It’s not fútbol: Spanish-language NFL broadcasts grow as interest booms

Every Sunday before the Saints game, Latino fans put on their playeras and serve up their favorite botanas — chips, salsa, guacamole, and cervezas — and then wait until their local broadcast serves up the game with the same sazón.

Mario Jerez and Juan Carlos Ramos have made long, passionate careers by connecting Spanish-speaking fans in New Orleans to their favorite teams via Spanish-language broadcasts.

Ramos and Jerez, alongside color analyst Victor Quinonez, are the voices of the Saints’ Spanish radio broadcast, with Jerez doing play-by-play and Ramos doing color commentary. It’s one of the first to exist in the NFL. It began in the 1990s.

They’re lifelong sports junkies and Saints fans.

Both men have been engrossed in sports culture since they were kids and currently work at Radio Tropical, Telemundo 42, where they cover several sports.

Ramos immigrated from Honduras in 1988 when he was a teenager. He said it was difficult getting acclimated to American life.

“I came at a hard age,” he said. “No friends, language barrier. […] and it’s just a culture shock.”

Eventually, he found his footing by playing and watching sports. He said he knew he wanted to get into broadcasting when he went to his first Monday night football game.

“I felt that venue went side to side and move,” he said. “And I was sitting all the way in the top.”

That’s the day, he said, he was hooked.

Jerez was born and raised in New Orleans to Guatemalan immigrant parents. Jerez’s uncle, Juan Luis Letona, helped to launch the first Spanish-language radio football broadcast in New Orleans in the early 90s.

Since then, both men said, there’s been a greater demand for Spanish football broadcasts across the country and around the world.

The NFL has taken note.

The league has scheduled more games abroad, announcing seven international games across six countries, on three continents during the 2026-2027 regular season — a record. This includes games in Brazil and Mexico.

Over the last 10 years, the Latino population in the United States has grown by 15 percent, according to the 2020 Census, the nation’s most recent.

As of this year, 29 NFL teams have created dedicated Spanish broadcast teams.

In 1999, when Ramos arrived at the station, there were only a handful of teams with Spanish-language broadcasts, he said, the Miami Dolphins, the Dallas Cowboys and the Saints.

“And from there, it was a big demand from other teams,” Ramos said.

West Coast teams soon faced a similar demand. Jerez believes that the social media boom in the 2010s has helped people outside of the U.S. access the NFL for, in some cases, the first time and develop their own interest in the sport.

At the local level, broadcasters are feeling the football interest boom at home and from abroad.

Ramos sees New Orleans as a “very unique city,” in part because of the devout football fandom from locals who wear black and gold every Sunday. Jerez believes there’s an intersection between Latino culture and the city’s sports culture.

Ramos said the Spanish broadcast reaches international markets largely through their website.

“We get a lot of text messages from Colombia, from groups in Argentina, groups in Brazil,” said Ramos. “You know, so they’re paying attention.”

Latinos, Jerez said, have come a long way, integrating their culture into the sport. As a first-generation American, Jerez said he hopes to be a positive force for other Latinos interested in sports broadcasting in the United States.

“I’d like to think that people can look up to me,” he said, “and know that there is an avenue and a chance for them to do the same thing in their native tongue.”

Ivan Saravia is a fifth-year student at Laney College in Oakland, California. Ivan served as co-editor in chief at The Peralta Citizen, where he covered local government and authored enterprise and investigative. He aspires to be an investigative reporter in the Bay Area, his hometown. Reach out to him at saraviaivan2005 [at] gmail [dot] com.