Hola y bienvenido a Madrid. Hello, and welcome to Madrid, where a fusion of sporting behemoths and cultural magnitude brews in wait as one of the NFL’s most momentous global power moves yet.
It is an Alpha city that blends royal opulence, fiesta-incited celebration, Art triangle-inspired acclaim, novel-perfect terrazas culture, small-plate delicacy contrary to its cross-continent iconicity, and, of course, sporting supremacy.
The latter, as tends to be the case across Madrid’s 300-plus days of annual sunshine, will be paraded at unprecedented Spanish heights on Sunday when the richest sports league on the planet unites with the biggest football club on the planet.
The NFL has long-established itself as a cousin to the UK. It has cemented a homely remote office in Germany. It has honoured Ireland’s rich football history in Dublin. It has immersed itself in Brazilian samba joy. It is plotting its return to football-hungry Mexico City. It has Melbourne on the horizon.
Now it heads to Madrid as the Miami Dolphins face the Washington Commanders at the Bernabeu Stadium, home to the 36-time La Liga and 15-time European Cup-winning Real Madrid. Money meets money. Legacy meets legacy. Titan meets titan.
“This is going to be like a mini Super Bowl,” Rafael De Los Santos, NFL Spain Country Manager, tells Sky Sports NFL.
“NFL is in Spain to stay. We’re really working closely with not only the region, but the country to make sure that we keep it here on a regular basis.”
Spain are among the envied masters of the slow morning and ensuing delayed start, where lunch and dinner occur late, and where nightlife begins in the morning. Madrid’s entry as a host city comes a touch later than the likes of Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Sao Paulo and Dublin, however – similarly to its party life after dark – the festivities will take some beating. Vamos.
“People can expect a city that is now living for this game, that in every corner that you go you will breathe NFL and people are really excited about it. Media are excited and feel that this event is not going to be any other event, it’s going to be a very, very special one,” added De Los Santos.
“Spain has a very big desire with everything that moves around sports and especially with team sport. We really think that this is going to be something that could stay here for a long time,”
A worker pastes a poster on the facade of the renovated Santiago Bernabeu stadium ahead of Sunday’s NFL game
A Bernabeu game 20 years in the making?
“You never dream of something like this,” says Rafael Cervera, who previously served as general manager of the Barcelona Dragons in the European League of Football and as an NFL public relations assistant for international games in London and Mexico City.
“When I was living in Mexico, I would never dream that an American football game would be played in Spain.”
Already one of the most prestigious sporting stadia in the world, the Bernabeu finalised its €1.8bn remodelling in 2024 as Madrid brought ambitions of a multi-purpose revenue-spiking amphitheatre to life. The arrival of Taylor Swift, Colombian superstar Karol G and the NFL would speak to as much.
Club president Florentino Perez wanted an entertainment juggernaut. And he got it.
Miami Dolphins players warm-up at Atletico Madrid’s Metropolitano Stadium
“The remodelling of the Bernabeu did everything,” said Cervera. “When it was Real Madrid’s 100th anniversary in 2002, the Barcelona Dragons met with Emilio Butragueño, one of the greatest players in the club’s history who still works with Real Madrid, because they wanted the Dragons to play a game in Madrid for the celebration.
“But the American football field didn’t fit in the old Bernabeu, because the stands were too close to the goals. You needed the new Bernabeu, and when they did it, like Tottenham, they thought about bringing American football.”
In welcoming the NFL through its Bernabeu doors, Real will once more flex their influence and might as a sporting sovereign whose stature few can compete with. Much to the frustration of their city rivals.
“There was a civil war between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid to be the guest of this game,” says Madrid-based Iñako Díaz-Guerra, a sports journalist for the newspaper El Mundo.
“Atletico thought for some months, years perhaps, that this will be in their stadium (the Metropolitano Stadium) because it was finished and the new Bernabeu wasn’t.
“But the NFL preferred to wait for Real Madrid because it’s a very, very strong commercial opportunity. In Spain everything that has the Real Madrid name in the context is going to have a lot more power in the media, in society. If you want to make the NFL popular in Spain, there isn’t a better partner than Real Madrid.”
