LiveScore continues to grow its global reach through partnership with La Liga

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New technological innovations continue to be an important factor in how football fans consume the world game across broadcast and digital media.

This growing trend was part of the motivation behind La Liga and LiveScore signing a three-year global sponsorship deal at the beginning of the 2019 season.

While the coronavirus pandemic has caused a disruption to both organisations’ core business offerings, the partnership has continued to develop ways to engage fans and enhance their experiences.

LiveScore services over 56 million active monthly users in over 200 countries through their app and website.

The organisation wanted to work with the high-profile Spanish competition to continue to accelerate its growth and global reach.

“La Liga undoubtedly has a reputation as one of the best football leagues in the world”, Will Thomas, Head of Sponsorship at LiveScore Group, told the La Liga Newsletter.

“We want to align ourselves with leading sports institutions that share similar ambitions to us, centred around growing fanbases, speed, reliability and digital innovation. We found La Liga reflected many of these qualities.”

La Liga provides LiveScore with multiple digital assets, as well as increasing the visibility of the brand with pitch-side advertising boards, fourth official boards and social media posts.

In saying this, however, the partnership centrally revolves around LiveScore’s sponsorship of La Liga Replay360° technology.

Every time Replay360° is used in a broadcasted match, which is on average six times per game, LiveScore is showcased as the presenting partner responsible for the technological innovation.

Edited clips are also shown on La Liga and LiveScore’s social media channels, with Replay360° generating over 35 million video views and five million positive engagements for LiveScore last season.

“Early indications through our research suggest that we are beginning to get some cut-through in terms of sponsorship awareness in many of our focus markets, amongst both La Liga fans and LiveScore users”, Thomas added.

“Millions of fans watch La Liga matches and follow their social channels, where we regularly appear, so the rights have been a solid base for us to work from.”

The technology is still considered to be a relatively new innovation and one that fans continually appreciate.

“It appears as if the fans love seeing goals from this unique perspective, as engagement sentiment has been very positive,” Thomas said.

“LiveScore is in the business of providing goal updates and scores to football fans, so building on this association is both obvious and important to us.”

The arrival of the global pandemic did force some adjustments, with both parties having to think on their feet when it came to their previously arranged agreement.

“We want to enhance the LiveScore user experience through our sponsorship assets, providing better content and more unique fan experiences and rewards,” Thomas explained.

“Clearly, the pandemic has made this more difficult as it has been impossible since March to utilise things like match tickets, hospitality and ‘behind the scenes’ access. So, we have really focused on what we call ‘the controllables’ and that is broadcast and digital.”

To succeed in this space, LiveScore worked with La Liga to produce video content that was unique to the situation.

“We have collaborated with several past and present La Liga players such as Steve McManaman, Patrick Kluivert, Marc Bartra, Ivan Rakitić, Saúl Ñíguez and Samuel Chukwueze, as well as LaLiga President Javier Tebas, which is enabling us to provide regular engaging content that fans are already enjoying,” Thomas stated.

With around 25% of LiveScore users following La Liga passionately, there was keen interest in this content amongst its own userbase and also from those who follow the La Liga’s digital channels. The first ‘LiveScore Challenge’ films featuring players, as well as accompanying interviews, are already available on both organisation’s social channels with approximately 25 individual videos to be released by the end of the 2020/21 season.

As La Liga continues to enhance its own OTT streaming service, the Spanish competition is in a position to share new findings with partners such as LiveScore who are looking to develop similar offerings.

LiveScore launched a free-to-air live streaming service in June of this year.

“We’ve been delighted with the response at this early stage,” Thomas revealed.

“LiveScore app users in the UK, Ireland and Nigeria are now able to access live matches from some of the top football competitions around the world and over 70% of app users in each of those markets have watched a match so far. Furthermore, 25% of those viewers have gone on to watch more than 10 live matches – a sign that our users are enjoying the action we’re providing.”

Both companies will continue to try to stay ahead of the technological curve, with the data they have gathered through a wide userbase, vital to detect new trends.

“The provision of insight is something we work closely with rightsholders on to shine a light on the popularity of specific competitions around the globe and how LiveScore streaming its content can influence this in a positive way,” Thomas said.

For example, LiveScore can provide La Liga information on the level of interest in certain fixtures and teams in certain markets, with the ability to compare those figures to other leading leagues and clubs across the world.

“From a research and development sponsorship perspective, we are continually sharing key findings with each other on the successes and challenges of the partnership,” Thomas noted.

“From a broader business perspective, outside of the confines of the sponsorship, we are a digital global content business that is accessible to sports fans all over the world and we are always open to providing advice and support to our trusted partners.”

“We are still in the infancy of our partnership, but I am sure future innovations will come as we continue to work together,” he concluded.

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Bentleigh Greens and Metricon Bring Local Business Community Together Through Networking Initiative

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Image Credit: One-Nil Media

Bentleigh Greens FC has reinforced its commitment to supporting its community beyond football, partnering with Metricon Homes to host a business networking evening designed to strengthen relationships between local businesses, sponsors and club stakeholders.

 

A unique setting for meaningful connections

Held inside one of Metricon’s display homes, the Bentleigh Greens Business Networking Night welcomed around 60 local business owners, club partners and community leaders for an evening focused on connection, collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Rather than a traditional function space, Metricon opened the doors of one of its display homes, creating a unique networking environment that highlighted how the space could be transformed into a premium venue while providing guests with a relaxed setting to build professional relationships.

