Practical concerns like travel and scheduling have long limited foreign teams’ forays outside their borders to participate in exhibition tours and preseason cup finals. The Italian Super Cup, for example, was contested in Washington in 1993 and in New Jersey in 2003, and the French Super Cup was played at Red Bull Arena in New Jersey in 2012. On Sunday, Barcelona defeated Sevilla in Morocco in the first Spanish Super Cup final played outside Spain.

The agreement between La Liga and Relevent goes far beyond just matches, though. Relevent also will begin selling La Liga’s broadcast rights in the United States and Canada when the league’s agreements expire in 2020. La Liga matches are currently shown on beIN Sports. The deal also includes merchandising and signing commercial agreements with American companies, creating digital content, social media strategy, and academy and youth soccer initiatives.

The overarching goal, Relevent officials and Tebas said, is for all of these things to increase La Liga’s audience in the United States, and thus increase the value of its media rights. The United States “is a part of the world where sport is big business, and we want to be part of it,” Tebas said.

The partnership is a joint venture that will take the form of a new company: La Liga North America. It will be controlled by five board members, three representing Relevent and two representing La Liga. Besides Ross and Tebas, the board includes Daniel Sillman, Relevent’s chief executive, who negotiated the deal; Boris Gartner, a former Univision and Televisa executive hired by Relevent to run the day-to-day operations; and Óscar Mayo, La Liga’s head of international development.

“This joint venture, this new company, is effectively the league office for La Liga,” in North America, Sillman said. “The people that were in the La Liga America office and Canada will now report to Boris.”

The deal is the strongest sign yet of how much European leagues covet a piece of the American soccer market. Other leagues (the Bundesliga) and several prominent teams (Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Paris St.-Germain) either have or plan to open offices in New York. Others regularly hold camps and tours in the United States, and there are the numerous academies affiliated with European clubs scattered across the country. But no league has gone as far as holding a league match here.

European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, and others will be watching. Success by La Liga could open the door to more matches in the United States, including, potentially, important ones like the Champions League final.