New Business Pitch: Why LALIGA Studios Was Set Up to Be Independent 🎬
The broader scope opens up new revenue streams and allows LALIGA Studios to engage with a diverse range of clients, enhancing its commercial viability. It isn't without its challenges, however.
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In a strategic move to amplify its brand and broaden its horizons, LALIGA, Spain’s premier football league, launched LALIGA Studios in February 2023 as an independent entity.
This decision marked a significant shift in how the league manages its communication and content creation, aspiring to set a new benchmark in sports branding and media production.
Flora Bell, Business Director at LALIGA Studios, shared insights into this journey on the Sports Pundit Podcast, highlighting the rationale behind opting for independence rather than being an in-house operation.
“LALIGA has grown exponentially over the past decade,” Bell explained. “With this growth came the challenge of fragmented communication, as multiple departments working with various agencies led to inconsistent messaging.”
The primary motivation for establishing LALIGA Studios was to create a unified communication strategy for the LALIGA brand.
As Bell noted, “One of the main reasons for this was to be able to have like a consistent communication strategy when talking about the brand. Instead of working with lots of different agencies, the different departments working with different agencies, we would bring that all together. And that will come out of the same studio.”
Moreover, while ensuring consistency was crucial, the vision for LALIGA Studios also extended beyond servicing LALIGA alone.
Bell explained, “We quickly realised that we didn't need to just be limited to LALIGA. What we get from LALIGA is a huge knowledge of not just football, but fandoms and communities. So, once we realised that we would be able to use that knowledge, we thought it would make more sense and commercially be a good idea, to be able to be an independent company and offer that to other brands or leagues or individuals or anybody who has that content necessity.”
This broader scope opens up new revenue streams and allows LALIGA Studios to engage with a diverse range of clients, enhancing its commercial viability.
To fortify this independent structure, LALIGA Studios entered a joint venture with Banijay, a global entertainment powerhouse which runs 120 different companies across 20 countries and has ownership of IP such as Big Brother, Black Mirror, Peaky Blinders, and MasterChef.
This partnership has brought with it significant advantages, including local expertise across different countries, enabling LALIGA Studios to produce content that resonates globally while retaining local relevance.
For Banijay, the appeal to partner with LALIGA came due to the booming demand for sports content, which presents a substantial opportunity for LALIGA Studios. There has been a significant increase in the consumption of sports content and entertainment (see: Drive to Survive, Full Swing, Break Point, SPRINT, and The Last Dance).
At the heart of LALIGA Studios’ philosophy is a commitment to strategic and authentic content creation. The vision is clear.
“We want to tell the stories that deserve to be told. Our dream is to create beautiful, impactful content that people enjoy and appreciate, whether it’s for LALIGA or other clients.”
With platforms like Netflix increasingly seeking engaging sports narratives, Banijay believes it can use LALIGA Studios to meet this desire.
Meanwhile, for LALIGA, the content being created by LALIGA Studios has the ability to increase narratives around the league, particularly for the clubs sitting beneath Real Madrid and FC Barcelona in the table.
It’s not all positives, though.
While the LALIGA name carries significant weight and credibility, opening many doors, this association can also bring some difficulties.
“Some people might think we’re just an in-house production studio, and of course we understand that because there are lots of in-house production studios in which they just put the name ‘studio’ on the end of the brand name,” Bell acknowledged. “Awareness and understanding of our true scope are ongoing challenges.”
This is a challenge that she is keen to address, with aspirations to one day in the future work with the likes of the NFL and NBA.
In the meantime, LALIGA Studios has already expanded its work into brands such as EA Sports, Logitech, and Microsoft, which does give them potential avenues to explore other sports, as each of these brands engage in numerous sports partnerships around the world.
Ultimately, LALIGA’s success at achieving this reach outside of Spanish football and servicing these other sports teams and brands will dictate the success of the strategy to be independent. While many teams and brands currently look to build content resources in-house, this joint venture between a league and a media powerhouse could prove to be a viable option to consider instead…
PODCAST
Want to hear more from my conversation with Flora?
We discuss the power of partnering with Banijay, Netflix’s LALIGA: All Access and the rise and rise of sports docu-series, expanding the client base beyond spanish football, operating with the LALIGA name, creating media that cuts through, and much, much more.
Listen to the full podcast via the link below - and I’d love to hear what you think! 👇
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They count world-famous stadiums and surrounding venues among their state-of-the-art campus facilities across the globe, including London's Wembley Stadium, Miami's DRV PNK Stadium and Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Ready to master the global sports industry? Enquire today about their in-person and online courses.