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The Dolphins arrive after producing one of the upset wins of the season against the Bills in Week 10
Hispanic representation
Madrid’s NFL bow closes the curtain on a record slate of seven international games this season as the latest branch to the league’s continued pursuit of new and diverse demographics across the globe.
The half-time show at the Bernabeu will see Argentine artist BIZARRAP and Puerto Rican rapper, singer and songwriter Daddy Yankee take centre stage, following on from Colombian singer Karol G’s interval performance in Sao Paulo during kickoff week. Both notably precede another historic nod to Hispanic and Latino communities when Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny leads the half-time show at Super Bowl LX in San Francisco.
While Mexico and Brazil represent the second and third-largest NFL fan bases outside of the United States, the entrance of Madrid as a host city looms as a further tribute to Spanish-speaking groups.
“Spain has a very unique position in that way because it’s kind of in between US, Hispanic, Europe, Latin, which makes the country very unique in that sense,” said De Los Santos.
“Madrid has a big, big Latin American community, people who have come from Mexico, Venezuela (etc.). There are a lot of people and they really know the sport well and they’re really looking forward to this Sunday.”
De Los Santos was appointed as NFL Spain Country Manager on October 1, among his chief ambitions being to bridge the aforementioned gap.
“One of the key elements that the NFL is looking for when they’re coming to a new country is to build that true relationship and looking for the cultural link that there is with that country, he said.”
Cervera deems it an opportunity for the NFL to further ‘catch up’ with Major League Baseball in appealing to Hispanic people.
“We start having quarterbacks with Hispanic last names. We have Mendoza (Indiana Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza), for example. I think this should lead to developing that fan interest, fan base, and having Hispanic people embrace American football, which they do already.
“I think the NFL with all this is looking to take it to the next level and feel that it’s been dominated so far by baseball. Hispanic people are passionate about sports, about America, about football, regular football, soccer, this can lead to a good following of American football.”
Bad Bunny will perform at Super Bowl LX in California
El Mundo’s Díaz-Guerra, though, holds reservations over the NFL’s Madrid experiment, and called for some differentiation between Spain and Latin America.
“I think that the NFL is making a mistake with Spain because the NFL culture in Spain doesn’t have anything in common with the Mexican culture,” he explains. “In Spain we don’t really like the traditional way of talking about NFL in Mexico. We prefer the American way, we are a very NBA country so we have a lot of American culture about their sport.
“I guess the NFL is making a common market with Spain and Mexico. It’s a mistake because it would be easier to treat Spain like they trade England or Germany.”
No Barcelona, Real Madrid or Atletico in action during the weekend does, though, mean a spotlight solely dedicated to the NFL’s Spanish debut as media interest ramps up and as one of the league’s most unpredictable ventures comes to fruition.
“This first year has to be a stop and see, I guess this has to be a three/four/five year experience,” he added.
Spain’s footballing roots
Cervera recalls relocating from Mexico City to Spain in 1988, at which time his primary access to NFL news came via USA Today. He would hop on the subway and travel to La Rambla in Barcelona to pick up the Tuesday edition of the newspaper, which would offer little more than Sunday’s results.
It was in 1991 that the Dragons were founded as Spain’s first professional American football team in the World League of American Football, later reborn as NFL Europe. The franchise quickly turned to Cervera’s expertise as one of a minority of people familiar with American football in Spain, before interest spiked in 1994 when the NFL staged an American Bowl pre-season exhibition game between the Los Angeles Raiders and Denver Broncos at the Olympic Stadium, two years removed from the Barcelona Games.
The league’s presence coupled with Spain’s growing intrigue in the Super Bowl-winning San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys teams of the 80s and 90s in breeding a blossoming fanbase.
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Chelsea goalkeepers Robert Sanchez and Gabriel Slonina join Phoebe Schecter to take on an NFL challenge
“Spain has been brimming with this for many, many years,” he said. “The American Bowl Series was like a big fashion because we just had the Olympic Games in 92.
“Now for the first time the NFL comes back to Spain, it comes back to Madrid. I think Real Madrid had a lot to do with having the game there. It’s an amazing facility, an amazing stadium.
“I think it’s a great tie-in, with Real Madrid and the NFL, two brands that are known all over the world, regardless if you like sports or not.”
