LaLiga president Javier Tebas has indicated that the league will play regular season games outside of Spain for the first time in history with the USA being the initial target for the 2025-26 season. Tebas, who has been in a constant battle with the Spanish FA and fans over games being exported away from their home country, is in the final stages of a plan that is meant to added more revenue for teams in dire need of cash infusion such as FC Barcelona.
“An official match in the US will strengthen our position in the North American market,” said Tebas to the Spanish newspaper Expansion. “Other very competitive leagues are coming so we cannot do the same thing, but we cannot allow them to overtake us.”
LaLiga has been in a constant battle with the English Premier League, Serie A and Bundesliga for American eyeballs. Despite Major League Soccer being the domestic league, it still trails behind the aforementioned European competitions as well as Liga MX of Mexico. For that reason, the European powerhouses have been trying, for years, to carve out their market share from the North American audience base.
It all began over a decade ago when the EPL solidified its television position in the United States with NBC. That relationship helped the league flourish during a time slot where little to no major programming was available. Impressive numbers came from the marketing push and teams began to normalize preseason tours throughout the country. Teams such as Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal will make appearances in major NFL stadiums during the months of July and early August. Leagues from Spain, Germany and Italy followed behind, creating a congested schedule of preseason games around the country.
While discussions of doing meaningful games have been broached in the past, they were usually shot down by FA’s around the world. LaLiga was the first to put a serious effort forward but found that both FIFA and US Soccer opposed a 2018 proposal to have Girona and Barcelona play their game internationally.
With those hurdles now in the background, it appears that LaLiga will be the first to play meaningful games in the US. Expectations are that more will follow, especially should next year’s FIFA Club World Cup be as much of a success as is predicted.