The event reflects a growing trend across community football, where clubs are increasingly positioning themselves as platforms for business engagement and local economic development, alongside their role in delivering participation opportunities on the pitch.

Guests also heard from strategic futurist Marcus Barber, who delivered a presentation examining the growing influence of artificial intelligence on modern business. His insights encouraged attendees to consider how emerging technologies are reshaping industries and the importance of preparing for future change.

 

Creating value beyond sponsorship

While commercial outcomes were never the primary objective, the evening was designed to create long-term value by fostering meaningful relationships between businesses connected to the Bentleigh Greens community.

Early feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with several attendees already establishing new contacts and beginning discussions around potential collaborations.

The initiative also highlights Metricon’s broader commitment to supporting local communities beyond residential construction. By partnering with Bentleigh Greens and providing the venue, the company helped facilitate an event that encouraged learning, networking and stronger community connections.

 

Football clubs as community business hubs

For community football clubs, initiatives such as these demonstrate how partnerships can extend beyond traditional sponsorship models. By creating opportunities for local businesses to engage with one another, clubs can strengthen their commercial networks while delivering tangible value to sponsors and the wider community.

As football clubs continue to explore new ways of engaging stakeholders off the field, events like the Bentleigh Greens Business Networking Night illustrate how sport can serve as a catalyst for meaningful business relationships and long-term community growth.

What Football Queensland’s link with Green Room Futures Means as Pathway Strategy Broadens

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Football Queensland has signed a multi-year extension and expansion of its partnership with Green Room Futures, formalising the private provider as the state body’s “Official US College & Tour Partner” and adding an annual United States tour for Football Queensland Academy players to the existing college-placement program.

From advisory model to integrated pathway

The agreement marks a substantive evolution in the governing body’s pathway architecture rather than a standalone sponsorship announcement. The two organisations have worked together since at least 2024, when Football Queensland first appointed Green Room Futures as its preferred US college partner and began rolling out athlete information sessions across metropolitan and regional centres. The new arrangement embeds that relationship more deeply into the academy ecosystem by linking advisory services with an international touring product.

In its announcement, Football Queensland said the expanded partnership would offer academy players exposure to US college environments, international competition and broader education-and-sport decision-making support. Chief executive Robert Cavallucci said the relationship had already assisted Queensland athletes to pursue opportunities overseas and that the introduction of an annual tour would strengthen development outcomes for players across the state’s regional footprint. Green Room Futures director Matt Wade said the expansion reflected strong demand for structured US pathways and would provide athletes with more direct insight into student-athlete systems.

A constrained domestic market

For Football Queensland, the strategic rationale means a collegiate model is now an established part of the global football labour market, particularly for players seeking a dual track in education and high-performance sport. In an Australian landscape where professional opportunities remain selective and uneven, college pathways provide a parallel route with different risk settings for families. That logic has been gaining institutional acceptance across the country, and Football Queensland’s move suggests it sees formal international exposure as a competitive differentiator within domestic talent development.

The policy and governance questions are equally clear. The public announcement outlines ambition, but provides limited operational detail on affordability, cohort selection and support settings for regional participants. In practical terms, these details will determine whether the program functions as a broad-based development mechanism or as a premium pathway accessed primarily by households able to absorb compounding costs.

International youth tours involve direct and indirect expenses that typically include flights, insurance, accommodation, tournament costs, travel preparation and time-off-work burdens for families, with regional players often carrying additional domestic travel requirements before departure. Green Room Futures’ publicly available materials also indicate paid service structures within broader college-placement support. None of that is unusual in this market segment; it is, however, central to any serious assessment of access and equity outcomes.

The expanded partnership therefore sits at the intersection of football development strategy and distributional policy. If the tour becomes an informal gatekeeper to college-facing visibility, then financial design features move from administrative detail to core pathway governance. Without those mechanisms, even merit-led programs can produce systematically narrow outcomes because the input conditions are unequal.

For Football Queensland, the outcomes are likely to turn on implementation transparency over the next one to two intake cycles. A cohort profile that is geographically concentrated or socioeconomically narrow would invite predictable criticism, particularly given repeated statewide positioning in Football Queensland’s academy communications. Conversely, early publication of eligibility frameworks, financial assistance settings and regional participation targets would strengthen claims that the program is designed as a genuine statewide pipeline rather than a metropolitan premium add-on.

There is also a broader sector trend at play. Australian sporting bodies increasingly rely on specialist private partners to deliver pathway components once managed internally or left to informal networks. The model can improve expertise and execution speed, but it also shifts part of the development interface into commercial structures. In that context, governing bodies carry a heightened obligation to disclose how partner-delivered opportunities align with public-facing participation commitments, especially where youth athletes and family finances are involved.

What comes next

Well-structured US pathway programs can materially improve athlete decision quality, reduce information asymmetry, and create legitimate post-school options in a constrained professional market. Exposure to college environments can help families evaluate trade-offs around education, migration and sporting progression with greater clarity. For some players, that can be decisive.

The question for Football Queensland is whether the benefits are distributed in a way consistent with its statewide mandate. The announcement establishes intent and strategic direction; the next phase requires publication-grade detail. For a program framed around opportunity, credibility will depend less on partnership language and more on measurable participation design: who is selected, who is supported, and who is priced out.

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