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 1 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. 2 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. 3 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). 4 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