La Salle International School of Commerce and Digital Economy
Final Thesis
Graduate in Management of Business and Technology
HOW CAN WATER POLO GAIN GROUND IN THE ECONOMIC ASPECT TO OTHER TEAM SPORTS IN SPAIN
Student Promoter
Guillem Tarruell Vargas Aarthi Rajaraman
FINAL PROJECT DEFENCE
Meeting of the evaluating panel on this day, the student:
D. Guillem Tarruell Vargas
Presented their final thesis on the following subject:
How can water polo gain ground in the economic aspect to other team sports in Spain
At the end of the presentation and upon answering the questions of the members of the panel, this thesis was awarded the following grade:
Barcelona,
MEMBER OF THE PANEL MEMBER OF THE PANEL
PRESIDENT OF THE PANEL
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... 2 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...... 3 3 INTRODUCTION ...... 4 4 PROBLEM STATEMENT ...... 4 5 GENERAL SPORTS ECONOMIC DATA IN SPAIN ...... 5 6 HOW A FOOTBALL CLUB IS GETTING MONEY? ...... 7 7 THE SPECIAL CASE OF FC BARCELONA...... 8 8 NEW INVESTORS IN FOOTBALL CLUBS ...... 8 9 HOW IS A WATERPOLO CLUB GETTING MONEY?...... 9 10 MOST WATCHED SPORTS IN SPAIN ...... 9 11 SPORTS PRACTISED BY SPANISH PEOPLE (AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOTBALL) ..... 10 12 MOST WATCHED SPORT IN THE WORLD BY COUNTRIES ...... 10 13 WHAT OTHER TEAM SPORTS CAN LEARN FROM FOOTBALL?...... 11 14 SPORTS CLUBS IN CATALONIA ...... 11 15 HOW IS THE FINANCIAL STRUCTURE OF A SPORTS CLUB WITH A WATERPOLO SECTION? 16 16 HOW TO INCREASE FAN ENGAGEMENT IN MODERN SPORTS (ESPECIALLY MINOR SPORTS)? ...... 19 17 HUNGARIAN AND FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLICS WATER POLO CLUBS ...... 21 17.1 Impact in Easter Europe culture...... 23 17.2 Influence on Hungarian water polo clubs (how they get sponsors, TV collaboration) ...... 24 18 NORTH-AMERICAN FRANCHISES MODEL ...... 25 19 NCAA MODEL - ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES ...... 26 20 WHAT PEOPLE THINKS AND KNOW FROM WATER POLO? ...... 28 21 PROPOSED SOLUTIONS ...... 30 21.1 Loyalty campaigns ...... 30 21.2 Facilitate the entry of new members ...... 31 21.3 TV collaboration thanks to public investment ...... 32 21.4 Union of large entities that generate competitiveness ...... 33 22 CONCLUSIONS ...... 34 23 REFERENCES ...... 35 24 ANNEXES ...... 38 24.1 ANNEX I: TRANSCRIPT INTERVIEW WITH JOSEP MARIA MAS ...... 38 24.2 ANNEX II: TRANSCRIPT INTERVIEW WITH RAMON GELI ...... 42 24.3 ANNEX III ...... 45
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1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all I would like to thank all the people who have accompanied me throughout the final thesis process and research, especially my tutor Aarthi Rajaraman who, as being a professional in the world of sports, has given me great advice on the topics to discuss and also contributing some case studies to have a broader and better background research.
I also want to thank my father for recommending that I study and research on this topic, which has been very important to me throughout my life.
To finish I would like to thank Josep Maria Mas and Ramon Geli, two very important figures in water polo, and with a great background in terms of managing sports entities, for giving me the opportunity to interview them and learn in a more concrete way how water polo in Spain works.
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2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This Management Case is focused on a generalized study of the world of water polo, a minority sport at a Spanish level but with a lot of fans in many other European countries. Above all, my study and the search for solutions are aimed at the economic field, rather than the sport itself. Two of the main objectives are the study of how water polo works in the countries with the most spectators and therefore there is more income generated (how the government influences with financial aid, support from public television ...) and on the other hand analyze how other sports, and especially football, develop strategies to attract more fans and increase profits.
The first part of the work, focused on the "literature review" part, analyzes the situation of the main sports in Spain, to understand the economic magnitude of each of them and the rate of improvement.
The second part focuses on the study of how Catalan sports clubs are like, what their financial structure is, what can be learned from football and what is the operations that have been made in water polo in Eastern Europe, whose teams are benchmarks at the international level.
Finally, four solution proposals are presented to increase the economic level of the league and its clubs. These four proposals have been developed after analyzing the interviews (Annex I and Annex II) and analyzing the research done throughout the process.
As for the surveys (Annex III), due to the exceptional health situation that is happening in the world, it has been difficult for me to carry out these surveys and reach as many people as possible, so in the end I have decided not to take them into account. Considering that I have received a lower number of responses than expected, and that I deal with an issue that people are very unaware of (verified in the survey responses), I have decided not to draw conclusions in this section and use more important information for internet, and also taking conclusions from the two interviews that I carried out.
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3 INTRODUCTION I chose this topic because I played all my life until two years ago this sport and I also arrived to play in the top divisions of Spain. I know all the problems that it has (no media interested, no spectators and amateur players) and I will try to find some solutions to them.
Is it evident that football is the greatest sport around the world? The answer could be yes. It is a sport known in every country in the world (even it is the most-played sport or not, there are lots of people playing to it).
One of my main objectives is to demonstrate with data that water polo has many disadvantages in the economic aspect compared to other team sports in Spain and how is the sport itself trying to get more money.
On the other hand, this paper will also investigate how other team sports in Spain are working in order to get more money from sponsors, spectators, media… and then compare it to how water polo clubs in Spain are doing it (and then investigate if it can be applied in this sport or not or at least if I could take some ideas from other team sports).
Another aspect that I want to investigate is how much people in Spain is practicing each sport (in order to see if I can link the amount of money that football generates and the sports people is doing every day).
In my opinion, it can be also interesting to investigate which things can learn team sports from football to try to increase not just the revenues but also the fan engagement.
4 PROBLEM STATEMENT “HOW CAN WATER POLO GAIN GROUND IN THE ECONOMIC ASPECT TO OTHER TEAM SPORTS IN SPAIN”
My aim is to find solutions to a problem (there’s not so much money in Spanish water polo clubs) and my objective is to find ways to solve and improve this aspect (probably by getting information and strategies by football and other team sports).
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5 GENERAL SPORTS ECONOMIC DATA IN SPAIN Football (LaLiga) Spain is one of the best countries in terms of football league. Thanks to the economic report of LaLiga, the total income of the league reaches 4.479 million euros, reaching an annual growth of 417 million euros and giving an average annual contribution to Spain GDP of about 1,37%. On the other hand, the total amount of workplaces generated thanks to LaLiga is about 184.626 persons.
LaLiga revenue increase (data obtained from its own place)
In this graphic we can see the evolution of the income obtained from LaLiga during last seasons and also the growth of final revenues. An important point that we can see is that what has increased more is the number of benefits obtained through TV (being more or less doubled in just 5 years being in the season 2013-14 a total of 844,2 million euros distributed to each club until the amount of 1.516 million euros in the 2017-18 season).
Source: (INFORME ECONÓMICO-FINANCIERO DEL FÚTBOL PROFESIONAL, 2018).
