Soccer is the most popular sport in the world and both La Liga MX and the video game company, Konami , want to take advantage of it to reach new markets through an alliance with which the Mexican tournament will be available exclusively in the eFootball 2023 video game .
With this alliance, the 18 professional league teams and their players will be represented in the video game, so users will be able to see faithful animations of their favorite players, such as Dani Alves, from Pumas; Alexis Vega, from Chivas; or Memo Ochoa, from America.
eFootball and Konami, its developer, are partners “that will allow us to gain territory in Mexico and the United States, in addition to having a platform for teams to internationalize,” said Mikel Arriola, president of Liga MX at a press conference.
Robbye Ron, eFootball brand manager, added to Expansión that it is a win-win for both Konami and Liga MX, since the company is going to take them to a market where they had no exposure and were looking for, such as North America, while the brand of the tournament is internationalized.
A few months ago, Konami also announced an exclusive partnership with Club América, but that would not be the only one, since although Ron did not specify which team they will collaborate with next, he pointed out that during the year there will be more partnerships and digitizations of stadiums.
eFootball and Liga MX seek younger fans
On the other hand, Arriola highlighted that this agreement also seeks to connect soccer to younger fans who watch the sport from two screens and are generating a new fan segment.
In the first months of the pandemic, when the leagues around the world stopped, in Liga MX a digital soccer tournament was created with professional players to continue generating content and this alliance with Konami, said the president of Liga MX , is also geared towards e-sports as a way to engage more viewers.
“During the emergency, the content stopped and the clubs needed to comply with their sponsors and the digital issue took on tremendous force, so e-sports took on impressive force to the point that at some point, I hope it will not happen. , they can supplant a void in football”, commented Ron.
eFootball is a free-to-download game that is constantly updated, and Arriola highlighted that feature to reach a wider audience, as the game currently has 50 million downloads on mobile phones and 15 million on consoles, according to figures shared by Ron.
Although the game has the support of international figures, such as Messi or Neymar, it still has to recover the good perception of the public, since in its first edition the title was published with errors that were highly criticized by the audience, such as poor animations during the game to cartoonish representations.
To solve these perception problems, Ron explained that the way is to continue adding exclusive content to attract more users and polish the gameplay to the point that the deficiencies of the launch are forgotten.
On the other hand, Ron concluded that with the growth of the eFootball platform and given the importance that women’s soccer is taking on in Mexico, they do not rule out the possibility of integrating Liga MX Femenil into the video game.
