MUMBAI: LaLiga has been on a path of “steady recovery” this past season, after the “upheaval” caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Jose Antonio Cachaza, the India office head of Spain’s top flight football league, has asserted.
Cachaza made his comments during the second edition of ‘LaLiga Extra Time India’, held here Tuesday with partners, BKT, Dream11 and Viacom18.
The event saw discussions from the football league and it’s partners on the growth trajectory of the league, how the associations have driven it and benefit from it, the tech innovations in the televised product in the past few years and LaLiga’s journey in India.
Lucia Salmaso, managing director, BKT Europe SRL, Vikrant Mudaliar, chief marketing officer, Dream11 and Anshul Ailawadi, bsiness head – Youth & English Cluster, Viacom18 offered their inputs during the event.
LaLiga Extra Time India event series is aimed to increasing awareness about global sports strategies, localization of the product to suit the market, sports partnerships and more that LaLiga undertakes.
Cachaza said: “This past season has been a period of steady recovery from the upheaval of the pandemic. We have worked closely with our partners globally and here, in India, to make our product more appealing for fans. Our key growth strategy in this country has been focus on digital and fan engagement and internationalisation which we have been collaborating with our Indian partners for. The work we do with BKT Tyres, Dream 11 and Viacom 18 is a great example of how our strategy unfolds.”
Mudaliar noted: “Dream11’s association with LaLiga began back in 2019 and this partnership has helped us grow the number of sports fans engaging with the official LaLiga fantasy game. Since the start of the partnership, Dream11 has seen 3.5x growth in the number of fans engaging with the Official LaLiga Fantasy game and we expect it to grow exponentially as the league increases its efforts in the country.”
Ailawadi opined: “In the last four months itself, LaLiga on MTV digital has reached over 82Mn users, delivering more than 1.5Mn Engagements. We have also worked with multiple fan clubs for on-ground events, audio spaces, influencers, engagement driven digital challenges and live watch-along sessions to build the community on our platforms. This superior LaLiga experience has been vindicated by the deeper engagement we’ve achieved with fans across India.”
Salmaso added: “We’re achieving important goals thanks to sport sponsorships. Our brand can count on a wonderful visibility all over the globe and we see our awareness growing every day. And all this is made by speaking the emotional language of sport. By supporting sport. We aim to engage fans more and the result is simply ‘Growing Together’. As our motto states.”
