Football from a global perspective: strategies, challenges and opportunities of the new digital era
Football is undergoing an unprecedented transformation, extending into new markets and reaching fans around the world. In the SFS panel‘Globalization of football: how football is expanding into new markets,’ industry experts discussed the strategies, challenges and opportunities that are driving the globalization of the game. Speaking on stage, moderated by Didem Dilmen , Director Of Communications Comparisonator, were Carolina Tha, Country Manager ITA, ES, PT and CH SambaDigital, Lucas Bugter, Director of Business Development 433 and Nicole Pike, Global Head of YouGov Sport.
One of the strategic players in this process is Samba Digital, an international agency specializing in the growth and internationalization of sports brands. “We help clubs expand by declining their identity in different languages and communication forms”, Carolina Tha explained, stressing how respecting cultural specificities is crucial to building authentic engagement with fans.
433, a leading digital content creation company, also plays a key role in the global growth of football. Founded eleven years ago, the platform has made a name for itself on Instagram through an innovative and viral approach, showcasing both major champions and amateur players in “15 seconds of fame,” the perfect amount of time for viral content on social media like Instagram and TikTok. Indeed, the importance of accessible and universal content is one of the keys to the success of 433, which has made this philosophy its modus operandi.
Providing the compass to guide the strategies of sports clubs and brands is YouGov Sport, a global data analysis company specializing in monitoring fan behavior. “We study local markets and target specificities to develop effective monetization and sponsorship strategies”, said Nicole Pike. Data, therefore, is an indispensable track for understanding the audience and guiding the business of sports.
But how do you adapt content to create engagement in different cultures? According to Carolina Tha, the key is personalization: “We follow trends and build custom strategies for our clients. Fun is a key driver-sometimes the results surprise enormously”.
433 also adopts a similar strategy: “We have an app that increasingly personalizes the experience of our audience, but on social we create global content that speaks a common language”, adds Lucas Bugter. Moreover, as rightly pointed out by both of them, to date, rate engagement is not only about football played, but extends to lifestyle and social trends that orbit around sports.
A crucial aspect of the global transformation of football is the change in the habits of younger fans. According to the data, 86 percent of 433’s audience is under 34, and these new fans tend to follow players more than teams. This is a paradigm shift that leads clubs and brands to necessarily review their communication and marketing strategies, as well as invest in new geographic areas.
The Arab market, as well as other emerging areas, is becoming increasingly strategic. Still, Samba Digital, for example, has worked with the Kansas City Chiefs, taking them from 15k followers in 2022 to the current 90k, making them the first team in the NFL by social media engagement.
From the U.S. to Singapore via Europe, football confirms itself as a global vehicle that puts everyone on an equal footing. Tradition, passion, desire to see top talent and social sharing are the factors that make the game a universal phenomenon.
Today’s football is not just a sport, but a global platform that combines tradition and innovation. With the support of data, social media, and increasingly targeted strategies, sports clubs and brands are not only reaching new fans, they are redefining the very future of football entertainment.
