Peter O’Reilly, executive vice president of the NFL, opened Wednesday the possibility of Madrid hosting a regular-season game in 2025.
“We’re going to look at the opportunities we have to host Madrid and Brazil in the future; we’re excited to bring that to fruition,” O’Reilly told the NFL’s official website.
Earlier the NFL reported that in the 2024 season the Arena Corinthians located in São Paulo, Brazil, will host one of the five international NFL games next year, something he said does not rule out Madrid to keep the international expansion.
According to the vice president, the reason São Paulo was chosen over Madrid to have a game for the 2024 season was because games have been held in Europe since 2007 in England and since 2022 in Germany, while in South America they have never been held.
“The reason we went first with Brazil actually has to do with going to a new place on the continent. We wanted to be in South America for the first time with a regular season game,” O’Reilly explained.
The executive said that by 2025 they would not necessarily have to choose between Brazil or Spain, but left open the possibility that both countries could have a game.
“The good news is that both are really viable and interested in hosting games,” he said.
The possibility for Madrid to have for the first time a regular season game of this league grows because the owners of the 32 NFL teams agreed on Wednesday that as of 2025 up to eight games per year can be played outside the United States.
The NFL has played regular season games outside its territory since the 2005 campaign.
The first game that year was played at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium, where the Arizona Cardinals defeated the San Francisco 49ers 31-14 in front of 103,476 spectators, an attendance record that has been maintained to date outside the United States.
Since that date, 50 regular-season international games have been played; 36 in London, England; six in Toronto, Canada; five in Mexico City; two in Frankfurt and one in Munich, Germany.
According to the NFL website, in addition to Spain, France is another potential destination that has caught the league’s attention.