The areas around the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium were lined for days with municipal banners announcing the first National Football League (NFL) match in Spain. An event unveiled more than a year ago would mean the landing of two professional American football teams from the USA in Madrid, giving the city entry into the circle of the few European capitals hosting this type of event.
he Madrid game It will consist of a match between the Miami Dolphins – who play as a home team – and the Washington Commanders. Although both teams belong to the NFL’s lower mid-tier, expectations are high and most of the 80,000 available tickets were sent out within a few hours. However, the organization put tickets on sale a few days ago at a price ranging between 250 and 350 euros, and they are still available. The announcement of Bizarrap and Daddy Yankee’s presence at halftime, singing the piece they performed this week, may be the final impetus to hang up the no-ticket banner.
The NFL match is part of the joint strategy of the Community of Madrid and the City Council to transform the capital into a venue for major international events and thus attract large numbers of tourists with big spending power. They are so keen on this match that the party will receive an important injection of public money: Almeida’s government will provide 1.8 million euros and Ayuso’s government will do the same, adding another 1.5 million euros (including taxes), figures that exceed what the Madrid City Council allocates to all popular sports in one year.
Both governments justify advertising spending for Madrid by what this meeting will achieve, especially among Americans, who today constitute the largest group of tourists who come to the capital and on whom many promotional efforts focus: last September alone, as many as 98,987 travelers came from the United States according to the National Institute of Statistics, the same number as those who came from Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Germany combined. Their average spending is 2,430 euros, which is much more than national tourists, according to the community.
To achieve advertising revenue, the Council is requesting that the city’s name be placed on the NFL logo during the match and the Madrid City Council’s logo on social media posts for the competition, among other compensation. The community will do the same, according to sponsorship details obtained by this newspaper. In addition, the broadcast of the meeting will include the broadcast of no less than “two emblematic tourist sites in the city of Madrid.” In the 2023 season, NFL regular-season games will average 17.9 million viewers, although a game like Miami-Washington will likely gather fewer people in front of the screen, because neither team leads its division.
Moving matches from successful sports leagues to other countries is a common tactic for internationalizing this type of business. In Spain, the Football Association did this through the Super Cup, selling its matches to Saudi Arabia, and tried to do this by promising to hold a regular match between Villarreal and Barcelona in the city of Miami. The latter had to be canceled due to protests from players and fans, who considered that the competition was distorted by Barcelona and thus avoided visiting one of the most difficult stadiums in the Spanish League.
The NFL has the most elaborate format, with each year its teams tour different European capitals. In addition to Spain, American football matches will be held this season in Dublin, London and Berlin. “Madrid is consolidating itself as a venue for highly prestigious international sporting events, hosting two editions of the Laureus Awards, the first NRL match in Spain, the European Athletics Championships and one of the most spectacular Formula 1 Grand Prix races,” the city’s mayor José Luis Martínez Almeida triumphantly affirmed a few months ago, citing events for which the Council allocates large sums of public money or urban facilities for their development.
The arrival of professional American football comes with important municipal transfers, in addition to the above-mentioned sponsorship: last September, the council actually gave up the square between the theater and the Royal Palace to celebrate the NFL Madrid experience there, with the Superbowl watched on deck chairs. The regional government is preparing similar events in the Plaza de España this week, with the creation of a fan zone sponsored by a ticket company, from Thursday, November 13, to Sunday, November 16, for the Miami Dolphins, whose managers Ayuso and Almeida have held meetings in recent months. In addition, the City Council has offered Valhermoso Stadium to host matches on Friday 14 November and Saturday 15 November, which are organized by the Madrid American Football Association but form part of NFL Academyheadquartered in the United Kingdom.
The Almeida government has already earmarked this stadium in Chambery to host matches for the last two summers of the Madrid Bravos, a recently created European-American soccer team that played its matches there thanks to a free loan from the city council.
Before next Sunday’s match, Ayuso will also make a triumphant speech with the event, emphasizing in his presentation that “Madrid is the most fashionable region in the world at the moment”, a place that is “lively, dynamic, open and where everyone wants to come”, regarding the meeting that comes to the capital with exciting public sponsorship.
“The entity has expressed its intention to prolong its relationship with the Madrid authorities to implement the competition in Spain,” the regional government warned in its latest memorandum, anticipating more matches like next Sunday’s in the coming years.
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