Notre Dame and Navy will kick-off the 2023 college football season at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, but why are the pair playing across the Atlantic Ocean and not in the US

Why Are Notre Dame And Navy Playing College Football Week 0 In Ireland

College football in Ireland began initially in 1988 as part of a promotional campaign to mark the Dublin millennium celebrations.

Dubbed the Emerald Isle Classic, it was the first NCAA-sanctioned American college football game played in Europe.

The game was intended as an annual event to attract some of the 40 million Americans of Irish descent back to Ireland, and college teams with particularly Irish or Catholic backgrounds were chosen in an effort to attract Irish nationals to the games.

Notre Dame are known as the ‘Fighting Irish,’ and they will take on Navy in the season opener across the water in Dublin, Ireland, in front of a sold-out crowd with over 48,000 in attendance.

Last year, the 2022 College Football Classic between Nebraska and Northwestern marked the first time that an NCAA college football game was played in Dublin 2016.

The massive cash influx to Dublin from tourism has inspired further games in the Irish capital which has been marked on the map as college football’s home from home.

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Notre Dame are hoping that the game can expand their international fanbase and Aaron Horvath, an athletics department spokesman and brand specialist for the school, is confident of a successful venture.

“Our goal here is to expand the brand and bring Notre Dame to the world. Our competitors in branding are the Yankees, they’re the Lakers, they’re the Cowboys,” Horvath said.

“The Notre Dame monogram is one of the strongest logos in the United States and maybe in the world when you think about it from a sporting perspective.

“We just hope Ireland opens people’s eyes to Notre Dame and college football and college athletics a little bit. We believe it does that.”

Navy vs Notre Dame Odds

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