Ice hockey to basketball: How to find tickets for sports games in Germany

There’s no question that football (that's soccer for the Americans) is the most popular sport to watch in Germany.

With more than seven million members, the German Football Association (DFB) is the largest sports federation in the world, and Germany’s national football league is one of Europe’s biggest and most well-known.

But all the hype means that scoring tickets to football matches in Germany can be difficult, and quite pricey.

In comparison, fans of other sports can often find tickets for a fraction of the price.

Here are some of the other popular sports in Germany that you can see live.

Ice hockey

The German Ice Hockey League (DEL) is considered among the world’s best, along with the top leagues in the US, Sweden, Finland and Switzerland.

The German league has 14 teams representing most of Germany’s biggest cities. At time of writing, ERC Ingolstadt is ranked as the top team so far in the 2024-2025 season, followed by Eisbären Berlin, and the Fischtown Pinguins from Bremerhaven.

One thing to know, if you plan to visit a hockey game in Germany is that the fans get loud, and in rink-side sections of the stadium fans will stand and shout cheers throughout the entire match. For those who are up for it, watching a hockey game for the first time can make for an experience you won't soon forget.

The hockey season in Germany starts in September and ends in April.

To find tickets to a local match, you can try simply searching for “hockey tickets” (or Eishockeykarten) and your city name. In many cases you can find tickets directly on your local team’s official website, but you may also find them on resale websites like Eventim or Viagogo etc.

As with most tickets, you can score them cheaper if you buy them early. For example, at the beginning of the season, tickets to see the Eisbären play in Berlin’s Uber Arena were starting at about €20. But at time of writing, the cheapest tickets on Viagogo are starting at €36 and tickets for more popular upcoming games are going for two or three times as much.

Basketball

Germany’s top basketball league, the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) plays a season that runs from September to June.

In the last season (2023-2024) FC Bayern Munich beat Alba Berlin in the final match of the playoffs.

In the 2024-2025 season only 17 teams are playing, as opposed to the usual 18, because the Karlsruhe Lions failed to get the required licence.

While basketball is a relatively popular sport in Germany, BBL matches tend not to sell quite as many seats as their football or hockey counterparts. The upside for fans is tickets can be quite cheap.

For example, tickets to a Berlin Alba game at the Uber Arena start around €14. 

Tickets to games in smaller cities can be even cheaper still. At time of writing tickets to see the Bamberg Baskets play in the German league are going for €9 – or even as low as €6 when they play against non-German European teams.

Find tickets for your local team’s next match on the team website, or with ticket sellers like Eventim or Viagogo.

Handball

Did you know Germany has a professional handball league?

Handball-Bundesliga (HBL) dates back as far as 1966. Eighteen teams will participate in the 2024-2025 season, which has 34 game days that take place from August to May.

Played throughout the winter, handball (also called team handball or European handball) is played indoors in arenas. Two teams of six players face off and try to score goals to earn points during a game that consists of two 30 minute halves.

If you’re interested in seeing a handball game, an easy place to start is the Mein Handball Ticket website, where you can find info about various leagues in Germany and find links to the major teams’ websites.

To give an idea about prices, tickets for a match in Stuttgart range from €15 to €48.50, and in Berlin from €12 to €60.

Tennis

Germany’s top tennis league formed in 1972 and is contested by 10 clubs.

The tennis season is generally played in July and August.

Interestingly, in the 1970s tennis became popular in what was then West Germany whereas in former East Germany it was generally written off as a sport of the Bourgeoisie. As a result, there are no tennis clubs in the Bundesliga from former East German states.

Also, to this day there are significantly more tennis courts in Germany’s western and southern states – making tennis court density one aspect of German geography that shows ithe ‘phantom border’.

READ ALSO: How does Germany's 'phantom border' still divide the country?

At time of writing it’s too early to find tickets for next year’s 1. Bundesliga season, but one easy place to find them is the Tennis Ticket Service website.

American football

The sport that people from the US call football is called “American football” in Germany to avoid any confusion with football.

Fun fact: the term soccer actually originated in England in the 19th century, where it was used to differentiate it from sports like rugby that had similar names at the time. Later, the Brits switched to football, which became the internationally recognised name, but in the US a new sport had already secured the name – hence sticking to soccer.

American football, on the other hand, was brought to Germany by occupying soldiers of the US Army in the years following World War II.

In 1977 the first official American football club was formed – the Frankfurter Löwen – and then in the 1980s the American Football Association of Germany (AFVD) began organising matches and even a German Super Bowl.

As of 2020 the AFVD is the sixth largest team sports association in the country.

Even organisers of the US’s National Football League have taken note of Germans’ love of the sport. Recently the NFL announced it would play three games in Berlin in 2025, 2027 and 2029.

At time of writing, tickets aren’t yet available for American football matches in 2025. But you can find tickets at AFVD’s online shop when they are available.