Handball In terms of national teams (both man and women), Spain is one of the best countries and always fight to win the titles, but in terms of clubs, they have to improve much more in the economic aspect and try to make the league more interesting. After the economic crisis that Spain suffered, the national federation of handball has grown from 2013 until 2015 the 71,3% with a revenue of 306.783 euros. Source: (Palco 23, 2017)
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Basketball (ACB) In the 1999-00 season the competition was able to make a revenue of 76.788.986,71euros (the sum of ordinary and extraordinary revenues). During all these years until the 2016-17 season where they received an amount of 113.347.778,91 euros we can see that there is not a progressive growth on the revenues, but it was just up and down all the years due to level of the teams and competition. The year where they got the greatest amount of money was back in the 2006-07 season with 138.827.896,27 euros. On the graphic below you can see the progression of the revenues:
Source: (Consejo Superior de Deportes, 2018)
Another important information that we can get from basketball main competition in Spain is the number of spectators attending to the games (single tickets + membership cards). This information, in contrast with the revenues, it is completely progressive during the past 15 years. As we can see below, 17 years ago the number of spectators were about 5,6 million people in all the clubs and the number nowadays approximately is 27,5 million persons.
Source: (Consejo Superior de Deportes, 2018)
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Water polo It is one of the team sports less paid and watched in Spain, but it can have incredible possibilities to grow. Thanks to LaLigaSports, LaLiga helps Spanish sports through this multiplatform project, supports 64 sports federations and the 4,200 high-level athletes by broadcasting minority sports though the platform. The RFEN (Spanish Swimming Federation) has decided two years ago to broadcast the best game of the match day in the platform to achieve the two million spectators subscribed there and by this way, win more spectators. So, thanks to the streaming service and all the other sponsors (Insurance company Premaat, Halcón Viajes and LaLigaSports itself as a sponsor) will give to the federation an amount of 650.603 euros). So, comparing water polo with football we can see that in the first one the federation just earns 650.603 euros for sponsors and in football the federation wins 127,5 million euros just for the same (publicity). This is more or less 195 times more.
6 HOW A FOOTBALL CLUB IS GETTING MONEY? To study how Spanish football clubs, make money, we are going to take the example of FC Barcelona (which is the club that got the greatest amount of money in the history of sport clubs).
Source. (FC Barcelona, 2019)- FC Barcelona income structured in different parts
In the first case, FC Barcelona had in the 2018-19 season a spectacular 990 million euros of revenue. The revenues were structure like that:
- 61 million (the 6%) were obtained from members and season ticket holders - 151 million (the 15%) was obtained by all the events that surround the stadium, which means ticketing, hospitality services and loan of equipment - 298 million euros (30%) came from media (broadcasting of national and international competitions) - 325 million euros (33%) came from sponsors and shops
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- 114 million euros (the 12%) was obtained through transfers - Finally, 41 million euros (the 4%) was obtained from impairment reversal by assigned players
7 THE SPECIAL CASE OF FC BARCELONA As it is known worldwide by football fans, one of the best-known slogans of FC Barcelona is "Més que un club", but what does this mean? Well, it's for two reasons. The first is for its defense of Catalan’s and the other one is for its multisport character. In this second aspect it is what I want to focus on.
The club, apart from its first professional team, has a women's team and other professional sports (basketball, futsal, roller hockey and handball). By having all these professional sports FC Barcelona has a deficit of 54 million euros this season (revenues of 13 million euros but 65 million in losses). Source: Palco23
In the 2019-20 season have been estimated a benefit of 12,83 million euros (22% more compared with last season), the 50% being from basketball.
But which is the problem in this? As they are getting the money from football and by the way they have more money than other clubs from the leagues (ACB, Liga Asobal…) they win tournaments every year and make the other teams angry as the competition is not played under the same conditions.
8 NEW INVESTORS IN FOOTBALL CLUBS Many years ago, many Qatari investors saw the opportunity in European football in order to increase their revenues in companies. I am going to talk about Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City and how abroad investors decided to invest in those clubs:
In contrast to what many people thing, the process of owning a European football club by Arabian investor is not just a hobby, it is a completely studied strategy by the executive. One top objective is to put the Arabian Peninsula into the world of sports and also to engage big competitions to be held there (for example the next World Cup of football in 2022). One of the most used means to invest in European football are the airlines (Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways and Gulf Air). One of the most-known movements in this topic was made by Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment (ABUG) which paid 150 million pounds to become the major stakeholder of the club. (Loughborough University, 2019)
In the case of PSG, Nasser Al-Khelaifi is owner and president. An Al-Khelaifi who in turn chairs the Qatar tennis federation and the beIN Sports chain, affiliated with the Spanish media channel Mediapro.
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9 HOW IS A WATERPOLO CLUB GETTING MONEY? First of all, it is important to say that most of the teams that play in the top division leagues in Spain are playing on behalf of a club that apart of having a water polo team, they also integrate other sports. In my case, I am going to talk about the Club Natació Terrassa (it will be the club that I am going to focus to do my studies in the final thesis since I have access to financial reports). It is a private sports entity that consists of a private sports venue and a municipal swimming pool managed by the club itself. Its budget is 6.5 million euros and 90% of the club's income is obtained thanks to membership fees and the purchase of shares. As it is logic, there is no so much economic information about water polo clubs, but thanks to my contacts in Club Natació Terrassa I think I will take the main information of the club and the investment in the sport.
10 MOST WATCHED SPORTS IN SPAIN
As we can see in this table, Football is the most watched sport in Spain, representing the 55,1% of the total. By miles so far, it is followed by automobilism and basketball. Source: MT&Co
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11 SPORTS PRACTISED BY SPANISH PEOPLE (AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOTBALL) First of all, I am going to evaluate the federated people in whichever sport in the past 2017. The total amount of people federated were 3.761.498. The three major sports were (and probably are) football with 1.027.907 persons federated in Spain, which represent the 27,3% of the total. After football, the second sport that Spanish population is more into a federation is basketball with 354.328 persons (9,4% of the total). Finally, the third major sport in terms of federated players is hunting with 328.677 hunters (8,7% of the total).
In this first point we can see that there is a correlation between federated people in football and also the number of people watching this sport (in both aspects, football is on the top).
In terms of weekly sports practice, 46.2% of the population confesses to do some type of routine sport every week, with 50.4% of the men who say they practice it and 42.1% of the women. Back to the study, 7.2% of the population practice football, football 11 or football 7 weekly.
*This section of the literature review has been developed thanks to the Anuario de Estadísticas Deportivas 2018, created by the Spanish Government*
12 MOST WATCHED SPORT IN THE WORLD BY COUNTRIES
Source: National Geographic Society Map June 2006 Edition "Soccer United the World" In this picture we can see a World map that points which is the most watched sport in every country. What we can see is that in the majority of countries in Europe excepting 3 or 4 ones, football is the king without a doubt. A curiosity is that the best nations in Europe in terms on water polo, are found in the Yugoslavia before it was separated (Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia) and also Hungary.
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13 WHAT OTHER TEAM SPORTS CAN LEARN FROM FOOTBALL? Make spectators feel proud to support their team: in football, fans see their team as a symbol of their city and for example a political symbol. In recent years, with the entry of the business in the sport king (football), people started to feel a distance from their feelings towards the club. Any minority sport (in my case water polo) should try to do the same, try to make the team or club look like something that each person owns and try to make it loyal. This process would be to go from being a simple spectator (as it happens in many sports) to becoming a fan.
Source: (Santiago Flores Álvarez-Ossorio in Futbol y manipulación social, 2013)
14 SPORTS CLUBS IN CATALONIA In order to get an idea of what sports clubs are like in Catalonia, I will make the analysis divided into four sections, all of them obtained thanks to a report by the Catalan Sports Council. From the complete study, I have chosen those sections that I think can provide me with more important information and then relate it to water polo. The first aspect I am going to talk about is the size of the clubs. As established by current legislation, the minimum number to establish a sports club is 3 people. In order to understand the data that I will explain below, it must be understood that most of the clubs are minority (up to a total of 300 people). This is because people like to practice a certain sport, be it federated or at an amateur level, in a playful way, and sharing that passion with a small group of people in which a group of friends can be established. In most cases, we can relate a sports club to a social club.
As for the social mass of a sports club, 54.3% of Catalan clubs have a maximum of up to 100 members and 29.8% are made up of between 101 and 300 people. The conclusion that we can draw from these data is that almost 85% of Catalan clubs are minorities, although their power in terms of the monetary balance is much lower. As I explained earlier, this is because citizens like to practice a certain sport with the company of other people who share their same passion. Although this is more related to the psychological or social sector, it is closely related to sports.
