The competitive fixture set for December is immensely controversial in Europe, but the view in the U.S. is one of inevitability
Most of La Liga spent last weekend protesting. Routinely, in each game, the referee blew his whistle to signify the start of the contest. And for exactly 15 seconds, in every single fixture, the players stood still. Some TV cameras cut away from the action. Others showed shots of the stadium from the outside.
But for those inside the ground, the first 15 seconds of a soccer match were in stasis. The universal concern was with La Liga, which last week announced a controversial yet inevitable decision to host a competitive match in the United States. And performatively or otherwise, much of the footballing world spoke out against it, with a general sentiment that the decision could rip at the very fabric of the game.
Yet there are proponents. The Eurocentric take is that the staging of the Barcelona-Villarreal match in Miami in December could ruin soccer. In the U.S., though, the perspective is far more nuanced. Yes, this is a change. Yes, this will ruffle feathers across the continent. But there’s an acknowledgement of the wider strategy to put La Liga, quite literally, on the map in North America.
“This goes beyond just the game. It’s having a solid strategy in the market… The core is to make sure that people understand that the US market is a strategic market, and this is not a one-off activation. It is part of a global strategy,” Nicolas Garcia Hemme, Managing Director of La Liga in the United States, told GOAL.
Getty Images'We as La Liga are willing to be bold'
That word, strategy, has come up frequently among proponents. What many Europeans see as an affront to their way of thinking, businesspeople see as a wider venture. The Premier League – the implicit bad guy here, the presumptive reason that La Liga needs to make such bold moves – is dominating the global game financially. La Liga, in order to get ahead, has to innovate. This fixture is just one part of the process.
The rest? Well, that’s less tangible. La Liga may have the two biggest clubs in the world in Barcelona and Real Madrid, but overall, its revenue is dwarfed by the Premier League. The response has been a steady growth worldwide: media partnerships, high-profile events, and, yes, a competitive fixture.
“It is very important for us to make sure that people understand that we as La Liga are willing to be bold, are willing to be innovative, are willing to try things in a different way, and we're gonna try, and we're gonna see,” Garcia Hemme added.
The central reason behind that? Growth, especially with La Liga running in place.
“If we are not able to help these other clubs to grow and understand the importance of going beyond the domestic market in the long term, it could be a threat in terms of business capacity to retain the biggest players,” Garcia Hemme said. “So it is all part of that international strategy of La Liga to continue to grow and maintain the competitive level that we have achieved in the past year.”
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AdvertisementAFP'We'll never be the same as the Premier League'
There are contrasting perspectives here, but the one thing that simply cannot be contested is that this has been a long time coming. The Premier League first flirted with the idea of playing a “39th game” abroad in 2009, only to see their suggestion shot down before it was past its gestation period. La Liga tried in 2019, and, after that was derailed, started a high profile battle in the courts.
There were lawsuits and counter suits, all of which ended with a U.S.-based promotion company striking a deal that cleared the pathway for competitive European soccer to be played in the U.S. The Spanish top flight had a leg up and was simply the first to jump.
But there were signs before that. The Spanish Super Cup has been held abroad for a few years, and certainly is treated like a major trophy – even if it’s not an “official” La Liga game.
“It's not just about this game,” ESPN analyst and former Venezuela international Ale Moreno said of the scheduled match in Miami. “Because if you go back and you start thinking where's all of this coming from? Well, you start thinking about how the Spanish Super Cup is played in Saudi Arabia.”
Still, being the first club to actually make the move is risky. La Liga flirted with Barcelona playing Atletico Madrid in the States last year, only for that to be shot down. This December, Villarreal is scheduled to host Barca in Miami. It is of little surprise that the Blaugrana have signed up. They haven’t shied away in breaking tradition for financial gain in recent years.
Many Villarreal fans, though, are furious. It’s something other La Liga clubs are cognizant of.
“It's a lot more controversial in Spain. People get upset when a game is played out of their country and out of their stadium,” Mallorca owner Andy Kohlberg told GOAL. “It's a different culture and different mentalities. You have to tread pretty carefully.”
Yet simultaneously, it could be necessary for a league that is falling behind in the American market.
“Our belief is we’ll never be the same as the Premier League, but the gap will start to narrow a little bit,” Kohlberg said. “We think that's possible. And, you know, the Premier League and NBC have done an incredible job and spent an enormous amount of money. I don't think La Liga or ESPN can match that, but they can do enough to close the gap, and I think that's the hope.”
Getty Images'It can build new fans'
The thread through the rhetoric in the U.S. is that the game is increasingly global. Yes, you can watch Barcelona-Villarreal on television, but those who tune in early every weekend morning also deserve the opportunity to see their favorite clubs in person.
And there might be some truth in that. At least, that's what La Liga officials highlight. Garcia Hemme, for one, hailed the fans who “wake up at 5 a.m. to watch a game in LA and are willing to travel to Miami to watch that game.”
Stu Holden, a former USMNT star and a minority owner in Mallorca, also acknowledged that it could be valuable for Spanish football as a whole.
“I think it's a great advertisement for the Spanish game, and Spanish teams, Spanish stories, and it can build new fans,” he said.
Others point out that such a fixture is doing a service to the American fan in a country that is steadily increasing its appetite for top-level soccer. There is a thread to be traced from the 1994 World Cup, to the Club World Cup, to competitive soccer in Miami.
“To this day, the 1994 World Cup is the most successful in terms of revenue and marketing and attendance,” former USMNT midfielder and ESPN analyst Herculez Gomez told GOAL. “There's a reason for these things. If anybody tells you the United States is not a soccer country, they're dead wrong. It's a massive soccer country.”
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Getty Images'They see a league like the NFL'
The point of reference, for many, is that U.S. sports leagues have routinely played sports abroad. The NFL is playing seven games in countries outside of the U.S. this season – England, Ireland, Germany, Spain and Brazil. The NBA and MLB have undergone similar efforts, and – outside of some initial complaints – haven’t had much pushback from U.S. fans in recent years.
Some owners claim that it’s a bit of a false equivalency, especially given the loyalty of local fans in small communities that have built clubs over decades
“Whereas in the U.S., they welcome the NFL playing in London, it's not the same over there,” Kohlberg said.
Part of that, some argue, is down to the idea of ownership. U.S. sports franchises are owned, for the most part, by billionaires or massive venture capital firms. Much of Spanish soccer, though, is still supported by the kind of fan ownership that has operated in the sport since its earliest days. Garcia Hemme admitted that acknowledging that is a challenge.
"The clubs in La Liga are owned by the fans directly, so it is having that understanding, but at the same time, we cannot not be bold enough or innovative enough to do things differently,” Garcia Hemme said.
In that principle, others claim that La Liga is taking an American mindset, and that professional sports in the U.S. are, in effect, a perfect reference point – if not proof of concept.
“They see a league like the NFL, what they’re doing, and they see a possibility to expand their market and to expand what they consider to be the global appeal of their product,” Moreno said.