Not all football matches are created equal. The international schedule in particular attracts naysayers all year round.
For instance, the British newspaper The Telegraph once described a routine international break in terms like “absurd”, “unnecessary”, and “never wanted nor remembered”, noting that injuries picked up on tour had dismantled the Premier League’s rosters.
Much the same ire has been directed at friendlies.
Yet, securing these matches abroad as regular exhibitions seems to mean big bucks in the United States. This demand highlights a divide in global football tastes when seemingly pointless European games suddenly become appealing in the US (and the other way around).
It might also mean that overseas friendlies are inevitable.
Dividing Lines
The US and Europe have different ways of doing things. For instance, football is easily Europe’s favorite sport. The most popular activities in North America, however, are soccer, baseball, basketball, and ice hockey, a quartet rarely found together outside the continent.
This contrast is felt even in less physical entertainment.
The board game checkers (draughts in the UK) are played on a 10×10 board instead of the American 8×8, while the rules of European roulette online here show that the latter is rare in the States because it offers one less pocket than the American version.
This reduces the house “edge” by 2.56%.
Football rules are identical across the pond, but European games lack the East/West league system and eventual play-off campaign (although, divisions lower than the Premier League in England do settle things with a brief play-off bracket).
Exactly which games attract the most fan support — and therefore money — varies, too.
This brings us back to friendlies. FIFA rules prevent regular season games from occurring anywhere but the two clubs’ native country. In 2018, Barcelona had hoped to play a domestic game against Girona in Miami, Florida, but the Spanish Football Association objected.
This kind of minor rebellion echoes European Super League proposals, arguably one of the most turbulent times in football this century.
SummerSlam 1992
U.S. soccer refuses to relent on bringing overseas teams to the country (or sending home ones abroad), perhaps because it’s been such a success for the NFL and WWE.
Jacksonville Jaguars beat New England Patriots at Wembley Stadium, London, in 2024, setting an attendance record of 86,651. WWE has been setting records since the early nineties. The first PPV event held outside North America, SummerSlam 1992, attracted 78,927 to Wembley.
In August, a friendly between Liverpool and Manchester United held in South Carolina sold out in three hours, filling all 77,559 seats at Williams-Brice Stadium. Liverpool won 3-0.
While a huge success by any metric, it nevertheless demonstrated why friendlies attract such disdain — then-United player Aaron Wan-Bissaka was injured, in what many might have considered an unnecessary event.
The financials for such events are impressive, even obscene by the standards of European clubs.
Single-match tickets in Spain’s La Liga can creep up to around €140 ($147). Meanwhile, seats at this Summer’s Real Madrid vs. Barcelona fixture at MetLife Stadium, New Jersey, cost $846. This is due to dynamic pricing, where demand sets the price.
A Cruel Twist
As hinted at earlier, broader cultural tastes play an important role in shaping the way sports and other games are played and presented to the public.
So, despite the objections of various footballing bodies, pressure from fans and the need to appeal to foreign customers may guarantee that at least one domestic game heads abroad each season – but expect the same anger that curses international breaks to follow with it.
In a cruel twist, U.S. Soccer is unlikely to get the same gains from sending MLS teams abroad.