The remaining 15.9% are clubs whose social mass number more than 301 people. A clear example and that I have commented previously in this work, is FC Barcelona. This non-profit entity is among the only few in football whose club owners are the members who pay the respective annual fees. On the other hand, another reason why most clubs are made up of so few people (regardless of their social character) is due to the lack of understanding between the clubs, which causes a party to disagree with the current board and its management, so another club is created.
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Source: (Consell Català de l’Esport, 2010)
Finally, we can see that the clubs with more than 301 members (which are what we can consider as big clubs), they are located mainly in cities with more than 20,000 people. Exactly 18.5% of NON-SMALL clubs are located in towns of less than 20,000 people, so the rest of the clubs are located in large cities from 20,000 people. Next, I will explain what for me is the most important aspect of the 4 ones that I have commented at the beginning of this topic, the economic structure of Catalan sports clubs.
For the budget, 33.2% of Catalan clubs have a budget equal to or less than € 5,000, while clubs with a budget over half a million euros represent just over 5% of clubs. As the study by the Catalan Sports Council comments, this is due to the fact that the highest income comes from membership fees, so the number of members is proportional to the total budget. To better understand the situation in which the majority of sports clubs find themselves, the clubs that I consider large that are those with more than 1,000 members, the 26.6% have a budget lower than € 5,000. This is a big problem as it shows how fragile is a big structure and how poorly they can react when facing a crisis. In comparison and surprisingly, 44.6% of clubs with less than 100 members ALSO have a budget of € 5,000 or less. The reason is that in clubs with more than 1000 people and with such a low budget, sports are practiced with a low level of activity or that they can be practiced without a license. If we analyze the opposite side (clubs with few members but with a very large budget), we can see that they are part of specialized sports, motorsports for example. Below you can see the structure in income and expenses of the Catalan clubs. I would like to point out that this information will be later compared with clubs that have in their structures a water polo team (thanks to the interviews carried out and club reports that I have been able to obtain).
Source: (Consell Català de l’Esport, 2010)
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As you can see in the table above, in all the ranges of number of members, the part that has the most weight is that of membership fees (the one with the largest average are those clubs with more than 1,000 members). This data is logical and can be very helpful, since the more partners you have, the more fees they pay, and the less you can depend on third parties (how could they be sponsors or grants, which I will analyze now).
Surprisingly, and contrary to what I thought, the advertising and sponsorship data for clubs with more than 1,000 members are lower than all other membership ranges. Advertising revenues in clubs with more than 1,000 members represent 7.4% of the total, while clubs in the other membership ranges are between 9.3% and 14.5% of total clubs income. In a case like this one tends to think that the bigger is a club, the more visibility it will have and the more sponsor interest it could have, but as it has been proven it does not work that way.
Two other fields that have a lot of power in the club structure are subsidies and sports services. When it comes to grants, you can see how bigger a club is, the less it's going to depend on grants. In clubs of less than 100 members, they received an average of 11.9% of income in the form of grants. By comparison, in clubs with more than 1,000 members and more weight elsewhere (especially membership dues); grants are only 2.2% of a club's revenue.
Source: (Consell Català de l’Esport, 2010)
To finish the overview of Catalan sports clubs in the economic aspect, let's see how clubs spend their money. As expected, the most frequent expenses are personnel expenses (including players) and also expenses derived from practicing sports. The average of these two points weighs 67.9% of the total expenses of a club. Entities with less than 100 members suffer more in terms of expenses to cover sports (34.9%) than the other clubs with a greater number of members (which varies between 19.3% and 34%). On the other hand, the opposite happens with personnel expenses, where clubs with less than 100 members, their personnel expenditure represents 35.3% of expenses, while in clubs with more than 1,000 members, expenditure rises to 44 % of the total. This last point may be due to the professionalization of the great sports players. Finally, we can see that as the growth of the clubs in terms of the number of members progresses, the decrease in expenses in taxes and other fees increases. The third point to analyze is the sports facilities. This aspect is key when defining the member profile, analyzing possible offers and even generating more income. 74.3% of sports clubs in Catalonia have public properties and 18.7% have private properties.
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As the president of the Club Natació Granollers told me in an interview, in his case they have an agreement with the city council in which the facilities are transferred to the club so that they manage it, giving facilities to the citizens of the city to practice sport. Another reason why public sport facilities are transferred to the clubs is so that the different clubs promote federated sports practice and can grow or consolidate in the town. For my case study, the indoor and outdoor pools add up to a total of 18.9% of the total deprived spaces assigned to the clubs although we will focus on 9.7% of the indoor pools since it is where the games are mostly played.
In case the ownership is municipal, it is interesting to see what kind of agreement the clubs have with their city council. In 89.3% of the times, these are assignments of use (either in formal or informal agreement) but it is important to remark that the informal agreements usually happen in small villages with more than 5.000 citizens (where these types of concessions represent the 63,7% of the total. In big cities with more than 100.000 citizens it is not the normal case, so the informal agreements for the concessions only represent the 21,7% of the total. As you can see in the orange percentages, represent the formal agreements (which is the most used method in big cities with more than 100.000 citizens).
The last thing I want to talk about is the grants. The first choice that clubs usually go to ask for subsidies is to the different city councils (80%) and this happens especially in places with less population. The second body that is usually used is the provincial council (36.4% of the time) and followed by the federations with 20%. Finally, we find the Catalan Sports Council, which has been referred as the fourth administration in 14.3% of the time. As it can be seen, the total is over 100% as many entities are receiving grants by various bodies at the same time which it is a very important fact.
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Source: (Els clubs esportius a Catalunya, 2010)
In the first graph we can see which administrative bodies are used to be asked for money in the form of subsidies by the different clubs, divided by their social mass (clubs up to 100 members, clubs between 101 and 300 members, clubs between 301 and 1000 members and clubs with more than 1,000 members). As we can see in the club average, no rank is lower than 70% with the city council being the first choice, but we see the great difference in the other clubs classified by social mass. As clubs get bigger, they become more used to receive grants from two or more bodies.
Finally, we can also see a progression similar to the size of the towns or cities (the same happens with the size of the clubs). The larger the city and/or the club is, the more subsidies it will receive from various bodies. As it can be seen, in the villages with less than 5.000 citizens, clubs are used to ask only to one entity (that use to be the city hall in the 75% of the times) but as the size of cities grow, the greater number of administrative bodies are asked to receive a grant. In the case of cities with more than 100.000 habitants, the city council is still the reference body for asking for money, but very closed from the different federations and the Catalan Sports Council.
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15 HOW IS THE FINANCIAL STRUCTURE OF A SPORTS CLUB WITH A WATERPOLO SECTION? This part of the work will be dedicated to do a structural analysis of the clubs regarding their financial situation, and will be carried out thanks to some reports obtained that will help me to draw conclusions more easily. The first club to be analyzed will be the Club Natació Terrassa, founded in 1932 as a club dedicated to swimming and water polo. It is the first club in Terrassa in terms of number of members and the fourth in all of Catalonia. It is a club well known in a state level for its male and female water polo teams, since they are always in the parts close to the league leadership.
Source: Memòria Temporada 2017-19
Regarding the financial situation of the club, we can see that a large part of the total assets, which is close to 9.5 million, are represented by property, plant and equipment. This means that more than 80% of the club's assets are the facilities they have and that could be a good financing base when looking for new income. Also this last aspect will be studied and analyzed at the end of the work when I draw the final conclusions on how more income can be generated in water polo clubs. Definitely, from the € 9,250,000 that is the sum of all assets, € 7,970,000 represents the club's heritage facilities. Other interesting financial items that have a relatively important weight in assets are Customers for sales and provision of services, Debtors, Short-term financial investments and, above all, almost half a million euros in cash.
