The 58th Super Bowl will take place in Las Vegas on Sunday, and many German fans will also be there. Matthias Kraus, known as The German Packer, flies to the USA several times a year for games – and even has a connection to superstar Aaron Rodgers.
Matthias Krauswhere does your enthusiasm for football come from?
I used to watch ice hockey. One day there was a football game on TV and I was stuck. It was a completely new sport, it looked completely wild, as if they were giving each other a hard time. Coincidentally, this happened at the time when a football club was founded in Schweinfurt, where I live and where many American soldiers were stationed. The GIs launched Ball Bearings, a tribute to the ball bearing industry we have here. They made it really big, with a stadium and a show program. And so it continued to grow.
The first time I went to Lambeau Field, I was blown away. Like throwing a match into a gas can!
Now you are a supporter of the Green Bay Packers, many know you as The German Packer. How did the team from Wisconsin become your true love?
The tradition! The history! I had researched the league and learned that the Packers were the only team without an owner. That the club belongs to the fans. And that these fans are supposed to be particularly crazy. The Packers were the small Gallic village, a haven for the unruly, or at least that was how it seemed to me. And when I was at Lambeau Field for the first time at a Packers home game, it was finally over for me. Like throwing a match into a gas can! The game I happened to tune into was also with the Packers. However, they got screwed. A year later, Brett Favre arrived and the golden years began, which continued when Aaron Rodgers took over as quarterback.
If I am correctly informed, you have met Aaron Rodgers, who is considered by many to be one of the best quarterbacks of all time, several times.
I met him a dozen times and captured each meeting with a photo together. But that’s not all: I always brought the photos from the previous meeting in which we pose together. Over time a small photo reception series was created, great fun! And Aaron was happy to take part. Unfortunately, since he moved to the New York Jets, I no longer see any chance of continuing this in this huge city. With the Packers everything was smaller, so I knew my way around and knew who to ask. But in New York? Help!
But would the superstar remember you if you met him?
In an interview before Rodgers left with his team for a London game, he was asked what he knew about the fan landscape in Europe – and, after some thought, he said that he blamed that one crazy German always be at the start with his flag. That was an accolade for me. If a star like that remembers you, you’ve done something right.
We’re meeting here in Las Vegas for the Super Bowl, you’ve won tickets to the biggest game of all. How often do you go over otherwise?
In 2023 I was over there for six regular season games. My wife was thinking about what vacation we could do in the fall and the iPhone suggested Las Vegas. So she said to me: “Oh, I would like to go to Vegas again too.” Me to her: “I think the Packers are playing in Vegas this year.” It so happened that I flew over in September for two games within ten days, then back to Germany for four days and to pack up my wife, take her back to the USA, a week in Vegas, back home for ten days and then back to the USA for two more home games.
That’s crazy.
Yes, that’s crazy. When it comes to football, I’m really crazy about it. And I’m very lucky to be able to afford something like that. This is my passion. I don’t do anything else and I don’t want anything else. American football also thrives on idiots like me.
What specifically fascinates you about the sport?
More than anything else, the team spirit that exists in American football. The willingness to subordinate oneself to a goal. The connection between the players, the discipline, the absolute will to pull together. And if someone is injured: next man up, that too. In football you see eleven individual talents on the pitch, and if you’re lucky, something like team spirit develops. In football it’s the other way around. Nothing works without team spirit, that comes first.
So there is no disillusionment for you as a fan who has been following the sport for over 30 years? No routine, no creeping alienation, perhaps?
You have to remember that it took a long time to really get into the sport. As a German, this wasn’t made easy for you. At the beginning there wasn’t a single pay TV that showed the games. But I was DJing on the side and came into contact with Americans who I talked to. And then they brought me books about football. Later it ran on Sky England, via test packages that I was able to temporarily subscribe to. Then Teleclub, then Premiere. For me, it’s even more of a pleasure today that I can stream my Packers’ game, precisely because I still remember the old days when that wasn’t possible.
This community of loving the same thing together is what drives me.
Where do you watch the games when you’re not jetting off to the US?
I have a football arena, I call it my man cave. For this purpose, I expanded and furnished a small barn at our home. We sit there every Sunday and then they all come: the Seahawks fan, the Bears fan, the Vikings fan. Many friends. This community of loving the same thing together is what drives me.
Lovingly decorated: Matthias Kraus calls his small football arena “Man Cave”. He kept them in a barn next to the main house.
It probably helps if the woman is also enthusiastic about football.
My wife lets me do it. She has a passion for football, but isn’t a real football fan herself. She doesn’t have the muscle to watch a game for four hours. But of course football still connects us. She knows that I can’t do it without it. I proposed to her in 2019 at Lambeau Field, down on the field.
Your Super Bowl tip?
I would like the 49ers to do it. But I fear that Patrick Mahomes will prevail again in the end – who I unfortunately don’t like. Because I always notice a hint of arrogance in him, a hubris that I don’t like.
Transparency note: The star is part of RTL Germany, RTL broadcasts the Super Bowl.