March 30th, 2022, Rishad Dsouza
Spotify spent $310 million on a sponsorship deal with FC Barcelona that will see the streaming giant gain naming rights to the Camp Nou stadium and space on the team’s jerseys. We use YouGov Global Fan Profiles and YouGov BrandIndex data to get a sense of the dividend the deal could yield.
FC Barcelona is one of the most popular football clubs across the world, YouGov global data tells us. Two in five avid football fans across the world (defined as those who watch or follow football on a regular basis, either in person or virtually) say they support FC Barcelona (39%), putting the club ahead of teams such as Manchester United (33%), Bayern Munich (35%) and about par with its country rival Real Madrid (38%).
Looking at some key markets, FC Barcelona is among the top two most popular La Liga clubs. In fact, it is the most popular club among football fans in the US (28%), India (37%) and Britain (12%). In its home market of Spain, FC Barcelona is supported by a third of football fans (33%), while about two in five Brazilians are also support the side (38%).
To what extent do these sponsorship deals with globally followed football clubs help brands build equity? For answers, we can look through the prism of the Manchester City-Etihad relationship, wherein the airlines company has naming rights to the club’s ground as well as featuring on the players’ jerseys, akin to Spotify’s deal with FC Barcelona.
The Buzz metric on YouGov BrandIndex shows that fans of Manchester City are likelier to have heard something positive about Etihad as compared to all adults in a particular market.
Buzz score is a net measure based on responses to two questions: “Over the past two weeks, which of the following airlines have you heard something positive about?” and “Now which of the following airlines have you heard something negative about?”. By calculating the difference between these two scores, we create our Buzz metric.
Spotify too has an opportunity to enhance its brand image among the FC Barcelona faithful globally. Spotify is used by over a third of FC Barcelona supporters in Spain (37%), according to YouGov Profiles. A similar proportion of all adults in Spain use the service (36%). It will be interesting to see whether Spotify gains users among fans of the club in the months to come.
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Methodology: YouGov Global Fan Profiles Data referenced is based on an overall sample size 1025 and 13,103 fans depending on market. Ongoing research was conducted between March 2021 to March 2022.
YouGov BrandIndex collects data on several brands. Buzz score of Etihad is based on the questions: “Over the past two weeks, which of the following airlines have you heard something positive about?” and “Now which of the following airlines have you heard something negative about?” and delivered as a net score between –100 and +100. Scores represent a one-year net average between March 17, 2021 – March 16, 2022. Scores are based on an average sample size of 495-7389 adults. Learn more about BrandIndex.