Lhe season 23/24 will not be one more in The league. It is the season that begins a new era, that of EA SPORTS as main sponsor and title sponsor. On June 4, coinciding with the last day of the championship, LaLiga unveiled its new logo and its new motto: it will no longer be ‘It’s not football, it’s LaLiga’, now it will become ‘The strength of our football’. The name of the First and Second Division remained to be known, which LaLiga has made public in the evening of this Monday, July 3. LaLiga Santander will be renamed LALIGA EA SPORTSwhile LaLiga Smartbank will be from now on LALIGA HYPERMOTION.
The case of LALIGA EA SPORTS is ‘self-explanatory’: just as Banco Santander gave its name to the First Division, the video game giant does the same after the agreement reached for the next five years, for which they will pay about 30 million for each of them. For the first time, LaLiga has an international title sponsor. More curiosity provokes the name of the Second division: what is hypermotion? A technology used by the EA SPORTS FC game to give the user more realistic experiences.
From LaLiga they explain that the new name of the Second Division is a creative and somewhat differential exercise, which gives the category personality and pride in belonging to its clubs. The natural thing, they remark, was to recover the ‘2’ (LALIGA EA SPORTS 2, for example), but putting the number two in the name gave it a pejorative component, like a lower category. LaLiga also wants in this new stage, the second category to be a place to try things that can later work in the First Division.
Although the two professional categories are the main ones, they are not the only competitions that change their nomenclature in this new stage. Thus, LaLiga Promises is renamed LaLiga FCFutures, which is an EA SPORTS program that works with children; eLaLiga is renamed LaLiga FCPro, while LaLiga Genuine remains. Santander, by the way, remains a sponsor of the Genuine, although it does not appear in the name of the competition.
An agreement beyond the economic
The deal between LALIGA and EA SPORTS goes beyond economics. The clubs’ association reached an agreement with a major brand worldwide to improve the impact of the competition at all levels, placing special emphasis on the user experience. “The new agreement seeks the integration of the physical world with the virtual one, it implies improvements in broadcasting and the commitment of both companies to grassroots football,” LaLiga said in its statement with which it made the announcement, last August.
As already seen in recent weeks, the agreement includes new logo, new slogan and even new fonts. will change too t-shirt patches and even the television broadcasts, of which they also gave some traces in the presentation this Monday. Some of them are:
- The new coral color typical of LaLiga gains prominence during the broadcasts. It goes from dark tones to bright colors, especially the new corporate color.
- New use of the cameras, looking for new planes that bring the fan even closer to the game. The cameras on the benches will be given a new use, to try to bring the players even closer to the fans. The aerial camera is located even lower, to be able to give images of penalties and free kicks from behind the player, so that the fan is located where the action takes place. Inside the tunnels, the movie camera will be used, offering a new shot at the exit of the players and focusing on them from behind, positioning the viewer as just another footballer.
What is sought with these changes in the broadcast is to renew and rejuvenate the image, which is more similar to EA SPORTS FC. The idea is to wink at the video game “whenever technology allows it”, to break the barriers between the physical and the digital. “We want to get even closer to the youngest audiences,” said Oscar Mayo, executive general director of LaLiga.
LaLiga considers that it was time to change. In the last decade, associating his name with prestigious banks (BBVA, Santander) helped him at a time when debts with the Treasury and defaults on players were proliferating in the competition. Once these problems were solved, it was time to take the next step, which involved a global brand to undertake a transformation that is, according to the employers, a revolution.
other changes
From now on, LaLiga will also have a new sound identity. “This brand transformation also involves building a unique musical universe, with its own identity aligned with the brand’s values. Thus, the start of the matches has its own much more versatile sound, with its own declination to adapt and change to different environments and moments, all of them easily identifiable, which revolve around the same sound universe”, explains the organization chaired by Javier Tebas.
Other changes have to do with the digital environment. LaLiga modernize its official App that “stops being a results App, as up to now, to be a personalized App”. There will also be a small facelift on the official website, although this does not seem like the biggest change.
Will there be reciprocity from EA SPORTS? In other words, will there be more nods to LaLiga at EA SPORTS FC? Everything indicates that yes, that it will be so, that it will be something bidirectional. Real football (LaLiga) will be more like the videogame and the videogame will be more like real football. Or that is the intention of the parties. The result can be seen very soon, starting on August 11, when the new championships, LaLiga EA SPORTS and LaLiga HYPERMOTION, start.
“Today we begin a new era that will mean a revolutionary change both for Spanish football and for the industry. And we do it surrounded by clubs and strategic partners such as EA SPORTS, without whom none of this would have been possible. Together we want to offer a better football for society and a better society for our football”, pointed out Javier Tebas. A total change to start a new era. Fans can already familiarize themselves with the new names. Remember: LALIGA EA SPORTS and LALIGA HYPERMOTION.
