Tiago Madureira, who was executive director of the Portuguese Professional Football League between 2020 and 2023, feels that football is light years away in the management of fan data
Football “is light years away” from other business and entertainment activities in the management of fan data, noted this Thursday Tiago Madureira, who was executive director of the Portuguese Professional Football League (LPFP) between 2020 and 2023.
“The date today is golden. It allows us to know the databases of our followers, track the journeys they go on and be directly in contact. It is something that football has always discarded, but it urgently needs to invest”, stressed the former – leader.
Tiago Madureira made repairs to the connection between the sport and the fans in the panel “How can the intersection of sports increase the fan base and marketing revenues?”, included in the Thinking Football summit, at Pavilhão Rosa Mota, in Porto.
“In certain cases, the stadium experience is medieval and outdated. Investment in technological infrastructure is mandatory to improve this and work on the supporter’s journey before and after. The creation of content plays a fundamental role in increasing the transversality of audiences. of football, which is the only activity that I know of that invests the overwhelming majority of its financial resources in time talking to its primary audience. This is already loyal and will always be there”, he assessed, denouncing a sector “traditionally closed and very conservative, but which continues to grow in revenue”.
Football has to “begin to accompany a digital-based consumption” in the face of “diversified social habits”, unlike the moment when it was “the clubs, the Leagues and the organizations that set the agenda and lead the moment, with the audiences to follow”.
“It is urgent to draw on the experiences of all other sports. I take an example like Formula 1, which, much more than sport, has reinvented itself in the way it delivers its entertainment area, making adjustments to the product itself”, illustrated .
Tiago Madureira regretted that “access to the players is being discussed nowadays”, having compared a football coach who voluntarily leaves the quick interview zones “just because he is emotionally destabilized” with a MotoGP rider who “is giving interviews , living for sponsors and giving visibility to various brands three or four minutes before driving at 350 kilometers per hour”.
“It is urgent that we rethink the entire model of “broadcasting” that we have in football and that is outdated. I think that things like having access to real-time communications through cameras and microphones in players, coaches and referees are fundamental. move towards an offer of multiple achievements, in which the user will be able to customize their own way of consumption during the transmission”, he pointed out.
Defender that “all strategies of sports organizations” need to put supporters in the “front line”, the former executive director, marketing and content and media of the LPFP left repairs to the “lack of collective commitment” in some themes.
“Honestly, I am very upset by the negativism that is placed on top of the LPFP. We are a top league. There are not many activities in which Portugal is the sixth best in Europe and, consequently, in the world. But we have that good ambition to look up and not compare ourselves with the examples that are below. This continuous curse of the LPFP by many of the people who live off it costs me a bit. Evidently, I think there is room for improvement and there should be and will be imposed this collective will. Now, I think we make things more than they are”, he ended.
