New Delhi: La Liga recently celebrated the third anniversary of it opening an office in India. Since it turned its attention to actively promoting itself in India, La Liga’s growth has been most visible on social media, particularly on Facebook where matches have been streamed exclusively this season.
“Four years ago we had 300,000 followers on Facebook, now we have four million,” La Liga India Managing Director Jose Antonio Cachaza told IANS. Cachaza said that third anniversary celebrations may sound odd as opposed to the usual five-year or 10-year celebrations, but he said that the situation the league is currently in with respect to the Indian market felt like the “end of the beginning.”
“Our first target was basically to learn. We knew that India was a potential market for La Liga and fans were reacting well when we did something for them, but not much more,” he said.
“The results are there — the number of followers on social media is the largest for La Liga anywhere in the world with four million just on Facebook. We have started commercial deals with BKT Tyres and Dream 11. We are teaming up with the national passion of India which is cricket with our first brand ambassador (Rohit Sharma). We are modestly working towards helping the development of football through La Liga schools in India. So quite a few things we have in our hands.”
Cricket star Rohit Sharma’s announcement as a brand ambassador was a departure for the league as it was the first time that they were signing a non-football personality in the role. Cachaza said that this was also a departure from the sporadic interactions with celebrities that they had intended initially.
“We felt that this was the right time for changing our strategy,” he said. “In the case of Rohit Sharma, it was a very easy agreement because we have been in touch with his team for a long time. Not to forget Rohit is a huge Real Madrid fan so that made things much easier.
“You look at the market and it is clear that you have to look beyond football in India. So then the obvious choices are cricket or Bollywood,” he said.
Cachaza said that one of the first steps they had taken since setting up office is to ensure that match reports that La Liga publishes on its websites are also printed in English as well as a few regional languages. He also said that the team is under no illusions about where they are in the football market as compared to the English Premier League.
“Do not forget something about the presence of the Premier League in India and in the Asian continent. They have been marketing their competition for almost 30 years. We opened our first office in Asia just about six years ago. So we are sort of newcomers. So are we there? Of course not. In three years our aim was to lay the foundation in the market. So still there is a lot of work to do,” said Cachaza.
