LaLiga tour de force hospitality experiences

Image: Coliseum GSVA / Michael Rennschmied

Milos Nenadovic who is in a top-notch operations role with the LaLiga (Spain) says that the LaLiga clubs are notches down the ladder as regards the hospitality experiences when compared to the other clubs of Europe.

Milos Nenadovic is currently the Head of Stadium Revenue at LaLiga. Nenadovic has more than 10 years of experience in the sports and live entertainment sector, primarily in the field of maximizing revenues in the stadiums and the arenas.

In a chat with Coliseum, Milos Nenadovic, Infrastructure Operations and Head of Stadium Revenue, LaLiga, Spain, shares how LaLiga on a trial-and-error basis were able to evolutionize the hospitality quotient of the LaLiga clubs. He stated that LaLiga is more than just the organizer of the first two divisions of Spanish football but they also sell certain promotional rights. They are also responsible for about 200,000 jobs in the Spanish economy and they use it to leverage the LaLiga clubs.
 

LaLiga

Madrid (Spain)-based the La Liga, officially known as the LaLiga EA Sports for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Spain and the highest level of the Spanish football league system. It is contested by 20 teams over a 38-matchday period.

Stated Milos Nenadovic, “We are really focused on three different verticals – Sales, Hospitality Premium and Non-Matchday. We share data as much as we can within the clubs because we are competitors only on the pitch but off the pitch we are partners so though we cannot share specific detail data but we share averages and share all types of information that helps the clubs. We work in tandem with the clubs to maximize the venues’ revenue.”

He added, “When we started working with the LaLiga clubs in 2022 our focus was on optimizing the hospitality experiences. We found large disparity between the clubs and the key challenges we faced in Spain in terms of hospitality is that it was only for a certain class but it had to be more than that. On an average, three percent of the stadium capacity was dedicated to hospitality. So, our challenge was really to take a look at where we are. The challenge was also to use every bit of skill and every bit of imagination in order to provide an exhilarating hospitality experiences to the fans.”

“Take a look at the three different examples of how we worked with the clubs to provide a first-rate hospitality experience – a big club, a medium-size club and a small club.”
 

Sevilla FC

The Sevilla FC is a Spanish professional football club based in Seville, Andalusia (Spain) that competes in the LaLiga, the top flight of Spanish football. The club was formed on January 25^th, 1890 making it Spain’s oldest sporting club solely devoted to football. The 42,714-capacity Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán Stadium in Seville serves as their residence.

“Though the club is 70 years old it has not undertaken any renovation work till date. We worked very closely with them and we went on site and looked at the stadium so that we could create new hospitality experiences. Our hard work paid off within a year and now the club’s cash registers are jingling. We benchmarked the best clubs in Europe and then we worked with the club to create six different new experiences that we added to their portfolio.”
 

CD Leganés

The CD Leganés is a professional football club based in Leganés, Community of Madrid (Spain). They currently compete in the Segunda División, the Men’s second professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. The 14,500-capacity Butarque Stadium serves as their home ground.

“The CD Leganés is a medium-size club. It is a club that shuttles between the First and the Second Divisions and we faced quite a bit of challenges with the Leganés. We found out the best way to monetize the club was the Bench Experience – the best seats next to the Benches of the club, of the players and creating specific experiences that most clubs boast of in the United Kingdom. We worked on what kind of First Half experiences we could provide to the spectators and we concentrated on Gen Z and the tourists who come to the City and want to spend quality time with their families.”
 

Albacete Balompié

The Albacete Balompié is a Spanish football team based in Albacete in the Autonomous Community of Castile-La Mancha. Founded on July 5^th, 1939, it currently plays in the Segunda División, the second tier of Spanish football and the 10,000-seat Estadio Carlos Belmonte serves as their digs.

“The Albacete Balompié is a very small club and their home venue is a small ground and is very old.

And then we go to a really small club and then the stadium looks like this. It’s really a small ground, 10,000 seats and very old. We really had to go from the ground to the roof to be able to watch the game. But, we did not expand the operations and commercialize the roof on non-matchdays for the promotion of sales. In order to increase the revenue and increase the spend we decided to reciprocate the same experience that we did with the Leganés. We renovated few spaces of the stadium and increased the capacity. As a result, the club jumped up the hospitality ladder income from the Second Division to the top five in just one year. The whole hospitality exercise was a kind of trial-and-error process. We are adding 10,000 more hospitality experiences to the entire Spanish market.”
 

Round Off

Milos Nenadovic wrapped up by stating, “The key takeaways and the lessons learned was the Scope of Hospitality. In terms of planning and sales we ensured that hospitality does not sell itself. If we put a nice couple of pictures online it does not work. We go out to the market and create specific sales plans, train the right people and attack the right market. The product has different markets and we have to really be cognizant of who needs to be attracted to what types of products.”

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