Spotify and FC Barcelona have announced a new long-term partnership starting July 2022. Spotify becomes the leading partner of the club, the official audio streaming partner, will get its logo on FC Barca shirts and will also become the Title Sponsor with Camp Nou being renamed to Spotify Camp Nou. 

Spotify aims to use this partnership to “shine a spotlight” on artists from around the world by bringing the worlds of music and football together, mostly by leveraging their access to in-stadium elements to showcase and geo-target relevant artists to Barca’s global TV audience. 

The sponsorship includes a four-season deal for the men’s and women’s team shirts, a three-season agreement for the training kit and an alleged four-year contract for the stadium.

While neither Barcelona nor Spotify have confirmed the deal’s financial details, ESPN reports that it will be worth around €280 million. This will certainly help chip away at the club’s monumental €1.35 billion debt. Additionally, board president Joan Laporta confirmed back in December that the club was open to selling stadium naming rights to fund its much-needed €1.5 billion redevelopments.

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A global, geo-targeted stage for artists

Spotify seems to have big plans for this partnership. Apart from renaming Barca’s legendary stadium, the main focus here seems to be promoting artists using Barca’s global viewership. Throw in geo-targeting there, and you can easily recommend different artists to different parts of the world at the same time. 

People watching matches being telecast from the newly renamed Spotify Camp Nou in Europe will be served ads about a different artist compared to the audience watching in another place like India, where the artist might be different and more locally relevant. 

Since Spotify logos will also be on FC Barca’s men’s and women’s teams’ shirts beginning in the 2022-2023 season, the company is hoping to use this chance to create a new platform for artists. Spotify’s press release leaves this hanging at “we think this can be more than just a Spotify logo on a shirt”.

Does this mean that we’ll be seeing Spotify song codes on FC Barca shirts? One certainly can’t rule out the possibility. 

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