La Liga
La Liga To Play Official Games In US Soil This Season
Spain’s La Liga struck a deal with Relevent, the sports and entertainment company that operates the annual International Champions Cup, on a 15-year promotional deal which will include to play at least one league game at a U.S. venue every season. In addition, this season will start of with either a Real Madrid or Barcelona game.
Steven Goff from the Washington Post indicates that Charlie Stillitano, Relevent’s executive chairman, said that the sides had already begun discussing a single game for this season. However, this game would be play sometime after January 1. In addition, the hosting city would likely be Miami involving either Real Madrid or Barcelona. However, they were also contemplating Atletico de Madrid, Sevilla or Valencia.
“Our goal, our job, our responsibility is to try to build La Liga,” Stillitano said. “We told them, [Relevent] sees the power of regular season games.”
Who Is Relevent
Relevent is own by Stephen Ross, owner of the Miami Dolphis and Hard Rock Stadium. Last year, the first ever Clasico outside of Spain, was played at Hard Rock Stadium. This season, the venue hosted Bayern Munich vs Manchester City and Manchester United vs Real Madrid.
Future For The League
In similar fashion to what the NFL, NBA and MLB are doing, La Liga is expanding its wings to the modern globalization world. Oscar Mayo, La Liga international development director, believes this is a major milestone in our international expansion strategy. However, not all teams will be happy with the decision, specially those smaller things with smaller fan-bases. It is likely that the much prestigious clubs will benefit more from the deal as they will likely be playing as the hometown favorites.
Nonetheless, the growth of soccer in he U.S. has been increasing over the last decade. The emergence of La Spanish League has now expanded to Asia and other parts of the world and it is important that they keep those markets intact as well.
