Has the Portuguese League been taken out of play?

The FIFA Club World Cup is currently underway in the United States. With 32 teams, a new format and a strategic location, the tournament was expected to capture the attention of the football world. But so far, the media impact has been much lower than expected. There has not been the anticipated global enthusiasm, international audiences are below expectations and the debate surrounding the competition is, at best, lukewarm.

However, it is precisely in this context that a valuable window opens up for those who know how to act with focus and intelligence. For Liga Portugal, which has two of its main brands in this competition — SL Benfica and FC Porto —, this is an opportunity to act with surgical precision: to understand where the real target is and focus all efforts on it.

In a less noisy competition, there is room for differentiating messages, discreet negotiations and building relationships that, in other contexts of over-exposure, would be more difficult to establish. This is where the role of the Liga Portugal comes in as a promoter of its own product. It is not enough to trust that the clubs, due to their size, will take the Portuguese championship brand to the world on their own. It is up to the Liga — as other top organizations do — to be present on the ground, with well-defined objectives.

La Liga is an exemplary case in this regard. With Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid present, and despite the harsh criticism of the organisation by president Javier Tebas, it maintains an active delegation in the United States, with sales, media and institutional relations teams that participate in events, organise meetings with broadcasters and develop activations with local brands. Serie A did the same last summer, when it organised the “Calcio is Back Tour”, using friendly matches as a pretext to present the Italian League to operators such as ESPN, Amazon and Paramount. The Premier League, on the other hand, despite having a more consolidated product, invests heavily in Fan Fests and in relations with NBC Sports in the US, transforming the consumer experience into an exportable cultural product.

Clubs such as Bayern Munich, PSG or Chelsea use international tournaments and pre-season tours to meet with strategic partners, present content projects, close distribution deals and reinforce the notoriety of their institutional brand in new markets.

In this World Cup, SL Benfica and FC Porto are a showcase, yes — but being on the pitch is not enough. It is behind the scenes that business opportunities are created, that bridges are built with television operators, OTT platforms, investors and the diaspora.

Liga Portugal should be leading a specific plan for this tournament, with a team on the ground meeting with decision-makers from DAZN, ESPN, FuboTV, Apple TV or Globo. It should be producing editorial content in English and Spanish for the League’s own channels, focusing on the collective narrative of the championship. And, above all, it should be activating the network of Portuguese and Portuguese-descendant people in the United States — an emotionally connected audience that can become ambassadors and consumers, if properly engaged, to capitalize on a potential future offering of games via Direct to Consumer.

Even if this World Cup is not achieving its initial exposure goals, Liga Portugal can — and should — use it as a launching pad. The reduced media noise offers a cleaner stage where it is possible, with the right partners, to score goals. Because the internationalization of the League does not depend on the strength of a single event, but on the ability to use each context well to build a more recognized, marketable and valued brand.

The opportunity was identified more than 6 months ago. Now that the transition between management in the League has been made, there is still time to get a goal right, which, because it is half empty, only needs someone to push the ball and score an easy goal that could make all the difference in the internationalization and centralization project of Portuguese football.