LaLiga is investing heavily in social media and in Digital India: Jose Antonio

LaLiga, Spain’s top flight football league, held the second edition of ‘LaLiga Extra Time India’ in Mumbai with partners BKT, Dream11 and Viacom18. The event saw discussions from the football league and its partners on the growth trajectory of the League, how the associations have driven it and benefited from it, the tech innovations in the televised product in the past few years and LaLiga’s journey in India.

LaLiga started in India five years ago, where it partnered with Facebook and had around 4.9 million followers. After a three-year partnership with Facebook, last year LaLiga partnered with Viacom18 as broadcasting partners.

Speaking to Adgully about the partnership deal with Viacom18 and the difference he witnessed in terms of viewership from both partnerships, Jose Antonio Cachaza, Managing Director, LaLiga India, said, “Facebook was a really interesting experience, we used to get a lot of information from fans that we otherwise would not get. On FB, we had exact audience figures vis-a-vis when you go to a more normal measuring system like BARC Nielsen Internationally to basically get your information through our pan India model. So, they are basically non-comparable. Probably one thing I am starting to feel, based on where we are experiencing growth, is to go back to a more traditional way, such as where we are now. MTV is probably having an impact on more traditional football markets such as Kerala, where we are experiencing the highest growth, following Bengal. So, we’ll probably go connecting to an audience that’s not as digitised.”

Talking about LaLiga’s digital presence, Jose Antonio noted, “We are investing heavily in social media and in digital India.”

LaLiga has signed its first ever non-football ambassador from India – cricketer Rohit Sharma. Talking about Sharma’s association with LaLiga, Antonio said, “We are trying to reach the market as much as possible. Let’s not forget that 85% of Indian sports marketing is cricket. So, we need to grow on the side of cricket and not against cricket – cricket is a big wave that we should try to surf on. Rohit is a big football fan and a big Real Madrid fan. So, it was like the perfect match.”

In 2020, the in-stadia matches were closed and in 2021. Talking about the road to recovery, Antonio said, “We are getting there. There’s quite a paradox – the bigger the club, the harder they wear. If you look at the smaller LaLiga clubs, they basically get 85% or 90% of the revenue out of broadcast. So, they were not that much affected by the lockdown. When you take Real Madrid or Barcelona, basically 35% of their revenue comes from stadium related revenue. So, even if funds are back, they are still not 100%. People are reluctant to go back to the stadiums, but things are pretty much going back to normal.”

When it comes to the women TG, LaLiga doesn’t have any women-specific program for promoting LaLiga. Sharing his thoughts on this, Antonio said, “I think we are more cross-sectional. So far, in India we don’t have a women-specific approach to promote LaLiga, but we will look into this.”

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