The NFL’s desire for world conquest continued today when they announced the first-ever regular season game in Spain. It will take place at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, which is the home of the Real Madrid soccer club, and the Miami Dolphins will be the home team. The Dolphins played internationally as recently as last year, when they were the visiting team against the Kansas City Chiefs in Frankfurt.
Aside from being another momentous occasion in the NFL’s international expansion, it’s also a pretty cool location for the game. The Bernabéu underwent a billion-dollar renovation from 2019-2024, and now has a retractable roof, as well as a larger jumbotron, enhanced club museum, and additional suites.
The date and opponent won’t be announced until May, but we could see it being any number of their slated 2025 visiting teams. Here’s the Dolphins home lineup for 2025, along with the last time each of them played internationally:
Buffalo Bills (London 2023)
New England Patriots (London 2024)
New York Jets (London 2024, but scheduled to host a London game in 2025)
Baltimore Ravens (London 2023)
Cincinnati Bengals (London 2019)
New Orleans Saints (London 2022)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Munich 2022)
Los Angeles Chargers (Mexico City 2019)
Washington Commanders (London 2016)
The NFL usually avoids putting divisional games abroad, so we’d lean against it being the Bills, Pats, or Jets. And because of the inevitable early start time in the US, we think they’ll likely avoid waking up Chargers fans in the dead of morning to watch the game on TV.
That would leave the Ravens, Bengals, Saints, Bucs, and Commanders as the likely opponents. And based on the fact that Washington has not played an international game since 2016, we’re going to venture a guess that it might be the Commanders. But that’s just a guess.
And speaking of guesses, since there’s never been a game in Spain, there’s nothing to base a date prediction on. But, given Madrid’s temperate climate, we think the NFL will opt to put the colder London and Berlin games early, and have the Spain game follow them. So we’d suggest that maybe the first or second weekend of November might be the window.
We will keep you posted on updates about tickets, dates, and everything else.
