Seventy million euros over four years counting the variables by returns. This is the figure that, according to negotiation sources, Spotify pay annually to Only to appear on the front of the men’s and women’s first team shirts, the training clothes and become the ‘title partner’ of the stadium, which will be renamed Spotify Camp Nou. So it sounds, according to experts in the sports industry, a sponsorship deal that goes beyond football.
Waiting for the partners to ratify the decision of the board of directors, the experts consulted by EFE agree that the sponsorship agreement is relevant due to the union of two reputable brands, the economic and sports context of Barcelona -marked by the pandemic storm and the goodbye of Leo Messi– and the multiple options to exploit the assets creatively.
The multinational dedicated to the reproduction of music via streaming debuts in sports sponsorship with the intention of not only commercially connecting the global community of Barça fans, but also taking advantage of the Camp Nou facilities as an amplifier of the work of the Barça fans. artists present on the platform.
A question this last one that is not minor. The Barça temple, which in the coming years will undergo an almost complete remodeling, will have for the first time in history a commercial name.
The board chaired by Joan Laporta He has not yet detailed the figures of the agreement to turn the Barça temple into a ‘title partner’, although it seems clear that the Spotify Camp Nou will have a significant weight in the activations of the alliance.
PostCovid-19 agreement without Messi
It is not easy to compare the figures of Bara’s agreement with Spotify with those of other sponsorships. The first reason is that the azulgrana club has not yet made public the official figures and it is not clear that it will do so before the telematic Assembly of Compromising Partners that will be held on April 3 to ratify the agreement with the Swedish multinational.
This causes, for example, that the exact fixed amount that the Barça club will enter for the different assets is still not known. But, in addition, the sponsorship package that Bara has sold is not comparable to any that it has closed in the past or to that of its other great rivals in the world of football.
In any case, it is a fact that the agreement between the club chaired by Joan Laporta and the company led by Daniel Ek has been influenced by two conditions: the hangover from the coronavirus pandemic and the departure of Leo Messi from Bara, who was one of the big claims to close the previous sponsorship agreement, with Rakuten.
In addition to the six-time Ballon d’Or, then Bara also had in its ranks with Neymar and louis surezforming a trident that caught the attention of many brands and that the board of Josep Maria Bartomeu used to close important deals. Now, on the other hand, the Barça team is in the process of rebuilding and does not have any world-class stars.
Rakuten became the main sponsor of the Barça shirt in 2017 for €55 million plus variables and Beko started to pay 19 million euros per year in 2018 for the left sleeve of the game jersey and training clothes, the same year in which Stanley became the shirt sponsor of the women’s first team for a few 3.5 million annually.
Thus, counting only the fixed ones, From 2018 to 2021, Bara earned 77.5 million euros from its main sponsorship assets. So in the package there was one that is still free now, the left sleeve of the shirt. Instead, the ‘title rights’ of the Camp Nou, which have been sold for the first time in the history of the club to Spotify, were not there.
But the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic and the destruction of a winning team caused the situation to change significantly in the summer of 2021. Rakuten executed its optional renewal for another year, going down to 30 million euros more variable, while Beko resigned. to the sleeve of the shirt to only keep the training clothes, for which he pays 10 million this course. These 40 million, added to Stanley’s 3.5, give a total of 43.
This figure is what Bara is charging this season for its main sponsorship assets. In this way, the agreement with Spotify substantially increase the amount deposited by the Catalan entity. But his great rival, Real Madrid, continue to receive 70 million a year from Fly Emirates just for the front of the shirt.
“Given the current situation of the club at a sporting level, the figures are correct”, argues Santi Cabrera, advertising and marketing professor on the master’s degree in sports management at the UPF-Barcelona School of Management. In this line, he believes that Messi’s goodbye “can close the doors that he previously opened” to reach commercial agreements with other companies, so it was a matter of time before “a restructuring of Bara’s assets” took place.
