Opponent, date set for Steelers game in Ireland this season

For an encore across the pond, it’s Steelers-Vikings again this autumn.

The Minnesota Vikings will serve as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ opponent for the NFL’s first regular-season game in Ireland, the league announced Tuesday morning. The game is a rematch of the Steelers’ only prior meaningful game in Europe, when the teams met at Wembley Stadium in London on Sept. 29, 2013.

Almost 12 years to the day later, the teams will play at Croke Park Stadium in Dublin on Sept. 28 with a 9:30 a.m. ET kickoff.

The Vikings were the designated “home” team in 2013, but this time it is the Steelers who are giving up a game that would have been played at Acrisure Stadium. The league in February announced the Steelers would “host” the first NFL regular-season game in Ireland.

The opponent and date were not officially announced until the NFL’s formal reveal on its “Good Morning Football” show on NFL Network. However, travel agencies had been advertising trip packages for the final weekend of September, and the Vikings were long rumored as a potential opponent.

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The Vikings, incidentally, will play two consecutive games in Europe. After the Steelers head back home, they will stay to face the Cleveland Browns on Oct. 5 in London.

The Steelers have obvious ties to Ireland via the heritage of their founding and majority-ownership family, the Rooneys. Dan Rooney served as ambassador to Ireland under President Barack Obama. The NFL awarded marketing rights in Ireland to the Steelers.

The Steelers in 1997 played a preseason game at Croke Park against the Chicago Bears, but this time it will be for real.

With the annual schedule now at 17 games per team, games outside the United States are far more common. In 2025, a record seven will be staged. In addition to Ireland, three are scheduled for England and one each in Germany, Spain and Brazil. The designated home teams all will end up with eight games at their home venues, including the Steelers.

The 2025 international slate!

????: NFL Schedule Release — Wednesday 8pm ET on NFLN/ESPN2
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— NFL (@NFL) May 13, 2025

The full schedule will be announced Wednesday evening on the NFL Network. The Steelers will open on Sept. 7 or Sept. 8.

Croke Park Stadium has hosted American football before. Among a pair of regular-season college football games at the venue was the 2014 season opener for Penn State against UCF.

In other international games announced Tuesday, the Denver Broncos visit the New York Jets on Oct. 12 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London; the Los Angeles Rams visit the Jacksonville Jaguars a week later at Wembley Stadium in London; the Atlanta Falcons visit the Indianapolis Colts on Nov. 9 at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin; and the Washington Commanders visit the Miami Dolphins on Nov. 16 at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid.

The Los Angeles Chargers will play the first international game of the season Friday, Sept. 5, at Corinthians Stadium in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The Chargers’ opponent will be announced Wednesday.

The Brazilian game will be streamed for free to a worldwide audience exclusively on YouTube and YouTube TV, marking the platform’s debut as a live NFL broadcaster.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.