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Source: Memòria Temporada 2017-19
If we enter the part that could be more worrying (the liability), we can see that although the club has many millions of debt, it is very well organized since its total current liabilities (which is the debt to be paid in less than a year), is much less compared to non-current liabilities. The ideal situation for any sports club is to be debt free, but if you have to resort to it, the example of the CNT would be good. The more long-term debt, the best. As we can see, 69% of the liability is represented by non-current liabilities, almost all of which are represented by long-term debts with credit institutions (€6,446,588). If we analyze the current liabilities we can see that the club also has short-term debts with different banks amounting to €366,653, debts to suppliers amounting to €632,433, debts to staff because they have not been paid yet and they also have debt in the short term with some public administrations for €157,491.
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Source: Memòria CNT 2017-18
Regarding the club's income, we see that they are divided into four parts (turnover, other operating income, subsidies and other results). The total of the Club Natació Terrassa in terms of the income it obtains, we see the sum is up to the total of €8,007.00, of which €5,322,638 comes from the fees paid by the members.
A first quick conclusion is that in this club, which is around 17,000 members and which obviously has a private character, it continues to live thanks to its members' fees and they are its great base of financing for future investments. If we compare it with the big soccer clubs, we can see a big difference. In the case of FC Barcelona, its income from members represents only 6% of the total, while in the case of the CNT it represents around 67%.
Another interesting point to compare is the advertising revenue, which only amounts to €207,076, very far from the number obtained from the membership fees. If a sport does not have visibility on television, it is difficult for it to obtain sponsors. Finally, we can see that in terms of grants, the CNT obtains € 109,310 (divided into grants linked to the result and grants transferred to the result).
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Source: Memòria CNT 2017-18
Regarding the club's expenses, we observe that almost half is destined to the club's staff (€3,812,169) out of a total of €7,812,189. This part includes the people who work in the facilities, managers and athletes. Of all the rest, it is worth highlighting the expenditure of €42,131 for advertising throughout the year, and also an expense of close to one million euros for the sports sections (including the material that may be necessary to carry out the different sports activities, for example water polo goals, ropes or hats for games). As we can see below everything in the table, the result of the exercise is positive with €110,275 profit. This money can go to new investments or for example to pay short-term debt.
16 HOW TO INCREASE FAN ENGAGEMENT IN MODERN SPORTS (ESPECIALLY MINOR SPORTS)? Without a doubt, a problem that minority sports have and that they have not been able to appreciate (unlike the clubs or franchises of big sports), is the importance of having a good fan base and seeing that the need is reciprocal. Deloitte's study, "Redefining home field advantage. A game plan for enhancing fan engagement" shows why having a good strategy dedicated to fans is key to success in the future. To increase the number of fans for a club whose sections are considered minority sports can be very difficult, but to try to grow you have to take into account some important data. First, the first reason for team loyalty is represented by the 66% of fans that according to Deloitte's study are due to geographic factor (either because they were born in a certain place 19 or are temporarily living there). 14% is for family reasons, and the remaining 24% are temporary fans. That means that a large part of fans have a feeling towards a club or team for reasons either hereditary or location. It’s important for water polo clubs to launch campaigns in their neighborhoods or cities to increase their love of a sport (this includes that part of a club's budget must go to advertising), otherwise it is impossible to grow.
Even so, it is important to note that in the case of the United States and its franchised model in the sports market, although the main reason for feeling a fan of a team is for geographical reasons, in none of the five major American leagues are there more than 10% of fans who belong to some kind of loyalty program (so most of the viewers are casual).
The first step that a water polo club has to do to increase its mass of fans is to know what its target is. The study shows that "Millennials" can be a great opportunity for the future since they are 20% more likely to end up being fans than the people of Generation X and "baby- boomers" and that they are 42% more likely to have a less engaged fan relationship.
This is due to the fact that around 40% of “Millennials” have participated in some leagues for minors and that makes them a generation closer to the sport than the previous ones, and on the other hand, also the use of social networks means that the spread of information is much faster among adolescents. Deloitte's study highlights above all that these “Millennials” who are first curious about a team, many of them can end up being big fans and spending a lot of money on club merchandising.
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In the case of water polo we can take the example of the Club Natació Terrassa that I have already talked about earlier in the work. A great strategy to attract new fans in the medium term may be to make visits to the schools in the city to encourage the sport, publicize the team and even invite them to training or games, together with a club/school collaboration to offer the facilities so that students can take their physical education class (among many other possible strategies).
Source: (Deloitte, 2015)
17 HUNGARIAN AND FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLICS WATER POLO CLUBS Water polo is a very characteristic sport and that makes to not be practiced in many regions of the world. The first reason is access to swimming pools, so that the countries with have less resources will not be able to have strong leagues and teams (in the African example, only South Africa stands out).
On the other hand, it is a sport in which a lot of physical presence is needed, and that mostly all the elite athletes end up being those who, along with their talent, are accompanied by a good physique. It is for these reasons that the best teams worldwide are concentrated in Europe, and more specifically in Eastern Europe. But is there any other factor that makes this sport the most important in most of the former Yugoslav republics and in Hungary?
Source: (Greatest Sporting Nation, 2019)
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First, it is based on a model of water polo schools in which its preferred to play with a lot of contact, taking advantage of their superior physical level, and with a more strict education from schools and institutes which makes the Yugoslav water polo player different from of the rest of the European teams.
Currently, in the different European and world competitions there is an undisputed dominance of the teams from Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro and Hungary, who are accompanied from behind and with a very high level too, teams like Spain, Italy and even Greece. On many occasions, the great power that Yugoslavia would continue to have if it were united, a practically unbeatable team, is commented in the field of water polo. Genetics, (in terms of size and height) has become the most important aspect of success in water polo. "Size" has become more important than "speed". The change in the style of play that was seen 20 years ago in which skillful players, smaller and with more movements (a clear example of the golden age of Spanish water polo in Barcelona'92 and Atlanta'96) has gone into a static game and much more vertical. The opinion of many coaches and specialists on the style of play leads to the conclusion that it is not feasible for a sport within the reach of a small number of countries to be an internationally recognized sport, and as a proposal it would be possible to change the rules to favor more countries to compete for the medals. This is an aspect that it wants to be changed from the game itself to grow the volume of fans around the world.
The lifestyle in Yugoslavia was very hard, and with a large percentage of the population at risk of poverty, which is why Ratko Rudic (surely the best coach in history for his background) said a phrase that argues why the success of the former Yugoslavia: “In Yugoslavia and other countries in Eastern Europe, water polo is your ticket to a better life. You have to be very sacrificed, because there are a lot of children who want to do the same. You have to fight to survive each day. If you don't have that kind of tough environment, you should create one. You have to create an environment in training where there is high tension, where I go to the limit of what is possible. It is the only way”.
Showing up next, and in order to understand the situation of water polo in those European regions, I am going to analyze the context of water polo in Eastern Europe and its culture and fan base that made water polo to reach the most important sport in Yugoslavia and Hungary.
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17.1 Impact in Easter Europe culture Since the beginning of water polo around 1869 with the creation of a "football in water" team in the city of Bournemouth, the expansion of this sport was exponential around Europe. The first international match was played in 1890 in an England match against Scotland, but from 1890 to 1895 it was the time when the sport grew more with its expansion, especially to the countries of Eastern Europe.
Former Yugoslavia (integrated nowadays also by Montenegro and Kosovo, two new countries independent from Serbia since 2006 and 2008 respectively). Actually, Kosovo is not recognized by all European countries, Spain included in that list
Source: WonderWhy, YT The last champion of the Olympic Games excepting Yugoslavia, Hungary and the Soviet Union (and adding the cases of Spain and Italy that I have already mentioned before that are part of a second level in the elite) was France in the Olympic Games in Paris in 1924. It is for this reason that it must be understood that water polo and the countries of Eastern Europe go hand in hand, and that we must understand the context of their greatness to know how water polo work in those countries.