By 2019 Spain’s women’s Flag Football team were winning the European Championship. By 2021 Palma de Mallorca was hosting the IFAF Flag Football World Championships. And by September 2023 Spain had its second professional American football team in the Madrid Bravos, who went on to reach the playoffs in their first campaign in the ELF.
“I thought the NFL was going to arrive to Spain sooner or later just because the NFL has grown so much internationally,” said Cervera. “But I never thought it was going to be this fast.
“They’ve been playing games in Germany for four years now, if you had asked me about a game in Madrid I would have said 2035 maybe, so I think it is 10 years early.”
‘Madrid thrilled to have the NFL in town’
As a city Madrid stands proudly as the annoying kid in school that would excel in any and every facet of life. Be it sport, art, intellect, popularity or entertainment. It stands proudly as a city with it all, promising a brand new strand to global interpretations of the NFL experience.
Cervera maintains an enthusiasm across a city gearing up to celebrate another sporting milestone. Rarely do Madrid get it wrong; even their basketball team currently ranks first in the European professional club rankings.
“I think everybody’s excited,” he said. “I was just talking to La Liga and they asked me to see if I could come and film some small bits promoting the game, so I think the NFL coming here is very interesting.
“Everybody wants to get tied to it. The Madrid government is thrilled about it. And of course, Florentino Pérez, who was the main man, with him, the NFL and Roger Goodell probably putting this together or having the conversation.”
For the first time Spain is being granted access to NFL coverage on terrestrial TV. Long gone are the days of following on the internet or jumping on a train to buy the local newspaper for score updates.
“I think the NFL is just going to the next level right now in Spain,” added Cervera. “And it’s a country that loves sports, a country that’s very passionate about sports, too passionate sometimes. It’s a very good mix.”
‘Hala Madrid’! Welcome to tapas and touchdown central, where it is the time of Spain to join historic times for the NFL.
Sky Sports NFL’s new series ‘NFL to the World’ shines a light on stories of how American Football has expanded beyond the borders of the United States.
Part One: Meet the man leading Wheelchair American Football’s Paralympic dream
Meet Geraint Griffiths, the man leading Wheelchair American Football’s pursuit of a dream place at the Paralympic Games.
Part Two: The NFL Academy dancer who escaped Nigeria’s violent ‘trenches’
Benson Jerry. The kid with the fancy footwork. The kid that borrowed 30p for the bus. The kid that had never tried lasagne. The kid that had never flown. The no-longer-a-kid becoming the inspiration kids like him never had.
Part Three: How Ireland became a powerhouse for the NFL’s global expansion
They support in unwavering numbers, they amplify at bar-raising levels, they romanticise their sporting legacy, they immerse themselves in football, they unite to champion their stage like few others, they welcome the world, and they kick; boy, can they kick. Ireland has become a rousing cocktail for the sport’s international growth and one of football’s most multi-faceted homes from home.
Part Four: From the beaches to the world… Meet the face of Brazilian football
Gabi Bankhardt is Samba. She is Bossa Nova. She is Christ the Redeemer and she is Carnival. She is the favelas. She is churrasco and she is Copacabana. She is mutirão.
We meet Brazil Flag Football ambassador Gabi Bankhardt as she inspires football’s explosion in Latin America.
Part Five: ‘I was Verstappen’s teammate – now I play American football around the world’
A tantalising thought of what could have been may always linger in the background for Samuel Oram-Jones. But there are few on the planet who can say they share his story. That’s even before Japanese karaoke…
Part Six: Meet the NFL marketing agent seeking the Patrick Mahomes of Flag Football
Meet Jacquelyn Dahl, the agent of Patrick Mahomes searching for the future Olympic stars of Flag Football.
“I think that female flag football players are going to be the icons of LA 2028, it’s happening.”
Part Seven: Why ‘global phenomenon’ Flag Football is booming on road to Olympics
We meet IFAF president Pierre Trochet to discuss Flag football’s historic Olympics debut at Los Angeles 2028.
“In Samoa we entered an IFAF competition for the first time, we are going to Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Kenya, Uganda. We are obviously in all the NFL market, but also way, way beyond.
“It’s a global phenomenon.”
Watch the 2025 NFL season live on Sky Sports, including every London and European game as well as every minute of the playoffs and Super Bowl LX; Get Sky Sports or stream with no contract on NOW.
