A few weeks ago, the NFL conducted a study which now, four days before the main American football competition lands at the Santiago Bernabéu with Sunday’s match between Miami Dolphins and Washington Commanders (3.30pm, Dazn), takes on an unusual role. In its in-depth analysis, the North American league calculated that it has 11.3 million fans in Spain, meaning practically one in four Spaniards follows the NFL.
The large number, raised by the proximity of the game, caused some controversy in the preamble of the first official NFL event in Spain, especially for the words of Peter O’Reilly, executive vice president in charge of the league’s international expansion: “Our goal must be to build on that base of 11 million faithful.”
However, everything has an explanation. “This study includes both the closest fans, i.e. those who follow the championship week by week, and those who are only interested in the Super Bowl (the decisive duel for the title) or those who do not yet have their own team in the NFL”, justify sources close to the competition to EL PAÍS.
Estimates aside, the arrival of the great American sport in the capital of Spain, and more specifically in the home of Real Madrid – which won the tender for the Metropolitano in 2023 for the connection to the center of the capital – responds to the value of a market, the Spanish-speaking one, which is increasingly attractive for making numbers on the other side of the Atlantic.
An example: the tickets for this Sunday’s game, the eleventh of the 17 days that make up the regular championship of the Dolphins and Commanders, had been put on sale in July (even if a few days earlier, on June 26, the NFL had facilitated a pre-sale for Santander bank customers). Prices ranged between 85 and 395 euros, the cheapest especially in locations with reduced visibility. Around 650,000 people crowded into the virtual queue and caused the sales platform to collapse, selling out most of the tickets in just over four hours for a capacity, that of the Bernabéu, which can accommodate 80,000 spectators.
It didn’t take long, however, for resale to be activated, banned in Spain but latent on the web or around any venue in the hours before any major sporting event. At the time of publication of this text, digital platforms such as Milanuncios They host dozens of offers in which users sell pins or pens for more than two thousand euros and give away tickets to the NFL match at the Bernabéu. An important figure, yes, but lower than that of the tour operators who have tried to make a fortune from fans who want to attend a historic event. On platforms like OnLocationbased in the United States, travel, hotel and ticket packages for the Dolphins-Commanders start from 3,600 euros.
In any case, the NFL expects – and equally hopes – that around 90% of those present at Sunday’s event will be made up of a local audience, i.e. residents of Spain.
So much so that the Community of Madrid and the capital’s city council have decided to invest 3.3 million euros to promote the event (1.5 from the government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso; just over 1.8 from José Luis Martínez Almeida). The projection of both institutions, as well as the NFL itself, is that the clash between Dolphins and Commanders this Sunday will generate a return of 16 million euros for Real Madrid, an estimate which, intangible until the conclusion of the match, is supported on paper by volatile variables such as the advertising impact of the event.
In London, for example, the NFL has played 27 games since 2007, generating an overall impact for the city of 216 million euros, that is, around eight million per game. All in a city whose population is almost three times that of Madrid. In Munich, however, the 2022 match between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Seattle Seahawks brought in almost 70 million euros, an unprecedented coup helped greatly by the presence of Tom Brady, certainly the greatest player in the history of his sport.
The winner of seven Super Bowls will not step onto the grass of the Bernabéu, nor will anyone who resembles him on a media level, but the NFL has been looking to Spain for years and this Sunday it will finally make a movement come true with which it will continue to expand its brand beyond the borders of the United States. At the moment the link with Madrid lasts one year, although both parties agree on the intention of repeating it on at least two other occasions. The agreement, however, is far from the one signed in 2019 by Daniel Levy, president of Tottenham, who renovated his London stadium to adapt it to the great North American spectacle and signed an exclusive exploitation contract which has since guaranteed him 85 million euros per year.
In Madrid, Dolphins and Commanders are organizing events from Monday in different strategic points of the capital to warm up the atmosphere before Sunday’s event, the 62nd of the competition abroad. “In any case, the first day of the NFL in Spain is Monday 17 November,” boasts Rafa de los Santos, director of the competition in our country. It will be then, just when dawn breaks at the Bernabéu, after a night in which many and very different interests converge, that the wheel will begin to turn.
