Professional American football will arrive in Spain for the first time in 2025. The National Football League (NFL), the most important sports league in the United States, announced this Friday that the Santiago Bernabéu will then host a regular season match. Peter O’Reilly, one of the organization’s vice presidents, broke the news from Las Vegas, the city where Super Bowl 58 will be played this Sunday between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs. O’Reilly has not announced which teams will face each other on the court in the Chamartín neighborhood.
“The NFL is already very present in Spain, it has many fans, it will be an unforgettable event for all sports lovers in general,” said Emilio Butragueño, the Madrid legend and one of the most important ambassadors of Spanish football, who has been present this morning at the press conference. The announcement has confirmed months of rumors and negotiations regarding the supposed arrival of the most popular sport in the United States to Madrid. “It is a great event in the history of sport,” said Florentino Pérez in a statement.
Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, assures that the game has been organized thanks to an alliance with Real Madrid and the city council of the Madrid capital. The mayor of the city, José Luis Martínez Almeida, has thanked the league for its trust in hosting the first official match on Spanish territory, which he has defined as “an unprecedented celebration in a legendary stadium.” Madrid is the fourth European city to offer an NFL game after London, Frankfurt and Munich. Tickets to the game will go on sale in 2025, according to a page that the NFL has activated with information about the game, which does not yet have a date.
This is how the other football, the one from the other side of the Atlantic, finally arrives at the Bernabéu. Its name comes from the ovoid ball with which the sport is played, which measures one foot (foot), about 30 centimeters. The game, which takes place in just 18 weeks of action each season, is one of Americans’ most watched pastimes. The Super Bowl is considered an unofficial holiday in the country. Millions of people converge in front of the television to closely follow a match that has the capacity to momentarily transform the cities that host it. The economy of Las Vegas, for example, will receive additional income of $215 million these days thanks to the arrival of some 100,000 visitors and tourists who come to watch the big game.
Despite being a sport with American DNA, the NFL has been trying to expand its global market for years, following the example of the NBA, which decided to go in search of fans beyond borders. The American football league has organized 50 official matches in other countries. The first of them was played in 2005 in another football cathedral, the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. Then, San Francisco, seeking its sixth title this Sunday, lost in a blowout to the Arizona Cardinals.
The United Kingdom, Germany and Canada have also hosted official NFL games. Last December, the team owners had already shown their interest in visiting new territories. At the annual owners meeting in Texas, investors expanded the international game inventory from four to eight. And they added Brazil to the list, which this year will hold an NFL match at the Corinthians stadium in Sao Paulo. It will be the first American football game in South America. With this, the NFL will have organized events on five of seven continents.
Four other matches will also take place in 2024. Two will be played in London, in the stadium where Tottenham plays, and one more in Wembley. The international finale, for the third consecutive year, will be in Germany, at the Allianz Arena, home of FC Bayern.