Spanish firm Media Base seeks solace in football

Dubai: With its economy contracting for the seventh consecutive quarter in April and its gross domestic product (GDP) shrinking by 0.5 per cent in the first three months of 2013, Spain’s economic crisis shows no signs of abating.

But amid the all-prevailing financial gloom, Spain’s footballers have provided significant cheer for a depressed nation following their unstinting success on the global stage, after winning successive European Championships in 2008 and 2012 and the 2010 World Cup.

Now a Dubai-based Spanish firm is hoping to capitalise on the worldwide renown and popularity of stars such as Andres Iniesta, the Barcelona midfielder who scored the winning goal in the global showpiece three years ago.

Sports management agency Media Base Sport is looking for brands to sponsor its football player clients — which include Iniesta, his Barcelona teammates Victor Valdes, Javier Mascherano and Thiago Alcantara and Liverpool and Uruguay’s Luis Suarez — in exchange for publicity and promotion through digital campaigns.

Such initiatives could even involve the players holding coaching clinics in the Middle East, the Media City-based firm says.

It has achieved great success through schemes on Facebook and Twitter and the firm’s own social media websites in Spain, whereby football fans have been able to enjoy meet-and-greets with their heroes and win tickets to see FC Barcelona in action.

Max Roures, who is heading Media Base’s Middle East operation, explained why the firm had decided to move to Dubai.

“The Middle East is an amazing, huge market,” he said. “We think we can do a lot of things there, because we think we can make people more aware of social media. Nobody else [looking after football players] is doing meet-and-greets. We want to bring players to the country to promote brands, schools, malls, whatever. The Spanish La Liga is watched by around 126 million people annually in the Mena region, so our players as brands are pretty important.”

Roures said Media Base, which was set up in 2009 by its CEO Pere Guardiola, the brother of ex-Barcelona boss and the new manager of Bayern Munich, Pep, could offer potential sponsors a ‘conventional’ campaign in which their clients could act as brand ambassadors for them.

Alternatively, a digital campaign could be devised, involving the brand promoting a meet-and-greet via its Facebook or Twitter website.

This would help promote the brand involved and drive ‘traffic’ to the Facebook page of the player concerned, with Roures pointing out that Iniesta now has 13 million followers on Facebook and 10 million on Twitter thanks largely to Media Base’s contribution.

Guardiola said the firm’s move to the Middle East was aimed at “creating bridges between the region and the Europe and bridges between Europe and the US”.

“A big player who plays in the English Premier League or in Spain is known throughout the world,” he said. “What we think we can do is start thinking is to move the players around the world. Fans in the Middle East need to touch these players and see them. The only way to do this is via meet-and-greets, through summer camps, clinics, during photo shoots and TV commercials. We want to be there [in the Middle East] for a long time.”

Guardiola, who has extensive sports marketing experience, having managed Brazilian football superstars Ronaldo and Ronaldinho while working at Nike, added that his firm viewed every client as a brand.

He explained: “What we need to do is make that brand bigger by ensuring they talk to the press in the right way, through social media, helping them get closer to the fans. That helps us find a brand who wants to sponsor them.”