To understand the great success that Yugoslavia, the USSR and Hungary have had in their history, and especially in water polo, it is necessary to understand that sport in the socialist republics after the Second World War was a means of union between the different national minorities, in order to look for similarities between the different regions with a clear difference in the political, religious and ethnic fields.
For the socialist republics, sport was a means of showing power (an example would be East Germany). As for water polo in Hungary (which for over 80 years has been the most popular sport in the country), the 1956 Magyar Revolution was a definitive event to put water polo as the main sport.
The Magyars wanted to become independent from the USSR, and that had a direct impact on the 1956 games in Melbourne, in which the Soviets copied the training methods of the Hungarians, although they ended up losing 4-0. That match known as "Blood in the Water match" further increased the tension between the two countries and their rivalry for the aggressions that were seen in the match.
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17.2 Influence on Hungarian water polo clubs (how they get sponsors, TV collaboration) When comparing other foreign leagues that are very powerful with the Spanish one, we have to take into account that in the case of Spain, and more specifically of the Catalan case and TV3, public spending for sports broadcasting on television has decreased a lot, passing to be about 47 million in 2011 with the retransmission of large sports to the 14 million that are only spent in 2017, which are minority sports but of interest in the Catalan region that are broadcasted (Ara.cat, 2018).
As can be seen in the graph above, and taking into account what was previously discussed in the work, related to the great interest that existed in the former socialist republics to have great visibility through sport and show their strength, we can reach a small conclusion that one of the reasons why a sport manages to have large budgets and salaries is due to the great interest of the government to implement spending policies on sports broadcasts for its population, thus increasing interest and the arrival of new sponsors.
The European average for sports spending is established at 0.7% of the total, placing Spain slightly above the average with approximately 0.9%. The situation that stands out the most is the Hungarian, in which public spending increases up to 2.5% of the total budget of a state, almost doubling its persecutor who is Estonia. In contrast, we find Croatia (another state of the former Yugoslavia) that stands at about 0.25%.
These results are due to political circumstances and the decisions made by the governments of each country, Viktor Orbán (Hungarian politician and current president who has been widely criticized for his anti-immigration policies) decided in 2017 to increase spending on sports with the aim of increasing the prestige of Hungary, allocating money to both different championships and sports facilities. Finally, we can draw a small conclusion. State spending on sports is directly related to the increase in national sentiment (feeling proud of being from a country), and serves as a method of entertainment for the population, and indirectly as the visibility of sports increases, the amount of sponsors or the size of the companies they sponsor grows, as we will see below.
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In the Hungarian case, there is an exclusive federative body for water polo, and which is independent from the rest of the water disciplines (in contrast to Spain, where there is only a single federation). It is an advantage in the sense of negotiating contracts with the sponsors since they give more power to the federation, since for example in the RFEN perhaps the leaders' orders come to sponsor all sports, and as a result you end up losing to potential sponsors.
As I mentioned before, in Hungary, the water polo federation is independent, leading it to sign sponsorship contracts with famous companies of the e·on level (main official sponsor) and with M4 Sport, which is in charge of televising all the first division matches on television, among many others in which are Vodafone or Huawei, for example.
The fact that there is a very high public spending on sports means that channels such as M4 Sports (which is a public television channel created in 2011 in Budapest) broadcast many sports for free to the population, thus increasing audiences and the interest of large sponsors. Broadly speaking, it would be a perfect example and comparison to the world of football, a bubble that grows non-stop.
While in Spain at a national level, the water polo league is only broadcast by LaLigaSports (which has only exclusively broadcast one game per matchday since 2017) that is an online platform owned by LaLiga and with the aim of supporting the entire spectrum of Spanish sport in the face of the voracious competition of the moment, and through which it collaborates with 64 federations, their federated practitioners and, in short, more than 4,200 top-level athletes, in Hungary there is great public spending in which water polo has great visibility, thus increasing sponsors and spectators.
It is obvious that if you increase public spending in the sports sector, you have to stop giving money to other sectors such as culture, health, education, transport or any other, but one of the solutions to improve the water polo economy could be here.
18 NORTH-AMERICAN FRANCHISES MODEL To continue studying the economic case of water polo clubs, we will focus on another league that has been in development for more than 20 years and that suffers from a lot of competition both nationally (with other sports) and internationally (for the same sport), the MLS.
In the United States there is a culture of the professional sports franchise model (NHL, NFL, MLB, NBA and MLS). These franchised clubs focus above all on the maximum economic performance of their club-companies, taking the sporting aspect to the background. In the case of MLS, which is the most recent professional league in the United States and less popular than other professional sports, it has developed an expansion plan for the league to increase its fans, visibility and also economic gains.
The MLS growth plan was focused on two aspects that increased its popularity. The first was through the national team, which played a very good role in the 2002 World Cup (when MLS was only 6 years old) and attracted the crowd, growing the importance of MLS by comparing it with other professional leagues in the United States.
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As for water polo, the Spanish national team is playing a great role in the last international championships, but that does not increase the interest of the people, whose sports culture is much more centralized than in the United States.
The second aspect that we can take note of is the control of operational expenses through a financial recovery plan, in which the managers of the league will be in charge of supervising the franchises so that their finances are viable (centralized model).
The problem with water polo in general, without taking into account the different countries, is that a strategy that MLS has used throughout its history is the recruitment of superstars who are about to retire with the incentive of a very high salary, to attract viewers to see these players and that over time you can build loyalty.
To continue growing, MLS needs to improve its quality of play and subsequently spend more money on marketing campaigns. Tours of European clubs in the United States help to increase the number of fans, and in the case of water polo it could be done by holding more international championships to attract the attention of sports journalists.
19 NCAA MODEL - ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES Contrary to the European level, in the United States there is a university model that is regulated by the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association). Each university must belong to a single division, so all the sports they practice will be in the same division. In the case of basketball, the first division is divided between two subgroups, and it is the sport that is most popular among people. Television contracts contribute 90% of the total NCAA budget, signing in 2010 a 10.8 billion contract until 2024 with CBS and Turner, which means that per season it is obtained about 771 million dollars on average.
The most interesting part in terms of generating profits is the strategy adopted by the NCAA as it transfers the marketing rights to the CBS (which is the platform that gives it visualization at the state level), and the CBS manages and sells its sponsorships, so it can be understood that an easier way to find sponsors is through TV so that the TV is the one who reaches the agreements.
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In this way, it may be easier to reach agreements as I have said previously because the competition does not have to give reasons why it should be sponsored and thus convince possible sponsors, otherwise the TV is the one that gives the "opportunity " if it can be called like that to companies so they can be seen in competitions that have a lot of impact.
Obviously it should be noted that the NCAA is a league with different divisions but there are also different clubs that are not under the "responsibility" of the NCAA, so a very big disadvantage they obtain is the lack of visibility and the non-entry of benefits for CBS television contracts. These university clubs that are not in the NCAA, there are also good players with scholarships, but their visibility is less and therefore it is not so easy to reach the different national teams.
Another disadvantage that is very visible is that once a player has finished the youth stage in the high school team, there is the possibility of finding a scholarship to play in the university for 4 more years, and if the player is lucky and he or she plays in the first division of the NCAA they will have more visibility.
But the negative aspect is that when a player finishes the university if he doesn't find a team in another part of the world, in the United States there is no later competition with which he can continue playing while working or other studying, for which many water polo careers are finished although there is talent in some players.
Only those players who go abroad and continue their careers will be able to play in the national team, so the final level of the national team will drop due to the lack of players who reach the elite. One law that has had a great media impact has been California's SB206, where from 2023 college students who play on teams will be allowed to receive money for the sponsorships they obtain. This measure will obviously affect the university sports model in its entirety, but it is an important advance regarding the future of other sports. It was totally unfeasible for players to only receive scholarships while the business hovers around $ 14 billion, leaving a total of $ 1 billion in profit each year to the NCAA.
