Insights from Marcos Pelegrin
Europe’s elite football clubs are among the most digitally diverse in the sports industry, according to N3XT Sports research. As highlighted throughout our ongoing European Club content series which focuses on the digital transformation of top-flight football, Premier League clubs collectively set higher digital and data maturity levels compared to other club competitions on the continent.
While clubs in both Serie A and LaLiga invest in their direct-to-consumer (D2C) portfolios, many have yet to consolidate the collection of first-party fan data via a single sign-on (SSO) across every one of their respective digital touchpoints. This means that – despite its continued investment in digital consumer products – club football could be doing more to optimize its fan engagement and audience acquisition, and leverage data to personalize the user experience (UX).
Considering the appetite for mobile-friendly features among football’s growing digital audiences, including demand for original video content and frictionless matchday experiences, European football’s apparent digital superiority puts it in pole position when it comes to unearthing new fan-revenue streams – albeit disparities within club football’s digital and data acumen still exist and present barriers to commercial growth, particularly among clubs outside Europe’s elite.
According to Deloitte Football Money League 2024, published in January, European football’s top-earning clubs returned average commercial revenues of €222 million during the 2022/23 season, up 16.8 percent from €190 million in 2021/22, representing their largest revenue stream since 2015/16, excluding the Covid-impacted 2019/20 campaign. The report attributes their commercial growth to enhancements in merchandise sales, non-matchday activations, and the return of post-Covid sponsorship revenues.
However, club football continues to experience challenges. According to Marcos Pelegrin, N3XT Sports’ Director of Commercial Services and former LaLiga Strategic Projects Director – MENA, many clubs are not yet “mature enough digitally” to compete financially with the top earners, and, while they hold untapped potential, he believes that more investment in their digital portfolios is required to maximize their long-term commercial viability.
“There is a traditional mindset in football,” Marcos expands. “It varies across markets of course, however, often a lot of the resources available in the club game are allocated to teams, players, and their performance on the pitch. That’s the main priority. Everything else usually comes second, third, or even last. They are very good at developing players – the results show it. However, to be commercially competitive, clubs should be investing more in ‘digital’.”
DATA-DRIVEN CLUBS WILL FIND NEW REVENUE STREAMS IN ‘UNEXPLORED’ MARKETS
According to N3XT Sports’ findings, Premier League clubs demonstrate collectively the highest digital-product ownership out of the elite European leagues while top-flight English clubs, based on our unique research methodology, score a higher average score for their fan-data collection (80 percent) compared to Serie A (45 percent) and LaLiga (40 percent).
This is pertinent, Marcos says, since professional club football is currently in “its best moment commercially speaking” – he points to LaLiga’s €1.994 billion investment deal with private equity firm CVC Capital as an indicator of Spanish football’s commercial appeal. However, many of its top clubs do not yet optimize their data touchpoints to inform and augment their digital content strategies, he continues, while more clubs could be experimenting with fan sentiment in “unexplored” markets outside their own.
“In terms of digital, there is significant investment happening in leagues such as LaLiga, for example, on the back of the CVC partnership, which has enabled clubs to grow their digital capabilities and social following,” Marcos continues. “Nevertheless, I think that the clubs could be working more effectively with their own data, particularly around audience acquisition and customer conversions.
“It’s clear from the research that the majority of elite European clubs are collecting the data, but there is a case that they could be using the data more effectively and to better serve their commercial growth and processes. This includes how they engage with their commercial partners, the personalization of the fan experience, and to diversify their fan base in overseas markets.”
LaLiga, the organizing body for Spanish club football’s top divisions, holds an international presence in 35 countries, including eight offices, and three joint ventures in the US, China, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As part of its CVC deal, not only does the investment serve the digital transformation of LaLiga clubs, but the LaLiga Clubs Office also coordinates with clubs on their business objectives, Marcos explains, including around their infrastructure development and internationalization.
“The LaLiga clubs have undergone a significant transformation during the past seven years,” Marcos says. “Going forward, how they collect, consolidate, and leverage fan data is a key piece in growing their commercial opportunities around the world and maximixing their global appeal at a local or regional level.
“To achieve this, clubs can broaden their audience engagement outside their domestic markets, in the way that the Premier League is doing, and strengthen their data-collection capabilities to segment their digital content and marketing efforts, market by market.”
WHAT’S N3XT?
N3XT Sports is a specialized agency in the sports industry that works with its clients on strategy development, operational support, and end-to-end data and digital transformation. With its operational headquarters in Valencia, Spain, and its MENA office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, our team is strategically positioned to drive innovation in the sports industry and establish collaborations between our European and MENA partners.
Within our vision, this will serve the cross-collaboration of regional stakeholders, helping our clients expand their MENA presence and leverage its promise for audience and commercial growth, as well as the creation of unprecedented knowledge-sharing partnerships and events which support sport’s digitalization internationally.
“By putting your efforts in markets where you have fan interest or more unexplored markets your competitors aren’t looking at, you can find untapped benefits in terms of audience growth and acquisition,” Marcos continues. “Now, most brands are looking for digital exposure beyond the matchday. The clubs which diversify their content offering and truly understand their fans in both traditional and emerging markets are going to attract the most lucrative commercial partnerships.”
Our team at N3XT Sports works tirelessly to develop and implement data and digital transformation strategies across a multitude of sports properties at federation level, competition level, and club level. To find out more about how N3XT Sports can serve your organization, fill out the form below, and we’ll be in touch. Our goal is to drive the digitalization of the sports industry and our clients.