MADRID — There’s something happening here. What it is, is exactly clear.
The Miami Dolphins, no strangers to being pioneers in the NFL’s quest to be a global brand, are playing the Washington Commanders as the league stages its first game in Spain. It’s a celebration of the sport in a legendary venue, the futuristic Bernabeu stadium. And the hosts have been nothing if not welcoming everyone into their home.
So why don’t they want to come to ours?
There’s a certain irony at work here, one that runs deeper than just the NHL, NBA and Major League Baseball also farming out games to foreign lands. Notice the trend yet? How all these games — games that actually count — are all going in one direction?
Watch Dolphins-Commanders from Madrid on Fubo
A course correction was on the docket for next month, “was” being the key word. Barcelona and Villarreal agreed to play a match at Hard Rock Stadium that would count in La Liga standings, marking the first time a major European league was sending to the United States the same type of product the United States has been sending to Europe for years.
Hope you didn’t buy tickets. Ain’t happening.
The reason it was called off says everything about how we view global expansion versus how Europeans don’t. Blasphemy only begins to describe the fallout when the match was announced, which is perhaps half the irony.
We’ll get to that in a second, but first, comic relief. Players throughout Spain were so put off with the thought of a Spanish league game in Miami Gardens that they actually ceased to be players. For 15 seconds, anyway. They actually took a knee — during matches — in symbolic protest. It wasn’t even a first. Years ago, the famed English Premier League proposed an extra round of two matches to be held outside that country. Hope you didn’t buy tickets for that, either.
Back to the irony. One of the loudest cries against the Barca-Villarreal concept came from Real Madrid, the storied club welcoming the Dolphins and Commanders into their home this weekend. To understand why, you must take into account that Real Madrid and Barcelona aren’t just rivals; theirs is the fiercest rivalry in sports, period. Each clash is billed as an El Clasico for a reason. And they’re never for the faint of heart or brittle-boned.
Together, Real Madrid and Barcelona account for 64 La Liga titles. One finishes first, chances are the other is second. So the last thing Real Madrid wanted to see was Barcelona avoiding what would be a hostile atmosphere at Villarreal. Especially if it meant shifting the venue to South Florida, now home of Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi, who earned the title of GOAT while wearing a Barcelona jersey you see all over town.
Why, to move this match to Florida would upset the entire balance of the La Liga season, Real Madrid argued. And can we get a show of knees, please?
That’s different from the Dolphins (and their season-ticket holders) giving up a 2015 home game against the hated New York Jets how, exactly?
Make of all that what you will, but let’s not forget that Real Madrid, the Dolphins and owner Stephen Ross had history together before this weekend. In 2017, Ross and Dolphins Vice Chairman Tom Garfinkel scored a coup by getting Real Madrid and Barcelona to play at Hard Rock. It was only the second El Clasico ever held outside Spain, drawing a sellout crowd to see Messi live. It was a spectacle. But it also was an exhibition.
The closest you could come to the rest of the world reciprocating might be Formula 1. For years, it all but ignored the United States, but not now. There are three races held in the U.S., including the Miami Grand Prix around Hard Rock Stadium. Would any of that have been possible, though, had not the entire F1 circuit been purchased by Liberty Media? A mass media company based in Colorado?
Dolphins, New York Giants first to cross the pond to play in Europe
As it stands, the imbalance is only going to get more lopsided. Dolphins-Commanders is the seventh and final NFL game held internationally this year, following regular-season games in Sao Paulo, Dublin, London and Berlin. It will bring the total number of NFL games held outside the United States to 62, or 121 if you include exhibitions.
And remember, the Dolphins and New York Giants were first to cross the pond for real, playing at London’s Wembley Stadium in 2007. Garfinkel recently told ESPN that the Dolphins are bullish on being a global brand, possibly stepping up plans for international games.
With more continents and countries for the NFL to conquer, it’s all about to explode. An international game every week? Perhaps. An international Super Bowl? Unthinkable, until it isn’t. Maybe someday, the term “frozen tundra” in an NFL sense won’t automatically mean Lambeau Field.
Sure would be nice, then, if Europe’s major leagues quit their freeze-out of the U.S.
Or do we have to get on our knees?
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Miami Dolphins in Madrid drips with irony as Europe teams won’t play in US
