Jose Antonio Cachaza, MD, LaLiga India, shares how the league is working to keep the flame burning after Covid, businesses plans in India, and more

 Spain’s top football league La Liga is constantly expanding its footprint in India to bring Indian fans closer to the league. The pandemic couldn’t slow down the league’s growth plans. Jose Antonio Cachaza, Managing Director, LaLiga India, in a conversation with exchange4media shared how the league is working to keep the flame burning after Covid, businesses plans in India, capitalizing on matches despite them being held behind closed doors and more.   Edited excerpts below: The most obvious impact is to be playing in front of empty stands; as one of the most important elements of football is the close interaction, the communion, between the players and fans. Fans are an integral part of the game, and this is especially true at every LaLiga stadium.   You had said the 2020-21 season might see partial attendance. How did La Liga prepare for that? Javier Tebas, LaLiga Chairman, made it public that he believes we will start having fans back in January so we are working towards that. As we all know, the changing nature of this crisis is something we all have to manage, therefore we are working with Spain’s sports and health authorities towards bringing the fans back with full security. We cannot expect to see the stands full immediately like in other European countries, but it will just be a few fans at the beginning.   From the India-scheme of things, how do you see the future of La Liga here? Right now we are just working to keep the flame burning; in the past four years, we were able to develop a strong bond with our fans, more than six million follow us on social media, and we are working hard to keep them engaged and ensure growth in their numbers. Sadly, we cannot do any kind of the on ground events, such as our acclaimed match screenings, but we manage to keep interacting with them through our digital and social platforms. We are working to be the preferred international league for Indian football fans, second only to your own ISL, and we have still much work to do towards that.   Tell us about your business plans here? As in any other territory, our business revenue moves around broadcast rights and commercial partnerships. So far, in India, our evolution has been positive. Not only do we maintain a healthy and unique relationship with Facebook who is our broadcaster for the whole subcontinent, but also in the last year, we established partnerships with two Indian brands: BKT Tyres and Dream 11. Even during these Covid times, we have kept working closely with all of them making sure that they make the most of our partnership, and I believe we are being quite successful. Beyond our work with Indian corporates, we are also especially proud of our LaLiga Football Schools India project, through which we have reached more than 5,000 boys and girls in 14 cities, right before lockdown. Obviously, this has had an impact, but we managed to keep a healthy online training activity going. Now we are starting to prepare for the opening of some of our schools. The day when we see these young aspiring players running on the turf after a football, we will be happy again.   In India, there is still a lot of dependence on TV to attract audience. Do you think that after the pandemic, the audiences are prepared for social networking sites and watch a football match there rather than watching it on TV? We are clearly going through a transition. I do not think it is just TV or social networking sites anymore, broadcasting reality is much more complex today. Look closely at the Indian broadcast environment. Can you understand Star without Hotstar or Sony without SonyLiv? Will Jio or Airtel jump to secure contents in the future? Look how fast OTTs such as Fancode are becoming relevant. Do not forget Amazon’s latest move securing cricket rights. Definitely you cannot understand what is going on if you bring it down to TV or else.   How has the mood been like after the entire Messi incident? There are a few of those every season. Journalists, editors and community managers love it; this helps to sell more newspapers, increases digital engagement. It is an integral part of the show.   With clubs/organizations adopting innovative marketing methods, do you think brands can still capitalize on matches despite them being held behind closed doors? We have to. Football runs around three main sources of business: broadcast, commercial/marketing and match day. Obviously, all the match day business has gone down or simply disappeared. However, by playing the games, we are able to sustain broadcast relevance and broadcast keeps brand awareness at a high level, therefore maintaining commercial appeal. Finally, let us not forget that this crisis exploded at a time when most sports organizations had in place digital and social media structures, which allowed us to keep in touch and engage our fans even while the competition had stopped not knowing when we could be back. Without this digital part, I believe we would be facing a truly catastrophic impact.