Steven Ross can’t get his soccer game.
Major League Baseball is in the middle of its All Star tour of Japan. Recently, National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman said the league has plans to stage 2019 pre-season games in Germany and Switzerland with regular season games in Prague, the Czech Republic and Stockholm, Sweden. The NHL changed starting times of some of this season’s weekend regular season games in North America so that those games could be seen in Europe during evening prime time. The NHL has players on its 31 team rosters from 14 European countries. The NFL has finished up its London 2018 schedule and will have a Kansas City Chiefs-Los Angeles Rams game in Mexico City on November 19. The NBA has games on tap in Mexico City and London. The NBA sent teams to China in the pre-season. North American sports operators continue to export their products, games, to Europe and Asia. The NFL will visit London four times in 2019. Major League Baseball is sending the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox for games in London next June. It’s all about making money.
But there is one league that has been stopped from sending its product to North America. The Spanish soccer league, La Liga worked out a 15-year-deal with the NFL’s Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and his Relevant sports marketing company. Ross wants to put an annual La Liga contest in his Miami area stadium. La Liga wants it, Ross wants it but it appears no one else in the soccer world wants it. In fact the soccer world starting with the soccer’s governing body FIFA has blocked the attempt to move a Barcelona-Girona January contest from Spain to Miami. There are numerous international soccer matches in the United States. But soccer officials don’t want the game even if it makes money.
