Hi Kike, this is not your first experience at the SFS, you have already participated several times as a goal representative, but this one will certainly be more special as you will have the role of presenter of one of the stages. What does an event like the Social Football Summit leave you with?

I am really looking forward for the Social Football Summit this year, and as you said, this year will be special for me leading one of the stages. Social Football Summit is a must in the calendar of any sports business professional, not only for the quality of the content and the speakers, but specially because is one of the best platforms for networking.

I have seen the evolution of the Social Football Summit across the years, and honestly I have to congratulate the team for the tremendous work and how the event has grown from a local football Italian event to an international sports business platform.

With no doubt, the best thing about the Social Football Summit and what I am more excited about, is the opportunity to see and spend time with so many friends and professional from the Football and Sports Industries.

In the past you have worked with several companies that own social media platforms. Have you got an idea of how the relationship between social and football will develop in the future, also considering the latest developments?

Technology is evolving so fast that is hard to say where the future is going to be, the disruption of technologies like AI and VR are opening new opportunities and we will need to see how this will evolve and how the Sports and Football Industries will embrace these technologies.

There are few things that are clear. Social Platforms are going to continue to be at the center of how Sports Organizations will engage and connect with their audience. Everything starts with content, Football Clubs need to invest in creating engaging content to connect to fans, and they need to think about content from two angles: how I create content and engage with my hard-core fans, and how I create content for casual fans where my goal is more to entertain them. This dual strategy is what will make the difference, start thinking about entertaining content to attract new audiences, at the same time you serve your hardcore fans.

Messaging and one to one communication are areas that I think football clubs need to monitor closely, as there have been a lot of new product developments in the area opening up new opportunities. Technology is evolving very fast and Football cannot miss it, it needs to be at the forefront on technology to maintain its leadership position is sports and continue growing the business.  

Over the last few months, practically all over Europe, a lot has changed in the balance for the sale of football TV rights. Do you think that in the future more and more new players will enter this market with new models, such as Apple TV or venture capital companies?

As consumer behavior changes new players will come in, I am sure about it. The way fans consume football is different, so the dynamics of how you serve content to user cannot be the same, we have to meet new consumption habits to increase the value of the media rights and give fans a better experience.

Apple is already very active in the sports world, and the MLS deal is a good example of that, but their approach is different. MLS is a global deal, where you are trying to monetize the content on a worldwide basis, a different model to the traditional country by country media rights sale.But at the end is all about consumer habits and needs, you must provide the best possible experience to consumers, and new habits can bring new businesses and opportunities. Is not anymore just about the value of the media rights, but trying to monetize the whole sports community and experience.

A good example is the recent launch of DAZN shop, where users can buy things while watching the game, something that is only possible with the mobile technology that we have today and what not possible before. So as technology evolves and consumer habits change, new business models will appear and new players will come in.

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[1] Dati: Report FIGC 2023