La Liga to play matches in the US: Why the Premier League will be watching Spanish football’s stateside experiment closely
The hackneyed joke about Spanish football’s top flight used to be that there was only one fixture worth watching: the bi-annual collision of domestic superpowers Real Madrid and Barcelona.
La Liga’s announcement today that it is to stage matches in the United States has rubbished that notion further still – there will be no shortage of interest around the world when the experiment begins, even if the inaugural overseas game proves to be Eibar against Huesca rather than El Clasico.
And nowhere will that interest be piqued more than at the Premier League, which still has one eye on taking its wildly popular product abroad despite meeting resistance when the idea has previously been floated.
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La Liga’s plans are part of a 15-year joint venture deal with Relevent Sports, the group which stages high-profile pre-season friendlies under its International Champions Cup brand and was co-founded by Stephen Ross, the billionaire owner of the Miami Dolphins NFL franchise.
No further details of the US La Liga matches have been disclosed yet, but the activity will be supported by projects with young players and youth coaches. It all amounts to the latest manifestation of Spanish football’s concerted push to grow its brand, which has seen the league establish offices around the world, including in London.
Until now, the international evangelism of the top European leagues has been restricted to intra-season tours and, in some cases, the staging of super cup fixtures – more competitive equivalents of our Community Shield.
Spain took its Supercopa clash between Barcelona and Sevilla to Tangier, Morocco, last weekend. Italy’s version will be held in Saudi Arabia in January, having previously been staged in Qatar, China and the US, while the French equivalent has been an overseas affair since 2009, visiting North America, Francophone Africa and, this month, Shenzhen in China.
Taking fixtures from the regular league season on the road is a bolder proposition, however – it is more likely to upset domestic fans and has repercussions for competitive balance – which is what makes La Liga’s move so intriguing.
US sports have shown the way, enjoying great success in holding American football, basketball and baseball games on foreign soil.
The NFL has brought regular-season matches to Wembley every year since 2007 and now plays three times a year in London to sell-out crowds.
The NBA’s popular annual fixture at the O2 has been part of the calendar since 2011, while MLB has a long tradition of taking games abroad and is due to make its London debut next summer.
Non-US sports haven’t always travelled so well in the opposite direction. While international rugby union has drawn crowds of more than 60,000 for one-off games, English clubs’ attempts to tap into the American market have been less successful: barely 6,000 turned out to see Saracens beat Newcastle near Philadelphia last year.
Relevent Sports knows the market, having staged International Champions Cup fixtures involving Real, Barca, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain and the Premier League’s Big Six – Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham – in the US as well as in Asia, Europe and Australia since 2013.
The group attracted criticism this year when fans complained that the second-string teams put out by some clubs did not match the premium ticket pricing. That is unlikely to be a problem with a regular-season La Liga match, however, as there will be real points at stake.
La Liga has “stolen a march on the Premier League”, which remains the world’s most watched football competition but shelved talks about taking games overseas after a public backlash, says Misha Sher, vice-president of global agency MediaCom.
“This represents a big feather in the cap for the Spanish league and a strategic win to bridge the gap with the English game. Not only will La Liga be the first to do this, but they will do so in the most lucrative consumer market.”
Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore said in May that its clubs remained broadly in favour of taking matches abroad but would have to wait “until we can create the conditions where fans are, if not happy, then understand the parameters”.
If Spain’s Stateside sojourn proves a hit, it’s hard to imagine England’s clubs sitting on their hands instead of mounting a renewed push for a slice of the American pie.