NFL Spain president Rafa de los Santos: “We want Falcons vs Bengals to be like a mini Super Bowl”

"It's the week we've all been waiting for," Rafa de los Santos, president of the NFL in Spain, tells us off the record. For both them and the average fan in our country, the arrival of the world's biggest American football league is a unique opportunity, and they experience it as if it were the last time.

Question. How are you approaching this week?

Answer. It is a magical week, just as you say. It is a week that is already very intense for us because it is the final stretch before the game. We begin with the events of this whole week that will be taking place in Madrid, and we are experiencing it with great excitement and very eager for everything to go wonderfully.

Q. What things have you changed or added in the planning compared to last year?

A. The concept remains the same. With these games, what we always want is to recreate a kind of mini Super Bowl, with events throughout the week that ultimately lead up to game day, which also has a pregame and a postgame. What we have done is learn from last year, those things that in some way we noticed were missing, such as a more direct connection with our partners and with the fans, so little by little we have been incorporating that, as we will see later, into the schedule, and we think that this year we have even improved on what we did last year and people will really enjoy it.

Q. What impact do you estimate this week or, more specifically, this weekend in Madrid could have on an economic and cultural level?

A. Well, they are not predictions that we make; obviously, we have our own internal conjectures, but we are never in favor of putting forward any kind of impact in advance. We always carry out a very thorough analysis once the event has already taken place. We analyze everything it has entailed, not only at the city level, as you ask, but also the event itself, the entire economy of the event itself, and then at the international level, the impact it has for the country and for Madrid.

Q. How are ticket sales going?

A. There are always tickets available until the day before the game; that’s a bit how we sell the games. We put some of the tickets on sale, and then even when we see that those tickets we had reserved for production or TV operational matters won’t be needed, we put them back on sale on the website.

Q. What do we know about the teams?

A. Both the Falcons and the Bengals arrive this Wednesday. During these months we have had visits from both teams. They have come, they have been here in Madrid, they have been checking out locations, and I think that in general the spirit with which they are coming is that they are coming to enjoy a very beautiful experience for them, in a very special stadium. We see that enthusiasm on both sides, both from the Bengals' side and from the Falcons' side, which is the "home team".

Q. Is the Bernabéu ready? Have you had any problems?

A. No, there have not been any issues. We are delighted with the stadium and work has been going on, this time yes, on things that, since we already had the previous year as a reference, have been easier to explain or carry out, because they have already been done once, and those that we saw last year that we could improve, well, have been improved. And that is the spirit in which we have been working. We are happy and satisfied with the work that is being done; we have a very large team.

Q. What is the next step the NFL should take in Spain?

A. The next step is not a step, it is a process, it is many steps. To keep growing, to keep having the presence we want to have beyond the game we are going to play on the weekend and beyond this week. And what we want is for that presence to somehow become part of the lives of sports fans in general and, specifically, American football fans in Spain.

The next step is not a step, it is a process

Q. Could it end up hosting more than one game, as in the case of London?

A. I always say the same thing about this. In the end, growth and expansion are a process and take time, and there are stages we have to go through. I prefer to go step by step; right now we have a super important game, and what I want is for that game to go extremely well, for everyone to enjoy it, for everyone to leave with a good taste in their mouth, for everyone to leave thinking about the spectacular experience they have had, both those who can go and those who can watch it on television, and time will tell how we keep growing in that regard.

Q. Will you make a prediction for the game?

A. Well, look, I'm going to give you a prediction. I hope it's a super competitive game, that it's a high-scoring game, that it goes down to the end with the teams fairly evenly matched, and that on a final play, one of the two, whichever has been better, comes away with the victory.