Source: (NCAA, 2018)
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When we focus on its distribution model, the NCAA returns 60% of the profits to the conferences and the different entities that are in the first division. On the other hand, we can see that a large part of the money goes to funds to promote academic improvement, improvement in the sports level, and also other funds to assist athletes or aids in general.
This model where the athlete is the center of the business model is a clear example of how a league like water polo in Spain could work (contributing money to the clubs and that the entities pay in the form of wages or directly create funds to help players). Obviously, in water polo, help would be needed to broadcast games for free on television and thus promote sport, but a centralized model in which we find athletes would be a very good solution.
20 WHAT PEOPLE THINKS AND KNOW FROM WATER POLO? The golden age of Spanish water polo was undoubtedly on the 90s (obtaining men's silver at Barcelona 92 and gold at Atlanta 96), but that certainly did not lead to media growth. This trend continued for another two decades or so until the 2012 London Olympics, where Spain lost the final to the powerful United States, a team that in the women's category tends to always win. Laura Ester, goalkeeper of the national women's team, comments "since 2012 or so this current generation of players began to emerge and we began to gain notoriety by getting more and more titles, the fans have been growing." That important second place not only made the fans rise a little, but also the women's sport that has had a generation of athletes who have represented Spain very well. In this interview she did for the page "mujeresaseguir.com", she assures that many years before there were people who asked her if water polo was the sport of horses inside the water, if the players touched the ground of the pool and if the referees went by boat inside the pool, and that these sporting achievements and their subsequent increase in media, have grown the image of water polo. But the important thing to note in this point is, what do fans in general of sports and the Olympic Games think on water polo?
When the Olympics approach, there are many journalists who, through their platforms, express their importance for water polo and explain the reasons why it is a sport that increases its interest every four years. On websites like "Bleacher Report" and "Insider", they give their vision from a neutral point of view and without being fans, of water polo, which in their opinion is the hardest Olympic sport.
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Andrew Dawson - Bleacher Report
Kim Renfro - Insider
To a certain extent, it can be understood that the average sports fan, the first thing that can think about water polo is how hard it is.
As for the players, in a survey carried out by FINA in 2019 in a general context, to the question of “What do you think needs to be changed to make water polo more popular? they answered that there should be three main changes in order to attract more viewers: the first is related to the calendar in which they think that it would be better to play it in the summer, also they require larger investments in marketing activities and need to better communicate the game itself to the audience (no matter the rules) and finally not to change the rules that encourage shorter breaks as it would greatly affect the game itself.
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21 PROPOSED SOLUTIONS In order to develop the last part of solutions that are proposed for the economic improvement of water polo, I have based myself on the aspects that I think have been most important from the "background research" part and from the interviews carried out with the former president of the Club Natació Granollers and also the current vice president of the Club Natació Catalunya. These aspects are based on both economic and social reasons, and with a close follow-up of football to make these conclusions, which I will explain below.
21.1 Loyalty campaigns As I mentioned earlier in the report, soccer is surely the most popular sport for fans for one simple reason, being part of an entity. Each club or team has its own political ideology, a different way of working than the others, a way of understanding a simple football club as an entity that represents the values of the city or town to the rest of the national or international territory. This is the goal that minority sports clubs have to dream about, but it is obviously almost impossible, and there are certainly some measures that football clubs cannot do. A solution in the social field that I think is very interesting for water polo clubs is visiting educational centers (schools, institutes...) and reaching beneficial agreements for both parts.
- Assignment for the use of sports facilities to schools: in the case of the Club Natació Terrassa (mentioned in a good part of the report), it could reach agreements with some schools to use their facilities during school hours so that students can do their Physical Education hours at the club's facilities. In this way they can get “familiarized" with the club, with the aim of making them members and fans of the entity's teams in the future.
- Games invitations: invite students from those schools to the games so that they can go to watch the games on the weekend with their families. It is a good solution when creating a good fan base in the area, and especially in the long term thanks to the students. Obviously, you are not only bringing water polo to students, but also parents and family who are the ones that finally spend the money.
- Family discounts to be members of the entity: another indirect solution to bring more people closer to being a water polo fan and related to schools is offering special packages for those families (for example, pay reduced fees for families such as 3x2 offers or any other similar campaign). Although it is not a certainty, this reason could be an incentive for other schools to reach mutual aid agreements with the clubs in their area and in this way the sport is promoted from public institutions and therefore the creation of future fans and spectators to the sports of your club.
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21.2 Facilitate the entry of new members During the development of the analysis of the situation of Spanish water polo, one aspect that I have focused on in an important way has been how the sports centers in Catalonia operate. Most sports clubs are minority (54.3% have less than 100 members and 29.8% between 101 and 300 members, given the reasons discussed in the chapter "Sports Clubs in Catalonia"). For large clubs, membership income is somewhat "residual"; since most of the income is obtained thanks to television and large sponsors, but in medium and small clubs is the opposite since the inflow of money for the reasons discussed before is very small. A possible easy solution to apply would be the reformulation of statutory policies within the club to facilitate the entry of more members. In cases such as the Club Natació Sant Andreu, in order to be a member of the club and to be able to use the facilities, first of all you must be a shareholder, and that greatly limits the entry of new members because the package of shares is limited (so that the only method of entry of more members is for a person with a large number of shares to sell a portion of them, with the advantages and disadvantages that it brings at a democratic level).
As former CNG president Josep Maria Mas comments in the interview, "one of the problems we had is that if you do not have good facilities, you do not have club members and then you do not have money to reinvest in different sports " so it's important to have facilities in good condition and with the best possible technologies, but in all the Catalan sports sector, only approximately 19% of clubs have their own facilities (as commented in the interview, which is the case of Club Natació Sabadell and Mataró, which are two clubs with very good sports facilities and a great financial contribution in terms of sponsors which are private clubs) so therefore, a process of privatization of sports facilities could be an advantage to obtain more economic revenue for clubs for two reasons:
- Improvement of facilities to attract new members: automatic process in which by improving the facilities, there will be more people interested in joining the club
- Improvement of facilities to attract sponsors: Following the cases of the CN Sabadell and CN Mataró, attract the attention of the sponsors through the facilities (good swimming pools, places to put advertising and that are adaptable to TV ...)
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21.3 TV collaboration thanks to public investment In the Hungarian case, when we have analyzed the behavior of the societies with the longest tradition of water polo, we have seen a large public investment in sports by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (who, without going into political aspects, has developed good policies to promote Hungarian sport and give it an international vision). Spending on sports is close to 2.5% of GDP, while the European average is 0.7% and the Spanish average is 0.9%. A FREE increase in visibility for sports with fewer resources is a great option to get more sponsors (in the example of the Hungarian water polo we find Vodafone and Huawei, and all the games of the first division are broadcast on public television). In Spain, and especially in Catalonia, the specialized sports channel "Esport 3" would be the perfect platform for Spanish water polo.
As for the topic of collaboration of public TV, a solution to increase profits is to transfer all the rights of the first male and female division to public television "free of charge" from the same RFEN (Royal Spanish Swimming Federation). In this way it is evident that television revenues will not be generated, but the interest of big brands to sponsor the teams and the league will grow exponentially, but why?
It will not be for water polo that it is an interesting sport, or because large or historical clubs play, but the interest will be for a simple reason of number of spectators (there will be more spectators watching the game although it generates little media attention, but with the same reason sponsors will benefit). It's a clear win-win, the water polo league earns more revenue, public television has more content to stream (especially at a time when football, basketball and motor sports have been acquired by payment platforms) and sponsors find a new sport to invest in.
Another possibility is to establish the NCAA protocol (they give the league rights to the CBS and are they who manage the sponsorships). It is easier for a recognized television network to manage the agreements with the companies than for a league in which some sports are not interesting (there is a great interest in football or basketball, but other sports lack media attention). Sponsorship contracts can be negotiated individually for each sport or directly aggregated, but the negotiating power of the CBS is greater. In Catalonia, it could be TV3 and its subsidiary Esport 3 who manage these contracts to increase their value.
