dame,”
Ireland will reap significant economic rewards. The fixture played in 2012 saw over 35,000 travel to Ireland from the US, this was the biggest single movement for Americans for a sporting event. They also played in Croke Park in 1996
Grant Thornton said the cancelled game in 2020 would have been worth up to €147m to Ireland. It is hoped that this figure can be dwarfed at the start of the 2023 season.
Next August, Northwestern University face Nebraska in the Aviva with other fixtures to be confirmed in due course.
SOUTH BEND, INDIANA - OCTOBER 30: (Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images)
