Interview with Andre Mosqueira do Amaral, Executive Director of Liga Portugal, Part III
The process of centralizing audiovisual rights is at a crucial stage. After the Commercialization Regulation was approved = with 92% of the votes = a new General Assembly of Liga Portugal is being prepared, this time to approve the revenue distribution model. It’s a sensitive issue, since nobody wants to receive less than what they are currently earning.
Meanwhile, the League organized a meeting with several international investors = Investors Day = where it gained the conviction that it can attract strong investments to Portuguese football.
One of the paths forward involves focusing on the international market, in order to explore and monetize the external interest (which the League says is strong) in Portuguese football.
READ ALSO:
Benfica will not necessarily receive less.
There is a wall of money available to invest in Portuguese football.
Piracy often exists because the product is not available.
You’ve already described the potential international investors and their interest in Portuguese football. And how are the sports clubs reacting to this investment model? Are they receptive? Convinced?
I believe that, at this moment, we are in a phase of beginning to define how this influx of capital into the ecosystem can be designed.
We obviously have many precedents and examples from other leagues – again, both in football and outside of football = of how this has happened.
We are beginning to figure out how this entry point can materialize. Always within this logic of contributing to the overall value of the product, of helping sports clubs in the (truly enormous) effort they make for the athletic performance we have and for the good results we are consistently obtaining in Europe, but also at a global level that looks at our product.
Investing in the international market?
I must say that this is another area where there is much potential for convergence.
There is, in fact, a very interesting analysis that looks at the fan engagement of the Portuguese league from abroad. And we see that it exists, even in comparison with other leagues. We are much closer, proportionally speaking, to a Premier League in England or a La Liga in Spain, in the proportion of viewers who come from abroad, but this interest does not correspond to economic monetization.
Therefore, in English rights, for example, we know that 80% of fan engagement comes from outside the UK, but, there you have it, 80% of the revenue also comes from outside the UK.
In Spain it’s the same thing. Most of the interest comes from outside Spain, and a significant, and growing, portion of the economic value of the rights comes from abroad.
In Portugal, it’s the opposite: we have the interest, but that interest doesn’t translate into monetization.
Therefore, we need to work on the international market. These are the advantages of what can be done in a centralized model – and what cannot be done in the current fragmented model – which is to work on this market in a much more holistic way, and not each one for themselves.
For example?
One of the initiatives we have on the table is to create a channel for the diaspora. Currently, in many countries, Portuguese football is not even available, or not legally accessible, and that’s where piracy comes in = and piracy is often explained precisely because access to the genuine product, the paid product, is not even possible.
This is a market we want to work hard on – and also understand better. I myself, having lived abroad for a long time, felt this. And there are perhaps even more Portuguese or people of Portuguese descent living outside the country than inside. Therefore, creating a product for this audience base and, simultaneously, for the audience base that is not Portuguese or does not speak Portuguese.
READ ALSO:
Benfica will not necessarily receive less.
There is a wall of money available to invest in Portuguese football.
Piracy often exists because the product is not available.