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FC Barcelona Marketing

Barcelona FC set up shop in New York to help drive commercial opportunities

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By Tony Connelly, Sports Marketing Reporter

September 7, 2016 | 3 min read

Barcelona FC have stepped up global expansion efforts with the opening of a new New York City office which will help drive commercial opportunities for the La Liga champions.

Barcelona

Barcelona

The New York City office, located at 250 Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan, will serve as a commercial hub for generating new revenue and is part of the Spanish club’s strategic plan to achieve a turnover of €1bn by 2021.

Club president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, and a number of club delegates were present at an inauguration ceremony for the opening of the new office yesterday (6 September).

The new commercial base will be led by Barcelona’s vice president of marketing and communications, Manel Arroyo, and Francesco Calvo, the club’s chief revenue officer. Barcelona’s US managing director Arno Trabesinger will lead the operation locally alongside Gerard Guiu and Arturo De la Fuente.

Speaking to Barça TV at the opening Arroyo said that as well as driving commercial growth, the office would serve as a platform for implementing social and charity projects in New York.

“The club needs resources and this office will help us achieve them, but we also need to convey the message and the values that define us,” he said. “Therefore, the schools and the FCB Foundation projects that we are starting will be very important to spread this message.

"The United States is a country where sports marketing is a big industry and, here, as well as obtaining resources, we will certainly learn more and improve the management of our assets in this area.”

Trabesinger added: “We come to New York at a moment of great expansion in the sport of football in the United States, as well as a wonderful moment, economically speaking, for world football.”

The Catalonia club already have a number of sponsorship deals based in the US with brands such as Nike, Gatorade, Stanley Black & Decker and Gillette. The new commercial hub in the city will allow Barcelona to build on this and leverage its strong social media following in the US with its 3.5 million Facebook followers, 275,000 of which are in New York alone.

According to Trabesinger this number makes it the “leading football club in the United States”.

“It had been Manchester United, but now we are ahead,” he said.

The office resides close to the head offices of the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB) and is the second overseas commercial outpost which the club have set up following the opening of a Hong Kong base in 2013. Similar moves are expected to follow in Asia and South America, with Arroyo highlighting China and Brazil as possible locations.

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