'So great for our students': Massachusetts high school team to be featured on German TV
TAUNTON — Taunton High football is hitting the international stage, with a little help from the New England Patriots.
The Tigers will be featured on an episode of the German children's television show TOGGO Touchdown, which is set to air on TOGGO, the children's programming block of German network Super RTL, on Saturday.
"I just think it’s so great for our students, our student body and our student athletes," Taunton athletic director Mark Ottavianelli said. "We know when we’re there every day the good things those kids, coaches and are staff do... but to have others recognize us (for it) is such a great feeling."
TOGGO Touchdown, hosted by veteran TOGGO personality Florian Ambrosius and his son Mads Ambrosius, is a new program that launched earlier this year dedicated to all things NFL, American football and the culture that surrounds it. The show also explains rules of the game to help increase interest and awareness of the sport in Germany, where RTL also holds the NFL broadcasting rights.
The show filmed segments during Taunton's 21-14 non-league win over Milton on Oct. 20, including game footage, crowd interactions and explanations of how high school sports operate in the U.S. The episode will also feature segments on the Patriots filmed at Gillette Stadium, including an interview with wide receiver Juju Smith-Schuster, as well as sights and sounds from the Patriots' 29-25 win over the Buffalo Bills on Oct. 22 and this past Sunday's 10-6 loss to the Indianapolis Colts at Deutsche Bank Park in Frankfurt.
"They were fantastic," Ottavianelli said of the hosts and crew of TOGGO Touchdown. I thought it was a great night all around for Taunton High School."
How did this come about?
Last year, in efforts to increase the league's interest and reach worldwide, the NFL launched its Global Markets Program, allows franchises certain marketing, fan engagement and commercialization efforts in foreign countries similarly to how they would run in their home market. The Patriots, along with the Kansas City Chiefs, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons, all have laid claim to the German market, with all but the Falcons expanding into Austria and Switzerland earlier this year.
For the Patriots, Germany seemed like a natural fit as the team already had a connection to the country through German-born offensive tackle Sebastian Vollmer, who spent his entire eight year career in New England between 2009-2016 and now serves as an analyst with RTL.
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"We really started to see the potential in Germany of growing our fan base through Sebastian being here and some of the content we’d been pushing out, so for years we’d realized the opportunity from a fan base standpoint," Patriots Senior Director of Business Development- DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) Region Joe Dorant said. "When the league announced that Global Markets program, we pounced at (the German market)."
As part of the program, the Patriots have made strategic partnerships with German organizations and networks such as RTL, and saw a lot of potential to grow the fanbase among German youth through TOGGO Touchdown.
"Now that the younger generation has access to social media, they have the ability to see American football from overseas and we’re seeing that a lot of those younger folks are interested in it, so we decided let’s partner with TOGGO and do some cool Patriots things," Dorant said.
The Patriots invited TOGGO Touchdown to Gillette Stadium last month to film an episode, but the producers added they wanted to showcase a high school football game.
"When we talked about how we want to educate German kids on American football it was clear to us that we need to explain how sport is a crucial part of a student career in the U.S.," TOGGO Touchdown producer Lukas Will said. "It's different in Germany, here kids play in sport clubs for their towns and not schools."
While many German youth are aware of American high school football through media, Will said it created a natural interest in explaining the culture around it and felt including it was "crucial" to the episode as a whole.
After hearing their request, Dorant and the Patriots compiled a list of intriguing local matchups for Oct. 20 and the Taunton-Milton game was chosen as one of them. Upon reaching out to Taunton High School, Ottavianelli and coach Brad Sidwell were immediately on board.
"The folks in Taunton were unbelievable to work with," Dorant said. "They were so accommodating to the TOGGO folks and the Patriots allowing them to come in and just get that real experience of what high school football is like."
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As for the TOGGO Touchdown crew, Will said they loved their experience at Aleixo "Tiger" Stadium.
"Flo and Mads loved it, they couldn't stop wearing their Taunton High School sweatshirts after," Will said. "Flo did some time abroad in his high school years too in the U.S. (and) played football too (so) the game made him remember his time there."
As for Sidwell, he hopes his team can play a small role in encouraging young Germans to take up American football.
"From what I gather, Germany has the second best American football in the world, so hopefully it’ll look good to their kids and they’ll have a lot of kids playing it," Sidwell said.
How can I watch?
TOGGO Touchdown posts their content to both their own website and YouTube, however the videos are region-locked meaning they're unavailable to be viewed in the U.S. unless using a V.P.N. connected to a German server.
Taunton Daily Gazette sports reporter Cameron Merritt can be reached at cmerritt@tauntongazette.com. You can follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @CamMerritt_News. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to the Taunton Daily Gazette today.
This article originally appeared on The Taunton Daily Gazette: Patriots, Taunton High football to be featured on German TV show
