Spanning traditional and digital channels, influencers have made a huge mark on the media landscape in recent years, becoming celebrities in their own right. Creating strong influencer partnerships has therefore become a new way for brands to entertain global audiences and build their own following.

At LaLiga, a unique programme featuring broadcasters, influencers and football clubs led to global audience growth during the 2018/19 season and this year, it plans to go even bigger.

Last season, 13 LaLiga Santander clubs welcomed 47 influencers from 40 different countries, who were working in partnership with 37 international broadcasters. A total of 10 different cities were visited for 18 experiences, with these influencers producing special content that reached as many as 148 countries.

By surpassing all these metrics this season, the league intends to take its global profile to the next level.

“The main objective of LaLiga Experience is to help the international broadcast partners of LaLiga to have better broadcasts of the competition in their countries, boosting those broadcasts and the visibility for their followers and new audiences,” explained María José Silva, the head of LaLiga Experience. “It is about original content told in a different way through popular faces in each country.”

What makes the initiative distinct is its focus on much more than 90 minutes of football. The influencers’ trips span several days as they spend time getting to know the clubs before the games and exploring the cities and regions that shape the identity of the teams.

“We cover relevant aspects of each city that we visit, discussing their gastronomic culture and the idiosyncrasies of each region,” Silva added. “We combine football with the touristic, social and cultural highlights of our country.”

A unique offering for broadcasters
Each influencer – whether an actor, actress, comic, YouTuber, chef, musician or sports star – is carefully selected by the broadcast partner in their country or region, who then promote the trip with studio interviews, teasers and competitions while also holding live calls with the influencer during their stay in Spain.

The TV presenters will explain LaLiga Experience during various programmes and share online content with the hashtag #LaLigaExperience. Afterwards, when the guest has returned to their home country, they’ll be interviewed again by the broadcast partner to discuss all the interesting details of the adventure.

For the broadcasters, this is something that they value greatly. “By providing broadcast partners with unique content and participation of relevant influencers of their countries we find that they are able to increase their audience figures and further promote their broadcast of LaLiga Santander in the territory to different audiences,” said Melcior Soler, director of LaLiga’s audiovisual department. “LaLiga Experience is an initiative that builds our global following while bringing added value to our existing broadcasters.”

Silva agreed, adding: “The broadcasters themselves have told us that no other competition offers them these kind of events. The project has become a must in each channel’s planning for promoting the competition. It’s a win-win as far as we’re concerned.”

New for 2019/20
For the 2019/20 edition, there will be several new developments as the focus on storytelling grows. This season’s chosen influencers will be treated like new star players and content will be created based on the concept of them being signed, being presented and having their first sessions as part of the team.

The first activity for this season was centred around this month’s Leganés vs Barcelona game and featured Argentine YouTuber Fran MG, Dutch gamer Frank Slotta and former Georgia international Archil Arveladze. However the adventure is about much more than the 90 minutes.

In the build up to the game at the Estadio Butarque the influencers spent four days in Madrid, enjoying a food tour of the city, visiting Leganés’ training ground to see a session before the match, spending time with the club’s strikers Guido Carrillo and Martin Braithwaite, performing challenges, meeting Leganés mascot Super Pepino and attending the game itself.

The first activity for this season was centred around this month’s Leganés vs Barcelona game and featured Argentine YouTuber Fran MG, Dutch gamer Frank Slotta and former Georgia international Archil Arveladze. However the adventure is about much more than the 90 minutes.

In the build up to the game at the Estadio Butarque the influencers spent four days in Madrid, enjoying a food tour of the city, visiting Leganés’ training ground to see a session before the match, spending time with the club’s strikers Guido Carrillo and Martin Braithwaite, performing challenges, meeting Leganés mascot Super Pepino and attending the game itself.

The result of this activity is widespread and detailed coverage of LaLiga. Fran MG was visiting Madrid in partnership with DirectTV and shared content with more than 4.5 million subscribers, while Slotta was working with Dutch channel Ziggo and communicating with more than 80,000 subscribers. Arveladze was representing Silknet and creating content for nearly 90,000 followers across Instagram and Facebook.

Increased audience metrics
Beyond benefiting the competition itself, LaLiga Experience has become a firm favourite of the clubs. As Silva has pointed out: “Thanks to their participation, there will international visibility for the club, their players and the competition as a whole.”

During the preparation stage, there is significant collaboration with the participating clubs and plenty of communication to ensure everything runs smoothly during the trip. That way, the clubs and the players can get the most out of it and use the content as well.

“It’s an idea I like a lot,” Athletic Club player Raúl García said of the initiative, while Real Valladolid’s Jordi Masip noted “LaLiga Experience is good for the worldwide impact it can have for the club.” Celta de Vigo star Iago Aspas added: “It’s good not just for LaLiga, but for all of the clubs.”

The numbers show that LaLiga Experience brings tangible benefits too. After a thorough evaluation stage, where all the posts from the broadcasters, influencers and relevant clubs are analysed, LaLiga produces a report to demonstrate metrics such as engagement, reach and estimated value.

