Consolidate an attractive style of play, build its own stadium and redefine its business model to double its income and become one of the three clubs with the highest turnover in Mexico. All that with him FC Barcelona as a model and with the help of the Catalan company that piloted Leo Messi’s landing at Inter Miami. That is the objective that the Mexican Cruz Azul has set, which has signed an agreement for the international expansion of its brand with SpoDeal Group, which between August 2022 and March 2024 developed a commercial plan that quadrupled the turnover of Inter Miami with Messi as main asset.
Without the Argentine star but with the same ambition as the MLS franchise, Cruz Azul aspires to become one of the leading clubs in North America. And to achieve this he has focused on the Barça model. Not in vain, the co-CEO and founding partner of SpoDeal, Jordi Camps, was the commercial director of the Barça entity between 2019 and 2021.
“They have hired us to be part of the board of directors, implement the methodology that we have used since my time at Barça and make the decisions that we consider necessary in everything regarding their business area. It is a two-year plan that our team will execute directly while we set up all the necessary human resources structure so that they can do it themselves,” Camps explains to EFE. The alliance will end after that period and with the construction project of the new stadium already outlined. And Cruz Azul, which has always lived between rental contracts, has known for a long time that its growth involves having its own house.
For the last half century, it has played between the Azteca Stadium, which is owned by the Televisa communication group, owner of América, and the Ciudad de los Deportes Stadium, owned by a real estate businessman. With the arrival of SpoDeal, Cruz Azul aims to professionalize its commercial area to generate new business opportunities and thus reduce the impact on its income statement of the cooperative that gives its name to the team and that has an important cement company and several schools and hospitals, among other businesses.
Billing, a pending issue
Although its record ranks it as the third most successful team in Mexican soccer with 24 official titles, it is not even among the five that earn the most in its country. And clubs like the almighty América, Chivas or Tigres earn more money than him. “The objective is to place it in the ‘top-3’ in Mexico in two years, which involves multiplying its income by 1.5 or 2. That would also allow them to reduce dependence as the main sponsor of the Cruz cooperative Azul, who has always seen the club as a communication platform but not as a business,” says Jordi Camps.
The president of Cruz Azul, Víctor Velázquez, trusts that this new alliance with the Catalan company will allow them to grow in a “faster and more structured” way and thus take advantage of the “momentum” achieved with their recent sporting successes “to consolidate key aspects of the business”. And the team currently leads the 2024 Apertura Tournament, after having been a finalist in the previous tournament.
Former Uruguayan striker Iván Alonso arrived at the club as sports director in December of last year to implement a methodology that enhances offensive play and grassroots football work like FC Barcelona does and which is already bearing fruit.
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“The team is leading and plays very attractive football. And now, what the club wants is for the business part to also accompany the sports part,” says the co-CEO of Spodeal Group, who also advises the Ministry of Sports. of Saudi Arabia for the expansion of the Saudi Pro League and that in just three years since its creation, it already has offices in Barcelona, Madrid, Singapore and Miami.
