The American Bowl was a series of
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the majo ...
pre-season exhibition games that were held at sites outside the United States between 1986 and 2005.
The league started the ''American Bowl'' series in 1986 primarily to promote
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...
in other countries. After successful games in London's
Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...
, the series was expanded to Japan. After 1990, games were also played in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...
and Berlin to promote the new
World League of American Football
NFL Europe League (simply called NFL Europe and known in its final season as NFL Europa League) was a professional American football league that functioned as the developmental minor league of the National Football League (NFL). Originally ...
(later
NFL Europe
NFL Europe League (simply called NFL Europe and known in its final season as NFL Europa League) was a professional American football league that functioned as the developmental minor league of the National Football League (NFL). Originally ...
) which started in 1991.
Game history
Previous games outside the U.S.
Several earlier pre-season games involved NFL teams and were played outside the United States, without being labeled "American Bowl" games. Between 1950 and 1983, there were 13 football games involving NFL or
AFL
AFL may refer to:
Sports
* American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues:
** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...
teams played on foreign soil. Six games in Canada between 1950–1961 pitted NFL teams against
CFL
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
teams with the NFL team winning all six games. These games were a hybrid of US and Canadian football. One game involved an AFL team (the
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division ...
, who lost 38–21 to the CFL's
Hamilton Tiger-Cats
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a professional Canadian football team based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. They are currently members of the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The Tiger-Cats play their home games at Tim Hortons Fie ...
).
There was also a game in 1960 that pitted the Chicago Bears against the New York Giants played in Toronto; this was in return for a
1958 CFL matchup that was
played in Philadelphia.
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