How do football clubs and leagues seek to internationalize their brands?
Made in different ways, internationalization depends on the strategy of each institution
It is evident the changes that technology and rapid access to information bring to society. Many people share the same clothes, food, taste in music, etc. even living in opposite poles of the world and therefore global brands achieve a prominent role in a context in which products/services need less adaptation between markets.
Specifically in the context of football, greater access to matches and information allows the new generation of “Enzos” to have easier access to clubs from different countries with which they begin to express sympathy, and sometimes even declare themselves fans of clubs. foreign.
This reality, however, is also the result of several actions that the clubs and leagues themselves began to adopt to reach new audiences. The internationalization process is comprehensive, as it can be achieved in several ways, from the most complex, such as strategic partnerships between teams, to a simple translation of the clubs’ means of communication.
Internationalization
Internationalization takes place with the expansion of a brand through contact with the outside world. This movement usually occurs to seek new sources of resources, information and customers, which would generate economies of scale, location advantages, expansion of the target audience and some protection from risks and uncertainties of the domestic market (bureaucracies, economic, social, political issues , etc.).
To internationalize a brand, a company, in general, could start by exporting its products, licensing them, developing strategic alliances and acquiring new companies. According to the book “Estratégias e Processos de Internacionalização”, there are four strategies for a brand to launch abroad: export, multi-domestic, transnational and global, shown in the image below (in portuguese) according to the need to adapt the product and costs:
In a simplified way, the export strategy focuses on its domestic market and sporadically exports its products, which do not need to undergo major changes. The global strategy seeks global competition and economies of scale, but because they are more frequent, they cost more than the previous strategy. On the other hand, companies that adopt multi-domestic measures, customize their products to local conditions and therefore, require high investments and, finally, a transnational strategy would be a “middle ground” between global and multi-domestic as it seeks to combine efficiency and local conditions.
Internationalization in football (clubs and leagues)
Communication
Seeking to apply these concepts in the football sports market, it becomes clearer which paths some clubs and leagues follow. The adaptation of official channels of sports entities is one of the simplest tasks to be implemented. Big brands approach foreign fans by communicating through their local language.
The Real Madrid and Bayern Munich websites, for example, are available in 9 languages, which includes the possibility of accessing and relating to different people around the world. More than that, some clubs go a step further and adapt their communication and use expressions, slang, images and even memes specific to each culture/language. As interesting examples, the profiles of Monaco, Ligue 1 and Wolfsburg on Twitter fulfill this role very well.
Interactions with other audiences are not restricted to the giants of world football as in the examples above, nor are they restricted to European clubs either. Our neighbor River Plate produced a video wishing a happy Chinese New Year that was attended by players from the main squad and Lyu Sunhao, Chinese from the club’s youth categories (video below):
Players
This relationship between clubs and foreign countries is facilitated and legitimized when there are ties that unite them (as in the case of River Plate, which has a Chinese player in its base). That’s why hiring certain athletes has not only sporting benefits, but also commercial benefits, as they can attract interest from other markets.
In a recently published text, we saw how the hiring of Takashi Inui (and later Yoshinori Muto) made a difference to directly and indirectly increase Eibar’s commercial revenues and La Liga’s audience in Japan.
At the beginning of last season, Everton also structured itself to explore the arrival of a superstar to the team. The announcement of the hiring of James Rodríguez, at the time the 8th sports personality with the most followers in the world, featured the projection of elements in his allusion in various parts of the world, such as Miami, New York and Bogotá (image below):
The campaign, according to the club itself, reached more than 400 million people, in line with the club’s internationalization strategy, which intends to open an office in the United States. Concurrently, Everton also launched official social networks in Spanish and Portuguese.
The club’s director of marketing, communications and community, Richard Kenyon, demonstrated the importance of signing James:
The announcement of James Rodriguez as an Everton player is, of course, a huge moment for us in terms of growing our international profile particularly, in the US and South America.James’ popularity in these territories represents a brilliant opportunity for us — and fits perfectly with our international strategy and the associated marketing and engagement activity which had already begun in these areas”
In the 2017/18 season, La Liga followed this same path in an institutional partnership with the government of Saudi Arabia to encourage the arrival of Arab players to the competition. The idea was to consolidate the championship in the Asian country which, on the other hand, expected to have a sporting return with several athletes training and playing at a high level.
At the time, nine players (pictured below) were loaned to seven Spanish clubs all for free for six months. In addition to having the athletes assigned free of charge, the teams were still entitled to receive financial bonuses for sponsorship agreements they reached, as happened in the case of Levante with the Jawwy brand.
Events and products
Another strategy is to take the sports institutions themselves to other locations. International pre-season competitions (and in recent years even official matches such as the Italian and Spanish Super Cups) have become common practice in the last decade. Among these, the Premier League Asian Trophy is one of the oldest, held every two years since 2003. The tournament features matches of at least three English teams on the Asian continent, the last played in 2019 with Manchester City, West Ham, Newcastle and Wolverhampton.
In the same year, the Bundesliga Experience Brasil was held, an event that featured several attractions related to German football in the city of Rio de Janeiro, such as a big screen that showed the classic Bayern Munich vs Borussia Dortmund live, a photo booth with the trophy of the Bundesliga, and the presence of former Brazilian athletes who played in Germany.
There are other ways of relating to other countries and in an even more constant and profound way. Villarreal, located in a city of just 50,000 inhabitants, has soccer schools in five countries, eight in the United States alone. Paris Saint-Germain launched an exclusive supporter program for Brazilians a few years ago, MyParis Brasil (pictured below). The plans give rights to access the club’s official TV content, giveaways, product discounts, and trips to France.
Last season, Wolverhampton, which has had great Portuguese influence for several seasons (in the current Premier League, 9 players in addition to the coach), launched their third kit, which not coincidentally had the colors of the Portuguese national team (pictured below).
Partnerships
Linking a brand to an idea is also a way to expand your reach. One of the pillars of Barcelona’s slogan “More than a club” came from the partnership with UNICEF in 2006 to demonstrate Barça’s global concern with social problems and to collaborate in solidarity to alleviate them.
In the Premier League, several clubs are sponsored by Asian sports betting companies. More than that, they stamp the company’s name in Mandarin on their uniforms, as in the case of Burnley, Newcastle and Wolverhampton himself in the photo above.
Multi-Club Ownership
One of the most advanced and complex stages of an internationalization is when several clubs are part of a network controlled by the same owner, also known as Multi-Club Ownership (MCO). Right away, the best known cases are those of City Football Group (pictured below) and Red Bull (read more here).
Both benefit from sharing information and management and training methods, as well as protection from “domestic market uncertainties” mentioned at the beginning of the text. A sporting-bureaucratic example that represented an advantage of being part of a network of clubs was a case between Red Bull teams.
In 2014, when he was playing for Rapid Viena, striker Sabitzer caught the group’s attention, but a direct deal between the Austrian clubs (Rapid and Red Bull Salzburg) would involve high values. As the player had a release clause for foreign teams of only €2 million, another “franchise” of the group, Leipzig exercised its purchase clause, and immediately loaned him to Salzburg, where he won the championship and the Austrian cup, with direct participation. in 48 goals (27 goals and 21 assists).
Whether creating a social network in another language, or buying a dozen clubs, there are several ways to internationalize a brand, but the most important thing is to align these measures with the strategies of clubs and leagues.
