Global Fútbol

Asia has long been a strategic market for RCD Mallorca and the LaLiga Santander club have been working on producing in-house content in multiple languages in order to reach and interact with as many fans as possible in territories such as South Korea and Japan. In addition to the club’s social media profiles in Korean and in Japanese, RCD Mallorca have also launched live shows in these languages on matchdays.

In the 2022/23 season, the island club’s Play Red Live transmissions in Korean are proving to be particularly successful. With South Korea national team star Kang-in Lee having an excellent season in LaLiga Santander, there is great interest in his matches in his home country and RCD Mallorca are providing those football fans with live content in Korean on matchdays.

Already, the club’s Play Red Live broadcasts on YouTube have achieved more than one million total views this season across all languages. The Korean broadcasts, hosted by streamer Hayoung Lee, are proving to be particularly popular, often achieving more views than the Spanish and English language equivalents.

Play Red Live has become a key part of RCD Mallorca’s matchday coverage

Play Red Live is a parallel broadcast of an RCD Mallorca match, one which doesn’t show game footage but which instead offers around 10 alternative camera angles and which focuses on stats, analysis and atmosphere during the 90 minutes, while providing in-depth pre-match and post-match coverage too. It is an in-house production, making its success all the more valuable from the point of view of the club.

The idea of putting together a show such as Play Red Live came about at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, when fans were unable to attend matches at the Estadi Mallorca Son Moix. The club wanted to keep the fanbase engaged, so created a live programme for YouTube.

Describing the origins of the show, the club said: “At that time, we converted a radio programme into a YouTube broadcast with an ambitious production plan, especially for home matches. After the games we also offered a kind of super flash with the fans via Zoom, to make up for the fact that stadiums were closed. With the return to normality, Play Red Live has kept progressing.”

Offering some details of this progression, the club outlined what the in-house production of the show looks like in 2022/23: “This season, Play Red Live has gone from strength to strength, with a four-hour to five-hour programme when we play at home, around 10 live angles and a live overview of the match through Opta’s Live View statistics. For away games, Play Red Live doesn't have as many live angles, but we also put together a fairly extensive production plan.”

The value of Play Red Live to RCD Mallorca’s internationalisation strategy

RCD Mallorca realised early on that Play Red Live could be a very valuable tool in terms of engaging with international fans. For this reason, the club started broadcasting streams that were being dubbed in real time in English and also, initially, in Japanese, at the time when Japan international Takefusa Kubo was at the club.

Now that Kang-in Lee is starring in the team, RCD Mallorca decided to launch a broadcast for South Korea. With some help from LaLiga, they identified the perfect host and started broadcasting live in Korean following the break for the 2022 World Cup, which Kang-in Lee played in.

Reflecting on that decision, the club explained: “At that stage, we thought it was time to go a step further and make an ambitious commitment that went beyond a simple instant translation. So, thanks to LaLiga, we found a very good profile in South Korea, that of Hayoung Lee, a passionate fan of football and of the Kang-in Lee, who is a star player in the country. So, we took advantage of the production of a pool signal that we personalised with Hayoung Lee to broadcast in full in Korean. It has had a great impact in the Asian country.”

The results have been very positive. The club pointed out: “The feedback is great. The comments from the fans show how enthusiastic they are. Even for matches that take place in the early hours of the morning in South Korea, thousands still follow the broadcasts. In addition, we also publish a breakdown of the broadcast on YouTube and this also enjoys great numbers and satisfaction from the Korean fans.”

It is clear that dedicating resources to a show like Play Red Live is a good example of how to work on internationalisation in a meaningful and engaging way. Each RCD Mallorca match can now achieve over 50,000 views across the Spanish, English and Korean Play Red Live shows, with Korean often achieving the highest viewership. Logically, this is helping the club to grow internationally, especially in Asia.

As the club concluded: “This programme totally helps the internationalisation strategy because it means we’re making a product 100% in Korean for a country that is very excited about Kang-in Lee right now. It is the best possible way to help showcase the club, its facilities, the team, etc. During the matches, thousands of Koreans come into contact with the broadcast and it is a great window to the Korean market, which we consider to be a very important market, along with the Japanese one, where we also have a growth strategy.”