What can La Liga and Serie A learn from international NFL matches?

Since 1990, the NBA has held 40 international games in four countries, while the NBA has held 37 games in five countries since 1996.

Both leagues have more dates over the next year, and Leah McNabb, the NBA’s president of international strategy and operations, says international games have “served as a catalyst for the continued growth of the game on a global basis.”

But the growth of the NBA and MLB has been dwarfed by the growth of the NFL. Sunday’s match at Wembley Stadium was the 54th match played by the National Football League outside the country since its first match in Mexico in 2005.

Although the NFL’s global fan base has risen to 410 million, other sports have much more. It’s just that the NFL now has a business model that has proven to be very profitable.

The NFL’s combined income, which is distributed equally among its 32 teams, has risen from $8bn (£6bn) in 2010 to more than $23bn (£17bn) in 2024 – almost double the NBA and MLB, and three times the Premier League.

This rapid growth began around 2003, when the NFL established a long-term strategy, in which competitive matches abroad were seen as the best way to grow American soccer globally.

London staged annual matches from 2007 and the NFL only expanded its international series when it was confident that tickets would continue to be sold.

The league initially faced opposition from teams because they did not want to sacrifice their home game, and from players because of travel. That started to change when teams saw how popular the games were and because they made them feel like home.

Henry Hodgson, the AFL’s UK and Ireland general manager, told BBC Sport that the league had made it clear that teams “should have a seamless and exceptional experience when playing abroad”.

International matches have been held in some of the most famous and modern stadiums in the world, such as Wembley Stadium and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and there are more to come.