- Many European soccer teams will travel to America for preseason in the summer
- Casey Wasserman believes competitive games will soon be held in America
- Why defeat against Arsenal brings an end to Man City's title defense – Listen to the podcast 'It's All Kickoff'
Premier League matches will be held in the United States by 2034, according to the person in charge of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Casey Wasserman, founder of the Wasserman Sports Agency, told the Times that he would be “shocked” if a competitive Premier League game was not held in the United States in the next 10 years.
He also hopes Spain's La Liga will follow suit, although he admits there could be an angry backlash from European fans following the failure to launch Super League in 2021. .
Wasserman explained to the Times: “Just like the NFL has done a really good job of taking the game overseas, I think we're going to see European professional players.” [soccer] A game played in America.
“This is the biggest sport in the world and this is the biggest sports market in the world.
“If there was a Manchester United-Chelsea match in New York, or a Real Madrid-Barcelona match in Miami, a match of that level in an American city – an important actual match – could be massive. Yes. I would be shocked if that didn't happen.”
The NFL has already held some official games in Europe, with last season's Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs taking on the Miami Dolphins in Germany. Meanwhile, this upcoming season, the Philadelphia Eagles will begin their campaign in Brazil.
NFL teams also only play 17 games in the regular season, far fewer than the 38 games each Premier League team plays.
MLB teams are also expanding overseas, with the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies playing two games in London later this season, and the Los Angeles Dodgers starting the 2024 season in South Korea.
European soccer teams are clearly keen to break into the American market, where interest in a sport that has always struggled to catch on is growing.
The United States will host the Copa America in late 2024, and will co-host the 2026 World Cup with Canada and Mexico.
It also helped that Lionel Messi moved to David Beckham's Inter Miami of Major League Soccer.
Several giants from across Europe will head to the US for pre-season this year, including Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Barcelona, Real Madrid and AC Milan.
However, European fans have been very supportive of competitive matches being moved overseas, with hundreds of thousands of supporters taking to the streets in the UK and across Europe when plans to launch Super League in 2021 were revealed to have failed. This is exemplified by the protests that took place.
Those scenes are not lost on Wasserman.
“As we saw in the European Super League, the emotions around football are on a whole other level so they will have to overcome those things,” he said.
