Mumbai: LaLiga today announced Dream11 as the league’s Official Fantasy Game in India. LaLiga features some of Europe’s best football clubs such as FC Barcelona, Real Madrid FC, Atlético de Madrid, Valencia CF and many more with some of the finest global talents in football including 2019 Ballon d’Or winner, Lionel Messi, FIFA World Cup 2018 winner Antoine Griezmann and Eden Hazard to name a few.
Through this five-season partnership deal, till the end of 2023-24 season, football fans in India will get an opportunity to engage deeply with the league and showcase their knowledge by creating their own virtual teams. The 7 crore+ users on Dream11 will enjoy an enhanced experience of creating a team and competing with each other. Football is an upcoming category within fantasy sports and gradually gaining popularity among Indian sports fans.
LaLiga, Spain’s top division football league, is at the forefront of innovation and digital strategy in sports. Its commitment to adapting technology to football and the league to reach audiences through various platforms such as apps, gaming and eSports development, OTT and more have allowed LaLiga to transfer the emotion of football to millions of fans across the globe. The partnership with Dream11 will allow LaLiga to connect further with fans and take the sport to a wider audience.
Announcing the partnership, Jose Antonio Cachaza, Managing Director, LaLiga India, said “We are thrilled to announce our first ever regional partner in the Indian subcontinent, Dream11. As the best football league in the world, we have built expertise in using innovative technology to increase engagement with our fans across the globe. In India, fantasy sports have massive popularity and our association with the country’s biggest fantasy sports platform will help us widen our reach and introduce many heroes of the league beyond Messi, Suarez, Benzema and more who already have a special place in our fans’ hearts.”
Talking about the partnership, Harsh Jain, CEO and Co-Founder of Dream11 said, “We are excited to partner with one of the leading football leagues in the world, LaLiga. Our association with LaLiga will help us deliver comprehensive and best in class fantasy sports experience to Indian football fans. Spanish football is all about skills and understanding strategies, which is central to creating a winning team on Dream11. We are certain that the thrilling matches of the league will keep the Indian football fans clued in.”
India is one of the fastest-growing markets for fantasy sports and the growth of fantasy sports in India has resulted in the overall consumption of sports. The partnership will help LaLiga’s popularity grow in India by increasing the consumption of the league by taking fans closer to all the action.
The recent Nielsen – IFSG report suggests that 37% per cent of fantasy sports players consume more than 6-8 hours of real-life sports content per week to stay abreast with knowledge on players and match conditions turning passive sports viewers into active participants of a match, while 62 per cent of respondents watch different types of leagues, even when their team/country is not playing.
