We come from a 2021 in which hundreds of figures have been put on the table to talk about FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, LaLiga and the Superliga. But perhaps there is a ratio of which little has been said, and that is how much the weight of the protagonists of it has varied. classic in the Spanish professional football business. And it is very symptomatic: from more than 52% who came to represent before 2015, to approximately 40%. A percentage that in 2019-2020 even fell to 37.4%, since both are the ones that have suffered the most from the consequences of the pandemic.
What does this data reveal to us? A very simple thing: the commercialization of television rights has made it possible to reduce the income gap between clubs and has favored greater sporting competitiveness. Something positive for the fans and the TVs, because the more excitement, the more things at stake until the last day, but it has always been a nuisance for the two giants. In their mental framework, this model implies that they finance others indirectly at the cost of losing potential.
It is a debatable statement, which will always have its defenders on the basis that they are the ones who move the large audiences and have the commercial pull. It will also have its detractors, while the value of the rights rises if there is that element of uncertainty about the results (look at the value of LaLiga in 2016 and now) and there are more competitive squads than those of Barça and Madrid. But, above all, that to play you need two.
Like e-commerce
Little is said, but the soccer business could resemble that of the e-commerce giants: product aggregation is proportional to value. The audiovisual rights, and usually also the commercial ones, of a footballer alone have less value than if they are added together with those of his teammates and sold by a club, which in turn will be able to get more out of its assets if it markets them jointly with the rest of the participants in the same competition. Today, in Europe only Portugal allows each club to sell its local television rights separately, and that leads to Benfica earning 17 times more than the bottom.
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The magic of the Premier League, which everyone uses as an example, is that. No club charges 1.5 times more than the lowest paid for its television rights, a ratio that LaLiga managed to lower to a maximum multiple of 3.5 times. By system, they have gotten six teams to fight every year for everything, and that emotion is what gives the money. But it also makes talent migrate. Here, to trust that Ansu and Vinicius lead the new rivalry.
The hot potato of being Barça’s commercial director
Barça has important challenges ahead in the commercial field, and the most important of all is to find a director for this department. After the departure of Xavier Asensi, the non-entry of Ajram belt and the resignation of Jordi Camps in September, the club is failing to find an optimal replacement. The company of headhunting who have been entrusted with the search has already tested some professionals in the sector in Spain, and the response has been the same: “No, thank you & rdquor ;.
Without great assets on the field of play at a commercial level, the only card the club has to play with is its brand. But time is pressing, and not anymore because before March he should find a main sponsor for the shirt. In that chapter, I advance that Barça will not achieve the 55 million that it aspires to recover from what it achieved with Rakuten in 2015. Nor are Messi a Neymar, nor does the evolution of investment in sponsorship suggest that it is possible, unless you opt for a brand from a country with a dubious reputation or with businesses that are difficult to understand. That problem will come, but the most immediate are those 25 million new contracts that are in the budget for 2021-2022. A “challenge”, said the economic commission. A challenge.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com