FC Barcelona has announced a partnership with Spotify where the music streaming service will become the main partner of the club and the official audio streaming partner as of June 2022.
The deal sees Spotify become the title partner of the La Liga club’s ground with the Camp Nou stadium rebranded to Spotify Camp Nou.
Furthermore, the brand is set to appear on the front of both men’s and women’s team shirts and training shirts beginning in the 2022-2023 season, whilst the partners will also create opportunities for the shirt to be a space that ‘celebrates artists from across the world’.
Spotify’s Chief Freemium Business Officer, Alex Norström, commented: “It’s about connecting fans with artists of every kind – players and artists, music and sports. Barcelona fans and audio lovers on Spotify will come together to form a massive, globally connected community bridging the worlds of music and football.
Whilst the plans are subject to the ratification of the Barcelona Members Assembly in April, the company has stated that it will use the partnership to ‘shine a spotlight on artists from all over the world’ in a bid to bring the music and football market together.
“The vision for the partnership is to create a new platform to help artists interact with Barcelona’s global community of fans,” Norström added. “As we look to grow the Spotify brand worldwide, there are few partners that have this sort of scale and global reach.
“Being able to connect music and football fans from Barcelona to Mumbai, Jakarta to Rio de Janeiro, is really a unique opportunity.”
The scale of the deal has been named as Spotify’s largest yet, and holds a shared commitment to equality and supporting and cultivating diverse talent.
The digital displays at the club will also be used to showcase and geo-target relevant artists to Barça’s TV audience, meaning that viewers in Europe may see a message about one artist, and viewers in India could be served a different and locally relevant message to them.
Norström concluded: “More fans engaging with our platform means more opportunities for creators to live off of their art, and FC Barcelona’s massive global fan base will help fuel that growth. And for fans – both music and Barça fans – we’ll be creating more interactive and exciting experiences to connect with the artists they love.
“FC Barcelona has legions of young fans across the world – in fact, most of Barça’s fans are under the age of 30, which is a hugely important audience for Spotify. Those fans also reside in some of Spotify’s fastest-growing markets, including India, Latin America, and Indonesia.
Against that backdrop, Spotify will be able to amplify the work of artists to new potential fans and supporters.”
