World Football Summit speaks exclusively with Óscar Mayo, executive director at LaLiga, on the most relevant subjects surrounding football’s hottest topics: the Super League, the metaverse, and more. This interview features in the latest edition of WFS Digest, our insider’s guide to the latest and most relevant thoughts and practises from within the football industry. Read the whole interview here: https://worldfootballsummit.com/laligas-oscar-mayo-on-football-content-consumption-the-metaverse-and-european-super-league/

World Football Summit: Everyone knows that the football industry, and sport in general, is going through a period of disruption accelerated by the pandemic. Despite this, LaLiga is clearly growing, especially in the international arena. How do you explain this apparent contradiction? Is it possible to continue growing?

Óscar Mayo: Definitely, there is still plenty of room for growth. In Spain, we already have a very high level of awareness, knowledge, and consumption, so if we want to continue growing, we must bet on expansion and globalisation. At LaLiga, we understood this a few years ago and although the room for growth is not infinite, there are plenty of opportunities ahead.

WFS: In recent years there has been a lot of discussion about young fans and competition from Twitch, YouTube, and other platforms. This started to be seen in the sports world as a problem, but can it end up being an ally?

Mayo: It’s the typical thing where a lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth; there’s no substance to it at all as the interest of young people is there. The new channels give us tools to reach a younger audience who are going to be present and future consumers, so I think they are an ally because they are a new way of reaching them.

WFS: Fan engagement is probably one of the biggest challenges facing clubs right now?

Mayo: We’re living in a time of maximum interaction and the level of intensity of sports consumption is very different. It is true that there’s dual-screen consumption, that you can be watching sport and at the same time be on Twitter, but the level of intensity with which we consume football has nothing to do with 20 years ago.