American professional sports leagues have long played regular-season games abroad to expand their international fan bases: Major League Baseball games in Tokyo, N.B.A. games in London, and N.F.L. games in Toronto and Mexico City.
For decades, European soccer leagues — steeped in a century of tradition and long wary of moves that even appear to put commercial interests above competitive ones — have declined to do the same. Until now.
La Liga, Spain’s top soccer circuit, will become the first European league to stage a regular-season match the United States. The game most likely will be played in Miami, and possibly as soon as this winter.