“Our partnership with CBS and the NCAA has exceeded all of our expectations, and this new long- term agreement continues to align Turner with one of the premier sports properties that generates unrivaled fan engagement for more than three weeks every year,” - Turner President David Levy.
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21.4 Union of large entities that generate competitiveness In order to create a league with great potential and media interest, it is necessary for the men's and women's water polo league to be much more competitive. Taking into account this season that has already ended due to the coronavirus, CN Atlètic-Barceloneta has 15 consecutive male titles (since the 2005-06 season) and CN Sabadell has been winning all the leagues since the 2010-11 season, totaling a total 9, except this year that the CN Mataró has won it. The damage it causes to the sport is very great, since it makes it boring, and without interest for the sponsors.
But if we look at the men's national handball league what happens? The league has been won by the same team for many years, but unlike many other sports, the winner has been FC Barcelona. A club of such magnitude makes the interest in this sport grow automatically.
Therefore, a solution would be for the federation to encourage the creation of a team that will belong to the structure of the FCB or any other "giant" (by purchasing a place and therefore accessing the first national division. automatically, creating a team from the last category and gradually ascending ...).
Due to the multisport character that exists in FC Barcelona it would be possible to easily add another discipline (whether amateur or professional), but in other clubs such as Real Madrid where it only has football and basketball teams (next season also female football) it could be more difficult to create this water polo team. This latest solution proposal to increase the economic income of the league and water polo teams in Spain is quite unfeasible and even utopian, but it would undoubtedly be a great growth incentive for the league.
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22 CONCLUSIONS
When I decided the topic to be analyzed in the final thesis, I knew that I was facing a topic full of uncertainties. It is one of the sports with the least interest in terms of fans and also from media repercussion here in Spain, the players do not get money and are amateurs, the teams have practically no sponsors and obviously there is no aid from the government.
Before starting the report, I had to have a completely ordered index to be able to draw relevant conclusions, since as I said before it is a very unknown sport and topic. By following those guidelines, analysis would be much easier for me.
The first important conclusion to highlight is the little action of the institutions (especially the Spanish swimming federation) to be able to get more economic revenue from their competitions. Water polo is not a very visual sport, but the exponential ability it has to get more money is very important. With the help of the clubs, launching loyalty campaigns and attracting new fans is essential to improve the relationship with the media and attracting sponsors. With pools with 50 or 100 people it is impossible to do this.
The second conclusion is related to public spending on sports.
Countries governments must understand that sport is a cultural medium for citizens and a way to socialize. In difficult times like the ones we are currently experiencing with the coronavirus, it is understandable that minority sports (semi-professional and amateur) are even less important, but in the long term governments must invest money in sports and thus increase their visibility. The inaction of the countries makes it impossible to grow.
The last and third conclusion may be simple, but it is very obvious. Spain is a country known worldwide for its football, with wide-spread fans throughout the territory and which surely receives more than 90% of the media coverage. In a country where its society focuses on only one sport, it is very difficult for other sports to continue developing and growing. Even so, with some of the measures that I propose in the "PROPOSED SOLUTIONS" section, Spanish water polo could start its growth.
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I am Josep Maria Mas and I have been the president of Club Natació Granollers from 2002 until 2017 when we lose the elections. The club actually has many different sport disciplines (swimming, water polo, synchronized swimming and gymnastics). - Does the CN Granollers have its own facilities? Or are they all municipal concessions? What are the conditions of the concession? Do you have your own assets? The club lives on a concession that has been received for a period of 25 years (until 2027). When the concession was won, the club was able to use the facilities but also had to make investments to improve the facilities. We have struggled from the beginning to have our own assets, but unfortunately the club currently has nothing on his own. We know that other big clubs such as Mataró and Sabadell have their own assets, but the club knows that it will never recover the investment that has been made in the facilities even if there are certain amortizations. One of the problems we had is that if you do not have good facilities, you do not have club members and then you do not have money to reinvest in different sports so this can be translated in a handicap that we have always had. The club does not currently have its own facilities. - Does the subscriber of the facilities have to be a member of the club? Does the club member have to be a subscriber of the facilities? How does this affect the operation of the club? Are there any restrictions generated? What is the member's weight in the financing/decision making of the club? Does the concession generate income that is dedicated to federated sport? The members are the owners of the club and they decide through the assemblies that are held every year on what should be accepted and what not. For those decisions that require less than 20% of the budget, the club can make decisions without the permission of the assembly, but if it exceeds it, it must convene an extraordinary assembly to debate that issue (such as the professionalization of the water polo team or invest in new machinery). The "day to day" operations are decided by the board of directors, but if they have to make a decision that takes into account more than 20% of the budget, the future assembly could restrict and reject that decision. As for the general budget of the club, if the members do not approve it, the one from the previous year is extended (although it is normally approved). Mainly what is debated in the assembly is whether or not the investments you have made in the last period have been correct. 38 - What is the financing base of a club like CN Granollers? (members%, subsidies%, sponsors%, others%) The main funding system are members fees (which we have long wanted to change because it is dangerous since if there is a decline in the total number of members, it has a direct impact with the club's federated sports). This part would represent approximately 90% of the total financing of the club, and the other 10% would come from other small grants that the club may have or any sponsor you find. I would like to point out that these subsidies do not come from the city council but from a small company in which you might know the owner or some member of the board). - How is it possible to reconcile the interest of the member with the federated athlete? It is a very difficult issue, because we always had to give club members explanations of the investments in the different federated sports and stop investing that money in, for example, the fitness room (that would be in their favor). The advantage that we had was that in the concession of the city council it said that we had to invest between 15% and 20% of the budget in sports. The price of the concession was more or less affordable but this was one of the main conditions. This for us was very good because when facing to the members, they could not complain too much about your investment "record" since there was a legal contract to fulfill (although whenever we could, we took advantage and invested the 20%). Likewise, there have always been misunderstandings between the club and the members due to the issue of federated sport since the different sports sections use the facilities between 5 and 10 at night, which is when there is more interest from the members in using the facilities. - What is the weight of water polo in the total of the club in terms of budget? Do they have their own budget? How does a water polo team operate within the club structure, economically talking? Is it autonomous? Until the moment we lost the elections, the club had an investment of € 600,000 for the four federated sports mentioned before each year. The specific budget water polo had, was an approximate investment of between €110.000 and €120,000 per year taking into account the first team and the lower teams. Each section had its budget and could use it however they wanted, although the board of directors always had to authorize all the big investments that were made (to control in this way that no one spent more than the money there was). In this case, the water polo section only needed permission to sign players or coaches, create another new group... Every two or three weeks, meetings were held with the different sports to keep track of budget spending and what investments were planned. Even so, they were practically fully autonomous. 39 - What is the strategy to attract sponsors? It is a difficult situation because even the first division teams have few sponsors. Now the televisions pay something but very little to these first division teams and they also have some sponsors. We are in the second division, the strategy we adopt is to work with some Granollers companies (more by personal contacts that you may have where you finally end up having a professional relationship). Water polo being a minor sport, it is almost impossible to get large sponsors, but the strategy we have used is to work with small sponsors where they give you financial help to get your budget off the ground. In my personal opinion, I think that in order to attract big sponsors we should participate in some project to help society (inclusive water polo for example). This could be done through a foundation with the aim of improving life in the city and in society in general, and for companies it is good since they have a 35% discount when paying taxes. Unfortunately, we lost the elections, so we could not carry this project forward. - And to attract the media? Has there been any collaboration with the local media? (TV Granollers). What is the relationship with the media? Is there any internal strategy developed by the club to “use” them to grow and to give more visibility to the club, or are they in the background instead. We always had a very good relationship with Granollers TV (especially when they broadcasted our promotion to second division) and the different written media. I think they play a very good role in helping minority sports to grow. The disadvantage is that we weren't able to attract sponsors with the media, although we did very well to attract new players. The problem as I said before is that for companies to sponsor you, if they do not have a very large return on image they do not give you money (that is why foundations are used a lot). In our case, we cannot tell companies that they will only be seen in Granollers and its region. - Granollers is a very particular city due to the weight of the handball team. How does water polo resist such strong competition? Is there any coordination between entities? Or is there competition between them? Each one is independent and we have never wanted to compete with them in a local basis. Each sport seeks to be the best although there has always been a very good relationship between the two clubs. Each club has its problems and its strategies to continue growing, that is why sometimes they have given us some awards for our work and the handball team has also came to train our pool once. The important thing is to make the city grow and help each other between the clubs whenever possible. 