The Best International American Football Leagues To Follow
American Football may be huge in the US, but it also has an enormous following beyond North America. Thanks partly to the global fame enjoyed by some of the biggest US franchises, but also to the thrills and excitement of the game itself, there are dedicated American Football fan bases all over the world and many countries, particularly in Europe, have long-running popular tournaments. Here are just four of the best international leagues for fans to follow.
- The Superserien
The Superserien is Sweden’s elite American football league. The Orebro Black Knights, Carlstad Crusaders, and the Stockholm Mean Machines are among the league’s six teams. However, the number of teams who compete has fluctuated throughout time. The top four teams proceed to the playoffs, where they compete every year for the title of Swedish champion.
The league may be small, but it has produced a number of great players throughout the years, and its teams continue to provide some of Europe’s most exciting matches. The Superserien, if it can grow beyond its current limited number of clubs, has the potential to become one of Europe’s most popular American football leagues in the future years!
- The Vaahteraliiga
The Vaahteraliiga is Finland’s main American football league. The season runs from May to September, with the league winner being awarded Finnish champion. The first season was way back in 1980, and since then, the Helsinki Roosters have been without a doubt the most successful side in the league, having won 17 titles, including six in a row from 1995 to 2000 which was the talk of the town in Finnish American football news.
That was a record until the Porvoo Butchers equalled it from 2005 through 2010 with victories. The Vaahteraliiga has seen a variety of teams compete throughout the years, but in recent years, the number has been around seven or eight. This Finnish league is a melting pot for some of Europe’s best American football players, with no restriction on the number of European immigrants permitted.
- The Austrian Football League (AFL)
Most people consider the Austrian Football League to be one of Europe’s best American football leagues, as a great number of fans get involved in live American football betting over the teams intense games with huge stakes every time they play! The Graz Giants, Vienna Ramblocks and Salzburg Lions set up the league in 1984 and it grew steadily, establishing itself as the dominant European force between 2004 and 2011 when an AFL club won the European Football League seven times in a row.
In 2010, the Prague Panthers from the Czech Republic became the first non-Austrian team to join the AFL, although they later left in 2016. But in that same year, the Bratislava Monarchs and the Ljubljana Silverhawks signed up with the AFL. The normal AFL regular season features ten matches and gets underway in the middle of March, while the playoffs run through until July, when the final game, the Austrian Bowl, is played.
- The German Football League (GFL)
The German Football League, formerly known as the American-Football-Bundesliga, was founded in 1979 and switched to its current name in 1999. The regulations of the GFL are based on those of the NCAA in the United States, and the GFL now outperforms all other European leagues. In fact, both European and international players are keen to play for teams such as the New Yorker Lions, Berlin Rebels, and Frankfurt Universe.
One of the reasons that the GFL is so healthy is that it allows players from Europe and North America to join the clubs, while the league’s size also enables clubs to be judged similarly to football in the United States. There is even a second-tier GFL. The GFL2 follows the same regulations and organisation as the GFL, and the standard is so high that most GFL2 clubs can compete with the best in Europe. Many of the games in the GFL2 are very competitive and exciting to watch, much like those in the main GFL.
