Why German documentary crew is following Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown at training camp
The Detroit Lions are due to play an international game in the coming seasons, and when they do, it might make sense to send them to Germany and the NFL's newest foreign frontier.
A German documentary crew was at Lions training camp Tuesday shooting the latest episode in its ongoing series about receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, who has a large and growing fan base in the country.
St. Brown's mother is a native of Leverkusen, Germany, he speaks fluent German, and he traveled to the country earlier this year as part of the league's global outreach.
"I think he's the most famous American football player in Germany right now," said German documentarian Henrik Diekert of ZDF TV, the German equivalent of the BBC. "He was on our (weekend sports) show three weeks ago in Berlin with an audience of 2 million people."
Diekert said he began filming his ongoing documentary in 2018, after stumbling upon St. Brown's backstory while watching a college football game late one night in his flat.
Diekert was tending to his newborn son when the commentator on TV mentioned that a receiver who had just made a spectacular catch, Amon-Ra's older brother, Equanimeous, had a mother of German descent.
Intrigued, Diekert did a quick Google search of Equanimeous. He reached out to St. Brown's mother, Miriam, on Facebook that night. Miriam, who happened to be in Germany at the time, responded immediately. The two met two weeks later for coffee and dinner, and soon after the documentary was born.
Already one of the most recognizable names on a Lions roster that's light on star power, Amon-Ra St. Brown could be one of the NFL's breakout stars this fall if he follows his productive rookie season with another big year.
If that happens, it would make sense for the NFL to showcase him to a group of fans who consider him one of their own.
The NFL has five international games scheduled this fall, three in London, one in Mexico and one in Germany; Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers face the Seattle Seahawks in Berlin.
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Diekert said the NFL began regularly broadcasting games on free TV in Germany — most soccer games are pay-per-view in the country — in 2014, the season Brady and the New England Patriots beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl.
Asked how St. Brown's popularity in Germany compares to Brady's, Diekert gave Brady the edge, though it's closer than you might think.
"I think more people know Tom Brady than Amon-Ra St. Brown," Diekert said. "But I mean when Dirk Nowitzki was in his second year in the NBA, nobody on a German street would recognize Dirk Nowitzki and now he’s one of our five biggest athletes so things can change."
Diekert's crew will be in town until Friday's preseason opener and the sixth episode of "The St. Brown Story" will air sometime next month.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.