Sports 3 min read By Callum Montgomery
NFL Game Between Falcons and Bengals Set for Madrid's Bernabéu
An NFL game between Atlanta Falcons and Cincinnati Bengals will be held at the Real Madrid stadium, although Madrid has no professional football team of its own.
A National Football League game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Cincinnati Bengals will be played at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, the home ground of Real Madrid. The event highlights a striking paradox: Spain's most famous football venue will host a game of American football, while the capital itself has no professional club in this sport.
The article, published by Forbes in November 2026, was written by Sam Leveridge. The author emphasizes the contrast between the large-scale NFL event and the local football scene. According to his description, Madrid has no American football team of its own, and local professional structures in this discipline struggle to remain viable in the capital. This tension between the arrival of a major league and the weakness of the local base forms the central thread of the publication.
The choice of the Bernabéu as the venue shows how the North American league uses highly recognizable European stadiums to expand interest in its product beyond the United States. Such a strategy allows it to attract the attention of spectators and media without building permanent infrastructure on site. However, the absence of a local team in the host city means the game will lack the local fan base that American sports usually builds around a club.
For Madrid, the contrast is especially noticeable against the backdrop of the football landscape overall. The Bernabéu is associated above all with Real Madrid and European club football, which is why the arrival of an NFL game is perceived as a rare event. The Forbes article notes that the city's sports environment, despite its scale, has not built a parallel professional structure for American football, and whether such a project can take root in the capital remains an open question.
For the Atlanta Falcons and Cincinnati Bengals, the game in Spain is part of the league's broader format of international matches. The participation of two teams from different regions of the United States in a European match underscores that the NFL sees such overseas games as a tool for reaching new markets. The fact that the meeting takes place at a stadium of worldwide renown raises its media profile and makes it noticeable beyond American fans.
Source: forbes.com
7
