Notre Dame and Navy, two of the biggest names in College Football in America are to return to Dublin for the Aer Lingus College Football Classic in August 2023.
The sides last played here in 2012, with 35,000 fans travelling from the US, more than has ever done so for any sporting event before or since.
They were due to play again in 2020 before Covid-19 tore up the sporting calendar but getting them back again so soon is a real achievement by Padraic O’Kane and the coalition of supporters he has built around this major sporting winner for Ireland.
The game will take place at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, August 26th and the announcement was made in the US last night ahead of the two sides clashing this weekend in South Bend, Indiana.
Major Boost
The 2023 game will be the first time that Notre Dame will move a home game to Ireland and with 40,000 US fans expected to travel, the game is set to provide a major boost to the country.
Grant Thornton and Failte Ireland economists have calculated the 2023 fixture to be worth €147m directly to the Irish economy. It is scheduled for week zero and will be the opening game for the 2023 College Football Season. The Game will be broadcast by NBC with an expected TV audience across the US of more than ten million viewers.
After cancellations in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, the five-game series of games kicks off next year with Northwestern University (Wildcats) taking on the University of Nebraska (Cornhuskers) in the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, 27 August 2022.
The first opportunity to purchase tickets for the 2022 game will be during the official pre-sale on Friday 19th November 2021.
Challenging
“The past year and a half have been challenging for us all in Ireland and the United States,” said Taoiseach Micheál Martin in an address from Dublin.
“This announcement that Notre Dame will play its first-ever home game in Ireland against Navy is extremely exciting and welcome news.”
“The movement of this game to Ireland will provide a significant boost to our tourism and hospitality industries. We will have a very special welcome ready for the teams and supporters of Notre Dame and Navy when they visit us for the Aer Lingus College Football Classic in August 2023.
The actual spend will likely be dwarfed by the amount of business that will likely flow from contacts established around the series. The CEO Lunch in the Round Room of the Mansion House that took place before the last game played in 2017 was perhaps the richest and most powerful gathering of influential leaders that the storied venue had ever played host to.
“After cancelling the 2020 fixture in June of last year due to Covid, all our stakeholders were determined to re-schedule the marquee fixture for the earliest possible window,” said O’Kane.
Fighting Irish
“Now, thanks to Notre Dame giving up a home game to Dublin, the game is a reality with the Fighting Irish taking on the Naval Academy for the third time on Irish Soil in 2023.”
“This game, along with the 2022 Northwestern vs Nebraska game, will deliver a badly needed boost to our hospitality, tourism and aviation industries with the majority of the US travellers spending a minimum of seven nights throughout the island of Ireland.”
“It is great to see such momentum in the series which we know will help put Ireland, and indeed Aer Lingus, in the hearts and minds of college football fans right across the USA,” added Lynn Embleton, CEO of Aer Lingus.
“With international travel so curtailed for the last 20 months, we believe that there is huge pent-up demand for travel now that borders are reopening. And a Notre Dame-Navy fixture in Dublin provides US football fans with the perfect excuse to travel to Ireland. All of us in Aer Lingus are looking forward to welcoming families, friends, businesses, colleagues – and sports fans – on board.”
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