Mumbai: LaLiga, one of the most famous football league, was finally kicked of today!! As many as 20 teams will play a total of 380 matches over nine months in Spain's top division football league.
Starting from the 2023-24 season, EA Sports, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts, will be the principal sponsor of LaLiga. The league has launched the season with LaLiga ambassador & Indian cricketer Rohit Sharma along with Viacom18, who serve as the broadcasting partner.
An event to launch the new improved Laliga was held today on 10 August 2023 at the Tajmahal Palace Hotel, Colaba where LaLiga India managing director Jose Antonio Cachaza and Viacom18 Sports - content head Siddharth Sharma highlighted the introduction of extensive transformation regarding audio visual innovations, partnership sponsors (India centric data), milestones & upcoming projects (highlights league milestones & Indian centric projects – present & future) and the growth of the league in India.
Indiantelevision.com caught up with Cachaza where he talked on the strategy behind the new LaLiga transformation this year, upcoming young Indian talent, and much more….
Edited excerpts
On the whole strategy behind launching new LaLiga this year
This new association with Electronic Arts opens new avenues to project our image worldwide. This was what triggered all of these decisions and the big integration of our broadcast with the image that many younger friends are followers of the game. The game is now renamed as Electronic Arts FC. We have also always tried to be ahead of the curve in terms of innovation. So this is in a sense, renovated image we want to portray that it’s a leaner, cleaner image more adapted to this digital age.
On your long years in India, experience in India and the growth in India
I remember that when I was going to come here a friend who does business in Tamil Nadu gave me an advice which was in India need to be patient. We have been patient all these seven years and this is a start of a process. LaLiga has a presence in India. We have a broadcast that was only for our social media which was really cool and something that we needed to improve and we were here in a sense with several fan clubs. In any case, I always thought that my job was to create the foundations of the building in India and the building is still to be built. It needs to keep growing and we need to keep increasing the connection to the fans. Clearly, there is a generation of Indians more connected to the world, more curious about football that doesn't mean that they will forget cricket, but as we have a curious generation wanting to know more about football and that's where we need to perform.
On the strategy for upcoming Indian players playing better and reaching the level of the foreign players
The word patience is the key essence here. A player takes many years and even when they explore for eg Messi, he was seen in a friendly tournament when he was 16 but in the next three - four years he really developed as a star player, just like him, there are other cases as well, so it needs time. So I think the foundations are being created, it's important that you have a professional league as well, that should be getting important corporate support which is very important that AIFF has been quite clear that they need to work in, grassroots and building young talent. I mean, you cannot have players in their 30s. You need to start looking at young talent, and there's a lot happening in schools today.
On Laliga’s relationship with Viacom
The broadcast world today is quite different from what it was earlier. I'll give you an example, back then, what was relevant was the main television channel. Today, our partner, is leaning towards the digital approach. So in that sense, the relationship is as good as it was in the professional terms. In India its cricket all the way that doesn’t mean that there is no place for a sport like football.
