On Sunday evenings in Madrid, at seven o’clock local time, Bruno Feliu calls American football. He does it live, in Spanish, on CayoTV’s YouTube channel, for an audience that mostly came to CayoTV for other reasons. Feliu, Rubén Ibeas and Sofía del Prado are CayoTV’s commentary team for 18 NFL games this season, under a deal the NFL and CayoTV announced in Madrid on September 11.
The arrangement is distinctive. The NFL’s domestic television contracts are worth tens of billions of dollars. CayoTV is a digital sports platform that lives on YouTube and other online channels, in a country where American football is still establishing its fanbase.
Spain is an emerging American football market, and one the NFL sees as a significant growth opportunity. The league’s games are already available there on Mediaset and NFL Game Pass. Rafa De Los Santos, the director of NFL España, has described the new deal as an opportunity to continue reaching new fans in Spain through innovative and engaging content. His word for CayoTV’s approach is “creator-focused,” which is a frank acknowledgment that the existing setup had not yet reached the full breadth of potential fans.
Kike Levy, co-founder of CayoTV, has called the partnership “a clear endorsement of the model we are building.” He describes that model as a more social, creator-based way of experiencing the competition. The NFL chose to broadcast live games through a creator-led digital platform. Levy sees that as a clear signal of where the league believes the next wave of fans will come from.
Al Michaels can explain a holding penalty perfectly. His audience already knows what one is. CayoTV’s audience showed up because they follow Feliu or Ibeas or del Prado, and they will engage with three and a half hours of a new sport because they trust the person introducing it to them.
Commentary is harder to localize than a rulebook. Anyone who has watched dubbed sports coverage knows the gap between technically correct translation and someone who talks the way you do. CayoTV’s streams are not trying to replace the NFL’s existing coverage on Mediaset. The deal explicitly sends viewers toward Mediaset and Game Pass, with calls to action during the broadcasts.
The deal covers more than Sunday commentary. Through the season, CayoTV will also turn out Spanish-language highlights and digital clips for fans across Spain. It is producing Spanish-language feeds for up to six NFL International Games in Europe this season, which the NFL will distribute on its own platforms, including the Mundo NFL YouTube channel. On-site production is planned for the NFL’s Madrid game, and weekly social-media collaborations with NFL channels in Spain run alongside the broadcasts.
CayoTV is part of Gameday by NJF Holdings, the sport-and-media arm of NJF Holdings, a London-based investment firm founded by Nicole Junkermann. NJF’s position is that live sports rights gain value when paired with creators who already have the audience the rights-holder wants. A single partnership in Spain is an early step, but the NFL’s willingness to commit signals real confidence in the model.
