La Liga have announced that, thanks to a partnership with US company Relevent Sports, the Spanish football league will take a sojourn to North America in order to play regular season games, potentially as early as this season.

This is something we’ve heard a lot about in football for more than a decade. The famous ‘39th game’ idea, proposed in early 2008, will no doubt be talked about in relation to this. Since then, the NFL and NBA have played regular season games in the UK, whilst MLB will do the same this year. The biggest sports leagues in the world aren’t averse to doing it, and so far it appears to have worked out well for the US sports.

La Liga aren’t averse to it either, clearly. But before announcing the US partnership, the Spanish Super Cup earlier this month between Sevilla and Barcelona was held in Tangier in Morocco. That means Spanish football took an official game outside of Spain for the first time, though admittedly they didn’t take it very far – Tangier is much closer to Seville than Barcelona is.

But it all speaks to a more general concept that appears to be taking root: that football is now a global sport and that the biggest leagues are now somehow global leagues which just happen to be based in Spain, England, Germany or Italy. They have overseas players, overseas fans and overseas owners.

Bringing La Liga games to the US, then, just solidifies this idea.

On the back of a summer where International Champions Cup matches saw falling attendances in comparison to other years, this feels significant. Presumably, US fans no longer want to pay good money to see pre-season friendlies, even if that means not seeing Manchester United, Barcelona or Real Madrid play. The consequence of a growing appetite for football in the US was always going to be something like this; where fans realised they were being served up scant recompense for their fandom in comparison to fans in Europe who can see their teams in competitive action.

If you look at it from the point of view of the US fan, you can see why you might feel as though the top European leagues are keeping the good stuff to themselves despite also courting your fandom – and your cash. You might think they can’t have it both ways: either they are global leagues who can play their competitive matches anywhere in the world, or they are local leagues. But if they are local, then why make such an effort to gain so many worldwide fans on pre-season tours or with dedicated social media accounts to engage with US fans?

There’s undoubtedly more to it than that. Filled stadiums with passionate local fans who feel what the club means to their lives and their local area is a selling point, too. And just as Sky Sports aim to keep some of the American ads on their coverage of NFL to give a sense of exoticism to UK fans staying up late to watch, some US fans watching La Liga will surely feel the same sense of romance at watching a foreign league.

It was great catching up with Florentino Perez and Adriana Lima in Miami last week. I’m excited for the final US game in this year’s @IntChampionsCup tonight when Florentino’s @realmadrid takes on @ASRomaEN at MetLife. pic.twitter.com/GFR9xWmDML

— Charlie Stillitano (@C_Stillitano) August 7, 2018

What is most interesting, though, is that at the end of a summer where the International Champions Cup appears to be losing its lustre, Relevent Sports – who own the ICC – are the ones who have struck this deal with La Liga, bringing the competitive football that a US audience seems to be craving to their shores.

One of the less obvious questions now is where this leaves the pre-season tours of the big European clubs? If regular season games are on offer in the US (and maybe even further afield someday soon) then whatever glamour is still attached to seeing the youth players that Manchester United and Liverpool field in a pre-season friendly will surely fade even further. Those lucrative tours would disappear with them.

And just as with American sports, will the European leagues find that once one makes this move, will the rest have to follow or risk losing out altogether? There will still be some incentive to support a Premier League club even if La Liga teams are coming to play on your shores a few times a year, but undoubtedly there will be less. Would the Premier League really let a competitor (because in this area, that’s what La Liga are) get away with stealing a march like this?

For the world of football, it’s big news that La Liga are bringing regular season games abroad. It’s unclear just yet how it’ll work, how important they will be in the context of the season, or how well-received it will be. But one thing’s for sure, all the other league’s will be watching on with interest. Because if this is a success, they might have to concede that they need to follow. And if that happens, then football as we know it will change.