How La Liga plans to continue their North American growth in popularity
For anyone in attendance at the pre-season El Clasico held at the AT&T Stadium in Texas, it was clear that the departures of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have not affected Barcelona and Real Madrid’s popularity in the United States.
As they trotted across the world’s biggest sports market as part of the Soccer Champions Tour, a pre-season tournament featuring some of Europe’s biggest clubs primarily held on the U.S.’s west coast, massive crowds followed.
Madrid’s first game of the tour against AC Milan at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, welcomed 70,814 spectators; Barcelona’s clash against Arsenal at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles was watched by a sellout crowd of more than 70,000; and when they faced off for the third time in the U.S. at the AT&T Stadium, they set a record for the highest-attended El Clasico on foreign soil with 82,026 fans.
Like the Premier League’s big shots, trips to the United States during pre-season are as good as guaranteed for Barcelona and Real Madrid. Since first coming to the U.S. in 1937 to escape a country at war and to raise much-needed income for the club, Barcelona have visited 14 times.
Outside of the COVID-affected years of 2020 and 2021, they’ve stopped on American soil during pre-season every year since 2017. Their chief rivals have visited 16 times, with Real Madrid’s first tour of the Americas going as far back as 1927, where they faced a side set up by 300 Galician immigrants in New York.
And here they are, still breaking attendance records, even without the star power of Messi and Ronaldo. For many, La Liga is Real Madrid and Barcelona, but for Boris Gartner, chief executive of La Liga North America, there’s more for America in Spain’s top division than just
Read on theathletic.com
