Painted End Zones Go Up Under the Eiffel Tower

A flag-football field beneath the Eiffel Tower in Paris is getting a painted makeover. Louisiana artist Jammie Holmes will create hand-painted end zones for the field, which is part of an installation by the National Football League (NFL). The free public event runs on October 23 and 24, 2026.

The project is called NFL COLOR FIELD. The league announced it on October 21, 2026, as a platform that brings football and visual art together through large-scale installations, original programming and immersive cultural events. Flag football is a non-contact version of the game. Players are stopped by pulling a flag from a opponent's belt, not by tackling.

Holmes is a Louisiana native and a recent fellow at the Académie des beaux-arts, the Paris academy of fine arts, and at the Cité internationale des arts, an arts residency in the city. He is also a fan of the New Orleans Saints. He said his great-grandfather was stationed in France during World War I and visited Montmartre, the hillside district long known for its painters.

NFL COLOR FIELD grows out of NFL Artist Replay, a program the league launched in 2023 to showcase a range of artistic voices in football. The project is curated by Jasmine Martin of Pivotal Arts, a cultural firm. Holmes is slated to debut the work during Art Basel Paris, the French edition of the major contemporary art fair, where galleries sell works to collectors and the public.

The Paris installation is not the last stop. The NFL COLOR FIELD project will continue at Miami Art Week in December, the annual cluster of art fairs and events in Miami, Florida. Fast Company described the work as the league's supersized artwork, painted on the end zones of the flag-football field.

The timing fits a bigger week for the league in France. The New Orleans Saints were scheduled to play the Pittsburgh Steelers in Paris, in the NFL's first-ever regular season game in France. The Eiffel Tower field gives fans a chance to see the painting close up, in a city where the league's games have not been played before.

For visitors, the setup is simple. The field is open to the public at no charge, so fans do not need a ticket to the Saints and Steelers game to see the artwork. For Holmes, the job is a chance to bring a Louisiana story to one of the world's best-known landmarks, through the lines of a football field.