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Athletes should be asked to refrain from business opportunities if there is a reputational risk, but it is unfair to require them to refrain from starting their own businesses while they are active athletes.
Gerard Piqué is an anomaly in the football industry. An anomaly that should not be such and that would do the sport very well if it ceased to be so and profiles like his were more frequent. I am not referring to his will to get into all the puddles and how he has set his own communication rules, but to his will to be an active part of the transformation of sport as a business.
The athletes are the ones who best know the ins and outs of the system and their value in the post-race period is very valuable. Of course, prior training and assuming what can be done and what not at all times. Probably, and just to avoid controversy and suspicion, intervening in the negotiations for the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia was not a good idea. And I have already said that there is nothing illegal, but a purely ethical and aesthetic issue.
Nadal and LeBron James
While these athletes should be asked to refrain from business opportunities when there is even the slightest hint of reputational risk, I think it is unfair to require them to refrain from starting their own businesses while they are active athletes. Why should we ask Rafael Nadal What are you waiting for to execute an investment of 40 million euros like the one you have made to create a large tennis complex in Manacor? Who can question Lebron James for having built a media empire that has been valued at 725 million dollars?
Fernando Prieto, managing partner of Everest Talent Management and CEO of Pau Gasol Enterprises, reminded me a few weeks ago that in Europe this trend of the athlete-investor is not as developed as in the United States, where it has been much more frequent that they combine their active career with investments, mainly in technology -many applied to high performance – but also entering as minority franchise partners in other sports.
transformation of society
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Without going further, Serena Williams Y Lewis Hamilton are part of one of the investment groups that are bidding to buy Chelsea FC from Roman Abramovich. And both do it not as a financial commitment, but with the vocation of getting involved in management and making an impact where they believe that sport can transcend sporting and economic results: the transformation of society.
Perhaps that is the profile that most seduces me of the athlete-entrepreneur. And I look with envy at structures like the one Bayern Munich has, where trained ex-soccer players coexist with high-level executives to preserve a club model and always have the long term in mind.
Castore, the new promoter of sponsorship in LaLiga
More and more fashion brands are daring to enter the world of sports, and there is no quality certifier more mediatic than a football club. The British Castore has been one of the last to take that turn and next season we will see her debut in LaLiga with Sevilla FC. And it may not be the last, as the company has begun to survey many of the teams that are ending their contracts to take them to their field. Your problem? It has not yet finished setting up its distribution network in Spain. But it will have to be closely watched.
The clubs, of course, delighted that there is a new player with the need and desire to enter Spanish football. The reason is none other than that in the end it ends up heating up the contests and encouraging upward offers, something to which Kappa is also contributing, that this course will lose Real Betis in favor of Hummel. Meanwhile, one of those that has been making up ground is Adidas, which in its eternal struggle with Nike, even at a local level, has managed to snatch the Granada CF kit for the next five years. And everything indicates that they will not be the only changes of chromes.