For his part, David Serrahima, general director of Octagon in Spain, considers that the figures are not the most relevant aspect of this agreement: “The great challenge for Bara and Spotify starts now. Without wishing to detract from the complexity of closing such a contract, from now on it will be when they should begin to put into practice the possible activations and grow together”.
In this sense, he considers that “the most novel thing about the agreement is the brand itself, the product category, Spotify is still a social network that had never had sports sponsorship agreements.” In addition, Serrahima explains that in the world of sponsorships there is a constant debate about whether it is better to have different sponsors for each of the assets or just one that brings the package together, as in the case of Spotify with the Bara. “There is no answer. It depends on the situation and, in this case, the Bara has done it for different reasons. The current value of the Bara brand must be understood,” warns the sports marketing expert.
A reputational win-win
Spotify has more than 400 million monthly active users, a figure similar to the fans that Barcelona is estimated to have around the world. The Barça supporters are precisely the center of interest in this agreement for the company founded in 2006, which has 180 million premium subscribers.
“The two brands have a challenge in this regard. One thing is to be a follower, another a fan and another a client. With this alliance I don’t think the number of followers of one brand and the other will grow significantly, but points must be found.” in common between the two groups to build synergies. Spotify will bring a lot to Bara’s reputation”, analyzes Serrahima.
And it is that the “best sponsor” for the expert in sports marketing “is the one that activates you and takes your brand to the whole world, something that Spotify has the ability to do.” On the other hand, “a sponsor who pays you and stays put does not bring you anything beyond a good income.” According to Cabrera, Bara also has a good opportunity to partner with a “modern” brand to impact a “younger” public. “Spotify is an ideal brand to reach young people, which is where clubs have the most shortcomings to position their product. By associating yourself with this brand, you reach this audience more”, adds the UPF-BSM professor.
Two leading brands in the music and sports entertainment sector join forces in an alliance that, due to its characteristics, is similar to the one that Barcelona signed in 2017 with the Japanese e-commerce, digital content and fintech services company Rakuten.
The last two large commercial alliances contrast with the reluctance that in 2011 meant the agreement with the government of Qatarwho became a sponsor of the club’s shirt through the companies Qatar Foundation and Qatar Airwys between the years 2011 and 2017.
According to experts, Spotify raises few doubts at a reputational level, unlike other options that Barcelona has also sounded out. “You don’t have to have reputational problems considering that there was also interest in sponsoring the Bara for some cryptocurrency brands. The Bara is right to bet on Spotify considering its situation,” says Cabrera.
Activation of sponsorship, the key
“Love is not looking into each other’s eyes, but love is looking both in the same direction”. Professor Cabrera paraphrases a passage from The little Princefrom Antoine de Saint Exupryas a metaphor to explain the day-to-day between two companies when they come together in a sponsorship agreement such as the one signed by the Barça club and the Swedish multinational.
“It is important for brands to have clear objectives in a sponsorship agreement. If the brand has a culture of sponsorship, it tries to go beyond showing its logo on a shirt,” says Cabrera. In this sense, Barcelona highlighted, in the official statement, that the shirt will become “a space that can pay tribute to different artists.”
In addition, the role of the Camp Nou will go beyond the transfer of the commercial name. Spotify is expected to use the audiovisual spaces of the Barça temple to, according to the official version, “present and amplify the work of the different artists and connect with the global audiences of the Bara through television”. On the other hand, the club confirmed that the presence of the Swedish brand in the stadium will increase once the Espai Barathe remodeling project for Camp Nou and its surroundings.
On this last point, Cabrera specifies that Spotify’s interest in being present at the Camp Nou must “be analyzed in the long term” and stresses that the activations of the new Santiago Bernabu can be a mirror in which Bara can look once the seasons are over. plays. “The new soccer stadiums are in line with the American entertainment model in that stadiums are not just places to watch a sporting event,” he recalls. Serrahima expresses himself along the same lines, saying that it should be taken into account that “the music and entertainment to which Spotify is dedicated will allow Bara to go far beyond the world of football.”
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