thumb The World Bowl was the American football Championship game of NFL Europa, similar to the Super Bowl of the National Football League. The World Bowl trophy itself was a globe made of glass measuring 35.5 cm (14 inches) in diameter and weighing 18.6 kg (41 lbs).

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Overview

World League of American Football

When NFL Europa was founded in 1991 as World League of American Football (WLAF), with teams in North America and Europe as well as expansion plans for Asia, the name World Bowl was appropriate. It was kept after 1995 when the league limited itself exclusively to Europe.

Venues as NFL Europa

From 1995 to 1997, the World Bowl venue was decided by the standings after 5 weeks of the 10-week season. All venues before, and since, were predetermined before the season.

The 2002 World Bowl was hosted in Rhein Fire home town of Düsseldorf as a farewell to the old Rheinstadion. After the new LTU arena was completed, the 2005 World Bowl was hosted there again. It would return in 2006, as a first ever back to back WB site. Düsseldorf has currently no Bundesliga team and was not selected for FIFA World Cup games, so football is a major sport there, unlike in other NFL Europa towns.

World Football League

The former World Football League, a short-lived 1970s competitor to the NFL, also named its championship game the World Bowl. In the only WFL World Bowl contested, the Birmingham Americans defeated the Florida Blazers 22-21 on December 5, 1974 at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama.

World Bowl (WLAF, NFL Europe, and NFL Europa Championships)

Year		Venue	Winner	Score	Runner-Up	MVP
June 23, 2007	World Bowl XV	Commerzbank-Arena, Frankfurt, Germany	Hamburg Sea Devils	37 – 28	Frankfurt Galaxy	Casey Bramlet Sea Devils, QB
May 27, 2006	World Bowl XIV	LTU arena, Düsseldorf, Germany	Frankfurt Galaxy	22 – 7	Amsterdam Admirals	Butchie Wallace Galaxy, RB
June 11, 2005	World Bowl XIII	LTU arena, Düsseldorf, Germany	Amsterdam Admirals	27 – 21	Berlin Thunder	Kurt Kittner Admirals, QB
June 12, 2004	World Bowl XII	Arena AufSchalke, Gelsenkirchen, Germany	Berlin Thunder	30 – 24	Frankfurt Galaxy	Eric McCoo Thunder, RB
June 14, 2003	World Bowl XI	Hampden Park, Glasgow, Scotland	Frankfurt Galaxy	35 – 16	Rhein Fire	Jonas Lewis Galaxy, RB
June 22, 2002	World Bowl X	Rheinstadion, Düsseldorf, Germany	Berlin Thunder	26 – 20	Rhein Fire	Dane Looker Thunder, WR
June 30, 2001	World Bowl IX	Amsterdam ArenA, Amsterdam, Netherlands	Berlin Thunder	24 – 17	Barcelona Dragons	Jonathan Quinn Thunder, QB
June 25, 2000	World Bowl VIII	Waldstadion, Frankfurt, Germany	Rhein Fire	13 – 10	Scottish Claymores	Danny Wuerffel Fire, QB
June 27, 1999	World Bowl VII	Rheinstadion, Düsseldorf, Germany	Frankfurt Galaxy	38 – 24	Barcelona Dragons	Andy McCullough Galaxy, WR
June 14, 1998	World Bowl VI	Waldstadion, Frankfurt, Germany	Rhein Fire	34 – 10	Frankfurt Galaxy	Jim Arellanes Fire, QB
June 22, 1997	World Bowl V	Estadi Olimpic, Barcelona, Spain	Barcelona Dragons	38 – 24	Rhein Fire	Jon Kitna Dragons, QB
June 23, 1996	World Bowl IV	Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh, Scotland	Scottish Claymores	32 – 27	Frankfurt Galaxy	Yo Murphy Claymores, WR
June 17, 1995	World Bowl III	Olympisch Stadion, Amsterdam, Netherlands	Frankfurt Galaxy	26 – 22	Amsterdam Admirals	Paul Justin Galaxy, QB
1994	Not Played
1993
June 6, 1992	World Bowl II	Olympic Stadium, Montreal, Canada	Sacramento Surge (USA)	21 – 17	Orlando Thunder (USA)	David Archer Surge, QB
June 9, 1991	World Bowl I	Wembley Stadium, London, England	London Monarchs	21 – 0	Barcelona Dragons	Dan Crossman Monarchs, Safety

• Note: Roman Numerals were not officially used by NFL Europa until World Bowl IX. Before 2001, the games were billed as World Bowl 2000, World Bowl '99, etc.

Team Statistics

Team	Won	Played	Winning years	Runner-up years
Frankfurt Galaxy	4	8	1995, 1999, 2003, 2006	1996, 1998, 2004, 2007
Berlin Thunder	3	4	2001, 2002, 2004	2005
Rhein Fire	2	5	1998, 2000	1997, 2002, 2003
Amsterdam Admirals	1	3	2005	1995, 2006
Barcelona Dragons	1	4	1997	1991, 1999, 2001
Hamburg Sea Devils	1	1	2007
London Monarchs	1	1	1991
Sacramento Surge	1	1	1992
Scottish Claymores	1	2	1996	2000
Orlando Thunder	0	1		1992
Cologne Centurions	0	0
Birmingham Fire	0	0
San Antonio Riders	0	0
Montreal Machine	0	0
New York/New Jersey Knights	0	0
Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks	0	0
Ohio Glory	0	0

Trivia

• The inaugural World Bowl set two firsts that are yet to be repeated: The London Monarchs shut out the Barcelona Dragons, and Monarchs safety Dan Crossman is the only defensive player to be named World Bowl MVP (the other awards have been collected by 7 quarterbacks, 3 running backs and 3 wide receivers).
• From 1998 to 2004, only German teams won the World Bowl – a streak broken in 2005 by the single remaining non-German team, Amsterdam Admirals.
• Teams from the same country have played in the big game six times. There was only one All-American final: World Bowl II (Sacramento Surge/Orlando Thunder). The rest have all been German – VI (Rhein Fire/Frankfurt Galaxy), a three-year run: X (Berlin Thunder/Fire), XI (Galaxy/Fire) and XII (Thunder/Galaxy), and XV (Hamburg Sea Devils/Frankfurt Galaxy).
• Three teams have won the championship in their home stadium: the Monarchs in the inaugural World Bowl at Wembley Stadium, the Claymores at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh (WB IV) and the Dragons at the Estadio Olimpic de Montjuic (WB V). The Claymores' and Dragons' victories were possibly predictable, as between 1995 and 1997 the league not only decided the venue with the leader of the league at the 5-week stage, but also the first team to make it into the World Bowl. This was dropped after WB V, in favour of the top two teams after 10 weeks going to the big game.
• Since the league's 1995 relaunch, the World Bowl has been the league's only postseason game. In 1991 and 1992 however, playoff semi-finals were held involving the three division champions and a wild card team.
• There have only been 2 non-German teams been able to win the World Bowl when they were not playing on their home field (Sacramento Surge, World Bowl II and Amsterdam Admirals, World Bowl XIII).
• Only one non-German team has been able to win the World Bowl in Germany (Amsterdam Admirals in World Bowl XIII).
• In all three World Bowl berths the Admirals lost their starting quarterback before going to the World Bowl, leaving the big job for the backup quarterback.