Tellingly, LaLiga found that the promoted matches have ended up commanding a greater TV audience or following on social media. Some videos have even gone viral and have been picked up by other media in the broadcast partners’ countries.

“Even though each attendee is different in terms of their country, language and culture, we’re all united by a passion for the best league and the best football,” Silva said in conclusion. “We’re creating personal and unique experiences based on the LaLiga brand and the clubs.”

Professional football in Spain displays its commitment to the environment through the sustainability initiatives led by the LaLiga Santander and LaLiga SmartBank clubs, which demonstrate that the sporting world is also undergoing a transformation towards truly sustainable development. The concept of “paying society back for what it has given” is key in the world of football and must incorporate all the areas in which the industry impacts the planet, including the environment.

LaLiga supports Climate Change Conference

Between 2 and 13 December, Madrid will host the 25th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP25) as part of the 2019 edition of the UN Climate Change Conference. LaLiga will actively be supporting the event by launching a series of actions over the course of Matchdays 15, 16 and 17. In the match broadcasts across these rounds of fixtures, an awareness-raising message will be displayed on the in-stadium perimeter boards in Spanish, English, Arabic and Chinese. In addition, throughout these three matchdays, the the COP25 emblem will take its place alongside the LaLiga logo in the national and international broadcasts in a show of support for the conference event.

The five keys to sustainability

LaLiga is keen to progress towards a sustainable management model across its operations and establish the foundations to be recognised as a responsible sporting institution that acts as a role model, whilst promoting such practices amongst its member clubs and SADs (public limited sports companies).

For the past two years, LaLiga and its Foundation have been working on the Fair Play Social project, which seeks to incorporate social responsibility practices within the institution’s existing business management model. A total of 22 clubs have participated in the programme with a view to bringing their organisational, environmental and social activities in line with their current sustainability programmes. The analysis involved in this process is key to asserting the need for holistic initiatives in this field.

1. Awareness campaigns that help fight climate change, promote respect for the environment in a sustainable way and raise public awareness, particularly amongst followers of the professional game. Last season saw Real Sociedad launch a scheme in which the club encouraged fans attending games at Anoeta to recycle the shells of the sunflower seeds typically eaten during matches in Spain by handing out biodegrable boxes for the supporters to put the shells in. At the end of games, fans placed the orange-coloured boxes in bins provided for this purpose throughout the stadium, with the shells subsequently turned into compost and spread on land throughout the Gipuzkoa region.

2. The majority of LaLiga clubs now have a waste management system in place at their stadiums and training grounds. One such example is the initiative led by RC Celta, who, at the beginning of 2019, installed bins to separate the waste produced at the club’s social headquarters, the Abanca Balaidos stadium and its A Madroa training ground.

3. Reduction of carbon footprint and offsetting in relation to the journeys made by clubs. It is becoming ever more common to see LaLiga teams use public transport to get to their games. R. Zaragoza largely travel by bus as the Argonsese side sought a means to offset the CO2 they were producing. With the support of the Fundacion Ecologia y Desarrollo, the club was able to calculate the distances travelled, quantify their carbon dioxide emissions and the financial costs involved. The club then donated this sum to reforestation projects in San Juan de Limay, Nicaragua.

4. Partnerships with environmentally committed companies An increasing number of LaLiga Santander and LaLiga SmartBank clubs have, given their concerns over the environment, teamed up with environmentally aware organisations as a part of their corporate social responsibility programmes. RC Deportivo, for example, secured a sponsorship deal with Ecoalf, a firm that manufactures top-quality clothing made from recycled materials. As a part of this link-up, the club’s kit is now made from recycled materials. The partnership has seen the Galicia-based side become the first club on the planet to be kitted out with sustainable strips made from recycled ocean waste.

5. Responsible energy use amongst the LaLiga clubs. The 848 sporting events organised each year by the competition have an environmental impact. It is therefore necessary to promote the management and implementation of preventative and corrective measures with a view to minimising this impact. In a pioneering move, Real Betis this year announced that it had signed up to the United Nations’ Climate Neutral Now campaign, which saw the club make a commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and offset the rest of its emissions. Los Verdiblancos‘ new training complex is set to feature renewable energy generators, advanced waste collection and treatment systems and efficient energy systems.

Athletic Club’s San Mames stadium became the first football ground in Europe to be awarded the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) cerfitifaction, the most widely used green building rating system in the world. The LEED certification rates the sustainability of a building on the basis of the following criteria: sustainability sites, energy and water saving, use of low environmental impact material, indoor environmental quality and innovation in design.

Professional football commits to best-in-class practices

LaLiga recently signed an agreement with Ecovidrio, the charity organisation responsible for the recycling of glass waste in Spain and is now working alongside the organisation to promote a campaign on its social media profiles to raise awarenesss of the environmental benefits involved in recycling glass containers.

The aforementioned initiatives bear witness to the comittment shown by the professional ranks of the Spanish game towards the environment in recent years. LaLiga and its clubs will continue to work on and develop such environmentally friendly initiatives and practices in an effort to make football a more sustainable industry.