40 - In your personal opinion, what do you think is the biggest obstacle for water polo that does not allow it to grow (apart from soccer)? As for the growth we wanted from water polo inside the club, what we were looking for was to have the best coaches to create a good base and grow and achieve the first team. In our case, we know that the best players will be signed by the big teams, but in the long term our goal was to reach the first division with the players from our base. Regarding the level of state water polo in general, it is noted that it has been working very well in recent years since now they are doing very good results in World and European championships (both male and female). This is "translated" to the different clubs into better results in the European club championships (which attract more television), and new sponsors may be interested. Obviously, football level will never be reached, but I think that sustainable growth over time and giving a little financial help to the players is possible. Also, a big problem of water polo, is that it is included within a club structure (so it does not receive all the money, which is distributed among all other sports). This in football does not happen. Lastly, here in Catalonia no aid is received from the Generalitat in water polo (since we are very good in many sports), which is why it is also a disadvantage. I think the federations are not very interested in looking for money either. 41 24.2 ANNEX II: TRANSCRIPT INTERVIEW WITH RAMON GELI - Can you make a brief presentation about yourself? I joined the board of directors of the club in 1977 assuming the position of president. During my years in charge, I placed great importance on the men's and women's swimming and water polo teams, although I emphasize the success of the men's water polo team. In 2000, I resigned and was named Honorary President. In 2009 I re-assumed the presidency and in parallel I collaborated with the Spanish Swimming Federation in the water polo technical commission (1989-93 and 1996- 2000). In the year 2000, I also received a special medal for Sports Merit of the Catalan Swimming Federation and the gold medal for Distinguished Service of the Spanish Federation. - Does the CN Catalunya have its own facilities? Or are they all municipal concessions? What are the conditions of the concession? Do you have your own assets? The club has had an administrative concession since 2000, although it has used the facilities since the 70s, in the La Salut neighborhood. That means that the staff is yours and you take care of their salaries, expenses for maintenance of the facilities... That means that the Club Natació Catalunya does not have its own assets, but has permission to use and manage the facilities however we want until 2024. - Does the subscriber of the facilities have to be a member of the club? Does the club member have to be a subscriber of the facilities? How does this affect the operation of the club? Are there any restrictions generated? What is the member's weight in the financing/decision making of the club? Does the concession generate income that is dedicated to federated sport? We are a public club, everyone has access to become members of the entity or use the facilities for a day by paying a ticket. Even so, the largest number of people who access the club are members, and as being a non-profit entity the highest governing body is the general assembly where they (the members) have control of approving or rejecting the Statement of Accounts, the "financial report "and even approves the budget for next year. Since there are elections every four years, you have to present good financial numbers, because if you don't, there is a great possibility of losing in the next elections. 42 - What is the financing base of a club like CN Catalunya? (members%, subsidies%, sponsors%, others%) Obviously, the financial aspect is based mainly on members' fees, although we also receive funding from the city council in the form of subsidies, especially to promote the practice of sport and for those who are unemployed. The club also has a strong income from swimming courses for children, and an important weight, but less, are the one-day tickets to use the facilities as I said earlier. As for the sponsors, there is practically none, although in our golden age of the club when we were European Champions we did have a sponsor from the financial sector. Finally, you can have a sponsor of the club's clothes, but in our case it is very difficult to find sponsors (and also in the world of water polo in general). - How is it possible to reconcile the interest of the member with the federated athlete? Normally the member has little interest in the club's first teams and is not used to understanding a high expense in those teams, although they do understand the spending on base sport for people from 6 to 18 years old since they are essential activities for young people. On the other hand, the new members understand the plurality of the entity, although a balance between athletes and partners is necessary to avoid problems. - What is the weight of water polo in the total of the club in terms of budget? Do they have their own budget? How does a water polo team operate within the club structure, economically talking? Is it autonomous? Taking into account the lower categories, the spending of the water polo section is over 10 or 15% (counting the salaries of the coaches, equipment, trips ...). In other clubs with more economic power (especially the Club Natació Atlètic-Barceloneta that has been winning the national league for years), spending on water polo can be around 60%, leaving the remaining 40% for all other sports sections. In our case, it is not like that. - Which is the strategy to attract sponsors? We do have a strategy to find a sponsor, although we cannot dedicate much of our time to it because there are many other problems to solve and which are more urgent. There are other teams from other sports that can have much stronger strategies to find sponsors, even with specialized teams for it, but in water polo is very complicated (although at the level of the men's and women's leagues we have the sponsor PREMAAT, but as I say it is for the league and not for the clubs). This sponsor is, in my opinion, medium level. 43 - And to attract the media? Has there been any collaboration with the local media? (betevé). What is the relationship with the media? Is there any internal strategy developed by the club to “use” them to grow and to give more visibility to the club, or are they in the background instead. We are grateful for the work done by local television in the city of Barcelona as it gives specific weight to water polo in its sports content. We know that water polo is not a very important sport, but in the Spanish first division, 5 of the 11 teams are from our city, and they know how to value it very well. At the national level, the media only broadcast international competitions in the summer (Olympic Games, European Championships ...), but water polo is not important during the year. With the entry of PREMAAT, water polo has made a small jump that may help him in the future. - Is there any ticketing strategy? Making people pay an entry to watch water polo is not in the plans of any club in the league, for several reasons: the first is the capacity of the pools since it is not very large, and the benefit that would be obtained would not be very important. It would help, but never be an important part of financing. On the other hand, we believe that people would not receive this news well, and that it would end up causing problems. As a joke, we are already few fans watching the games for free as to decrease the fans more since you make them pay a ticket. - In your personal opinion, what do you think is the biggest obstacle for water polo that does not allow it to grow (apart from soccer)? In my opinion, I think it is not a sport made for television, since only the heads of the players are seen and most of the body is not seen since it is under water (and for a spectator who doesn't know about water polo it may be strange to visualize). On the other hand, the sponsor could only be placed in the "helmet" of the players, unlike in football, which has much more space. Finally, it may also affect that water polo is a bit of a slow game, but I don't think it affects as much as the reasons I said earlier. 44 24.3 ANNEX III Survey questions Title: How can a sport like water polo gain ground in the economic aspect to other team sports in Spain? - What is your age range? - Next, indicate how many days in a week you do sport - In your opinion, what are the 3 most important sports in Spain? (indicate from highest to lowest) - Why do you think football is surely the biggest sport in Spain? - How do you think a minority sport such as water polo could get more economic performance? Can water polo clubs learn from something in football? - Do you think it would be possible to encourage people from different cities or neighborhoods to attend matches of some of the many minority sports? (for example, launching campaigns to show the citizens that that club or team represents them) - What importance (media repercussion and economic level) would you give minority sports in all the sports practiced in Spain? Rate from 1 to 10, being 1 nothing of importance and 10 all the importance. - What sports do you usually consume either on TV or in person? - When you do sports, what sport do you usually do more often? If you do more than one, please choose those you do more regularly. - What do you think is the MAIN problem that minority sports have that does not allow them to grow? - In your opinion, do you think that if water polo had the opportunity to grow, it would do it (entrance of large sponsors, retransmission of games, generalized growth in the interest of the population ...)? If the answer is no, in the box OTHER write the reason that leads you to think that Taking into account the little informative value that the answers of this survey have given me, and with the health pandemic that has made the situation even more difficult to draw more conclusions, I have decided not to take this survey into account. Word count: 15.468 45