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Why El Clasico trumps all

By on March 20, 2015

England’s horrid week in football will only get more embarrassing; two great derbies are set to take place this weekend, Liverpool-Manchester United and El Clasico, but once again England will be trumped by their foreign counterparts in every imaginable way. El Clasico will attract more viewers, fans, and attention, but why?

Liverpool and Manchester United’s rivalry has just as much history as El Clasico and the atmosphere at Anfield this weekend will rival that of the admittedly bigger Nou Camp. The mutual hatred in each derby is just as intense. In Eastern Europe (Germany and Italy, especially) many derbies will even better El Clasico and Manchester United-Liverpool in this respect.

However, the answer seems simple enough: El Clasico hosts two better teams, Real Madrid and Barcelona, arguably the two best in the world at the moment, so will be the more popular this season. But El Clasico is not just better than Liverpool-United, it trumps all other derbies in viewership.

Yet if quality of the two teams was the driving factor, then Bayern Munich-Borussia Dortmund’s Bundesliga meetings should have been a bigger deal after the two teams knocked out Real and Barca on the way to meeting in the Champions League final two years ago, and the Madrid derby eclipsed El Clasico since Atletico Madrid and Real met in the Champions League final last season. Indeed, both peaked in popularity the following seasons, but neither is watched nor revered more than El Clasico.

So this, the most apparent reason, only touches the surface of what gives El Clasico its global appeal as the biggest derby in the world. Other derbies may have more history, intensity, and even meaning (take last year’s Madrid Derby doubling as Champions League final), but still, El Clasico will unquestionably be watched and discussed by millions more. El Clasico is a brand; therein defining it as such we’ve fell upon our answer.

Over the years, El Clasico developed a brand. While other, higher quality derbies may have come and gone, the consistent meaning, intensity, and above all, quality of El Clasico over many years gave it the meaning it has today; for instance, while their 2001/2002 Champions League semifinal tie ten years ago might have been a better game in all respects, this Sunday’s El Clasico will be watched by a much bigger television audience because Barcelona and Real Madrid have remained two of the best teams in the world over the past fifteen years.

Circling back to Liverpool-Manchester United, the brand it has developed is of a completely different manner. Liverpool-United is known for its intensity, but all too often — this weekend’s game a prime example — its lack in quality results in a drop in the stakes On the other hand, choose any given El Clasico over the past quarter-century and Barcelona and Madrid will probably be fighting tooth and nail for some major title or other. The same cannot be said of any other derby.

Photo credit: Jan SOLO on Flickr

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.