Spain's top-tier football league, La Liga, has undergone a significant rebranding this season, aligning with new sponsor EA Sports FC. This strategic move aims to attract Gen Z fans, a demographic known for their love of video games, particularly the popular FIFA franchise.
EA's FIFA franchise has long been a staple in the world of sports video games, licensing the likeness of players, clubs, tournaments and stadiums from the governing body. However, a public fallout with the FIFA organization led to a new partnership with La Liga.
This coincided with a five-year deal as the primary lead sponsor of La Liga's first division, La Liga EA Sports, and its second division, La Liga Hypermotion. The publisher aims to build brand awareness of the newly named game quickly.
La Liga aims to emulate video game popularity
La Liga hopes to imitate the video game's popularity by adopting a similar visual production style. Unlike other high-profile leagues such as the Premier League, La Liga has complete control of its broadcast output, allowing it to move swiftly.
La Liga Tech, the subsidiary responsible for the league's technological solutions, revealed that the league collects more on-pitch data than it can display. However, the production team is exploring innovative ways to present this data during live games.
While this is a straightforward task for video games, it presents a challenge for physical broadcasters.
Bringing in-game visuals to life
This season, new bench, aerial and cinematic cameras are being implemented across all top leagues’ stadiums, bringing the in-game visuals to life. There are also dynamic AR graphics presented in real time. From the Ultimate Team-style player cards to the on-screen cursors, EA Sports FC players will immediately notice the similarities between the broadcast and the video game.
Interestingly, these innovations have their roots in the time when Santander was still the lead sponsor. The implementation of AR graphics first occurred during the pandemic when the league had to add some character to empty stadiums. This led to the ironic situation of using the stadium audio the league sends to EA for use in their games.
La Liga's rebranding and partnership with EA Sports FC is a strategic move to attract Gen Z fans. By emulating the visual style of the popular FIFA franchise and implementing innovative broadcasting techniques, La Liga is set to revolutionize the way fans experience football.
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