By Samindra Kunti
May 17 – La Liga has taken another big step in its bid for digital transformation by partnering with TVM, a South Korean global sports metaverse platform, in a two-and-a-half-year deal.
The Korean company is launching Triverse, a metaverse of sport, with exclusive space for LaLiga. Triverse will be a world of augmented reality, with a focus on fan engagement or as TVM vice-president Yoon Chul Kim put it “a world where their dreams come true”.
He added: “TVM envisions being a new pioneer, user-driven and with a self-sustaining economy. Our world is planned by the user, for the users, to the users.”
LaLiga sees the partnership as key to driving fan engagement and “continue to get close to fans around the world.” LaLiga’s commercial and marketing director Jorge de la Vega said: “LaLiga traditionally has been well known by fans with big local audiences, very powerful presence. To grow in the future, we had to internationalize our activities and start a digitalization strategy. We have grown in audiences and the whole digital system. We have 150 million fans in our digital system.”
“The key is to have fans at the centre of everything – you need to adapt to the various digital channels. We generate content on all the platforms in all the platforms. To try and get them to interact with LaLiga with greater frequency and for a longer time.”
Fans can expect multiple new kinds of engagement. TVM said that official content from sports clubs, such as press conferences, club announcements, match highlights and player interviews, will be offered within the metaverse.
In addition, when users consume official content within the metaverse, they will earn certain rewards and experience points, leading to more valuable items and goods, which they can use to gain wealth in real life.
“What TVM has in mind goes beyond this virtual,” said TVM managing director Josh Kim. “Think of a friend meeting another friend and wants to play football. They don’t have to go to the football field to play. They can just pop up their virtual glasses and pop up their holographic mobile devices and play football. That’s the kind of metaverse we want to achieve.”
The metaverse will include NFTs and a trading platform as well as a rewards system. Kim added: “The sky is the limit. We go beyond that, it is limitless. Anything can be digitalized.”
In the future, the metaverse could also open up a new monetization avenue for LaLiga. De La Vega said: “The key goal is about fans and attracting fans – how we offer fans something that is different. From that, we can see if we can open new monetization windows. That is something we have to see in the second phase. I am sure that the digital world will open some that are not there in the physical world.”
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