Marca was founded on 21 December 1938, at the height of the
Spanish Civil War, in nationalist-held
San Sebastián. Its founding editor was Manuel Fernández Cuesta, uncle of businessman
Nemesio Fernández-Cuesta. On 3 September 1987 Luis Infante became the editor of the paper. In 1984 Espacio Editorial, which would be later called Recoletos, acquired the paper. The company merged with Unedisa in 2007 to found Unidad Editorial, which is the owner of
Marca. The publisher of the paper is also Unidad Editorial and the sister newspapers are
El Mundo and
Expansión.
Marca is published in
tabloid format. On 21 December 2007,
Marca hosted a gala event, featuring the leading Spanish sportsmen of the 20th century, to celebrate the newspaper's 70th anniversary. The paper was involved in a dispute with
Sir Alex Ferguson from the summer of 2008 when he accused
Marca of being
Real Madrid's "vehicle to unsettle players". In October 2012,
Marca announced launching the Spanish edition of the
video games media outlet
IGN, effectively replacing their own MARCA Player gaming news website.
Marca also planned to launch another Spanish edition of IGN for Spanish-speakers in
Latin America. In 2001
Marca sold 403,000 copies. Its circulation was 382,000 copies in 2003, making it the second-best-selling newspaper in the country. On 6 November 2019,
Marca signed a collaboration deal with Planeta Wrestling, the number one wrestling website in Spain. ==Awards==