La Liga Tour 2023 Excludes Real Madrid and Barcelona

A bold gamble by La Liga as it is announced a high profile tour of the US and Mexico this summer without including the two most popular teams in Spain: Real Madrid and Barcelona. Instead, the four clubs will be Atletico Madrid, Sevilla, Real Sociedad and Real Betis.

An announcement from LaLiga North America stated that those four teams will play a total of four games. Intercity rivals Sevilla and Betis play one another in Guadalajara on Aug. 2. On the same day in Monterrey, Atletico Madrid takes on Real Sociedad. Three days later, there is a doubleheader in San Francisco at Oracle Park, the home of MLB’s San Francisco Giants. Atletico faces Sevilla, and Sociedad battles Betis.

The goal of the tour is to raise the profile of the second most popular league in the world. But do it without Real Madrid and Barcelona is a risky move. La Liga and the two Spanish giants have been at odds for over a year now because of both clubs are still are pushing to make the European Super League happen, which is a concept LaLiga is firmly against.

In a LaLiga statement in February 2023, league president Javier Tebas said the Super League will wreak havoc on domestic leagues.

“Domestic leagues run the risk of disappearing with a Super League format,” Tebas said. “If their model is based on ‘several divisions’, with an elite group ensuring they stay in the top flight, their model is not 100 percent open as they falsely promise.”

The fact that Real Madrid and Barcelona are not involved in LaLiga’s official summer tour of the United States is a concern. With LaLiga battling against the popularity of the Premier League and Liga MX in the United States, LaLiga needs a united front. Instead, the split between the top two clubs and LaLiga is a detriment to what could have been so much bigger and better.

To add another wrinkle to this story, there are rumors that Real Madrid and Barcelona will both have their own tour of the US this summer with a potential third Clásico in the United States. Real Madrid played Barcelona in Miami in 2017, then they played again in Las Vegas this past summer.

La Liga Tour Tickets

August 2: Sevilla v Real Betis in Guadalajara, Mexico
August 2: Atletico Madrid v Real Sociedad in Monterrey, Mexico
August 5: Atletico Madrid v Sevilla, Real Sociedad v Real Betis in San Francisco

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