The NFL announced Friday that it will play a regular-season game in Madrid in 2025.
It will mark the first time the NFL has played a game in Spain, and it will be played at the the iconic Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, home to Real Madrid C.F.
Madrid is the first new market to be confirmed for the 2025 International Games and will be the fourth European city to host a regular-season game, joining London, Frankfurt and Munich.
“Playing a game in Madrid in 2025 highlights the continued expansion of the league’s global footprint and the accelerated ambitions to take our game to more fans around the world,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “We are proud to partner with Real Madrid C.F., a global brand, together with the City of Madrid and Comunidad de Madrid, to bring a spectacular regular-season game to Spain at the world-class Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.”
The NFL has played 50 regular-season games internationally through the league’s history, with London, Munich, Frankfurt, Mexico City and Toronto all hosting games to date. São Paulo, Brazil, will stage a game in 2024 at the Corinthians Arena — home to Brazilian soccer team the SC Corinthians — in the first NFL regular-season game in South America.
Following the expansion of the NFL schedule in 2021, up to four of the teams from the conference whose teams are eligible for a ninth regular-season home game were designated to play a neutral-site international game each year.
NFC teams have nine home games in 2024 and AFC teams nine home games in 2025.
In 2023, NFL clubs voted to increase league-operated international game inventory from four to up to eight games a season beginning in 2025. Those eight league-operated international games do not include club-operated games, such as the Jaguars hosting a game at Wembley Stadium in the U.K.
In addition to the game in São Paulo, Brazil, four other regular-season games will be played as part of the 2024 NFL International Games. London will host three — two at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and one at Wembley Stadium — and the NFL will head to Germany for a third consecutive year, returning to the Allianz Arena, Home of FC Bayern Munich, for one game.
