The goal of Spanish football is 7,000 kilometers away | It’s LaLiga in THE COUNTRY

7,000 kilometers. This is the approximate distance between Madrid and Miami and the one that separates LaLiga from its great international objective: to celebrate an official match outside the Spanish borders. The organization wants to get ahead of its competitors to be the first major European football league to take a match to another venue, following in the footsteps of the NBA, a pioneer in this field. The American city is the main candidate to host a proposal that, far from being a whim, defends the institution, is a key instrument for a competition that receives 42% of its income from the international market for the sale of audiovisual rights, three times more than five seasons ago. “To continue being the best league in the world we must continue with this global strategy. It will make us generate more resources so that our teams can invest in talent, quarry and facilities ”, says Óscar Mayo, director of International Development at LaLiga.

The global market is the field with the most room for growth for LaLiga, which has maintained a constant economic progression since 2012. In the last five years, the sale of television rights outside of Spain has exceeded 260 million euros in the 2013 season / 2014 to nearly 900 million in the 2018/2019 academic year. In addition, earnings from endorsement deals in other territories have increased roughly eightfold in the last three years. Figures fed by the work carried out from the nine offices spread across the planet and with a presence in 46 countries: “We are one of the most universal Spanish products, every weekend fans from more than 200 countries sit in front of their television to experience the excitement of our competition ”, defends Mayo.

Across the pond awaits an audience thirsty for soccer, a sport followed by one in three citizens in the United States (more than double the entire population in Spain), according to the World Football Report of 2018 produced by Nielsen. And while it still has a lot to grow, the latest Gallup poll shows that football has already surpassed baseball in popularity with the 18- to 34-year-old public and is equal to basketball. Another demonstration that the popularity of Leo Messi does not stop growing in a land where the Los Angeles Lakers player Lebron James reigns. “The passion and drama that an official meeting arouses would allow us to get closer to the fans committed to following Spanish soccer, and more importantly, it would help us grow with casual fans, “explains Boris Gartner, executive director of LaLiga North America, about the proposal to bring a game to the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. The idea of ​​moving the headquarters of Villarreal-Atlético de Madrid from the sixteenth day is finally not going to be carried out after the rejection of the judge, who considers that the oral hearing, scheduled for February, due to the complaint of LaLiga against the decision of the Royal Spanish Football Federation to prevent last season’s Girona FC – FC Barcelona match from being played in the US.

Expansion around the world also has a positive impact on clubs. This year was the first time since the 2012/2013 season that four Spanish teams (FC Barcelona, ​​Real Madrid, Sevilla FC, Atlético de Madrid) have ranked among the 30 richest in the world, according to the report Football Money League 2019 produced by Deloitte. The text points out two key aspects: better agreements for television rights at the national and international level and “LaLiga’s effort to improve the potential of its brand abroad.”

The entities with less income are not left out of the benefits. Not only because of the increase in income from television rights, the main resource for many clubs, but in other important aspects such as the opening of training academies. Villarreal CF or RCD Espanyol, which have opened centers in locations as diverse as Algeria or China, are good examples of this.

LaLiga, awarded this year for the best internationalization strategy at the main event on the football business in Europe, the World Football Summit, is not the first to conquer other markets during the regular season. In the US, the Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Football League (NFL), the National Hockey League (NHL) and the most followed basketball competition in the world, the NBA, have transferred official confrontations between their teams beyond the national territory. It was the latter that became a pioneer in November 1990, when for the first time it held two official matches in Tokyo (Japan) and opened a path that has also been explored by cycling, rugby or football in the hands of organized supercups. by the federations of France, Italy and Spain.

Since the 1990s, not counting the friendlies, the American basketball league has organized some thirty games in countries such as Mexico and the United Kingdom, as well as Japan. In January 2020, a duel between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Charlotte Hornets will be the first to land in France. To date, in the events held in Asia, Europe and America, the average attendance at the pavilions has been exceeded on a large number of occasions, which in 2019 was between 15,000 and 20,000 spectators.

In the beautiful game, the English Premier League and the Italian Serie A are in the starting box to make the leap beyond their borders. For LaLiga, which has already formalized a proposal to hold a meeting of the 2018-2019 season also in the US, it would be important to take the lead. “We continue with the same idea and we will try to take a game of our football abroad, be it the United States or elsewhere, as the great leagues of the world do in different sports,” Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga, explained to EL PAÍS in January. Paraphrasing the famous words of astronaut Neil Armstrong, the day that he presides will be a small step for the teams and the fans and a great leap for Spanish football.

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