La Previa: AFA’s Leandro Petersen on World Cup Winner’s U.S. Strategy
On the latest episode of La Previa, hosts Asli Pelit and Boris Gartner talk to Leandro Petersen, the chief marketing officer of the Argentine Football Association (AFA).
Last week, the association announced that as part of the global expansion strategy it implemented in 2018, it will expand to the United States to promote its national teams and generate new business revenues.
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“North America is a strategic region for us,” Petersen said. “The AFA has strengthened its global position in recent years; this new launch begins with the primary objective focused on the North American market.” The Argentine national team is already building a training facility in Miami, ahead of Copa America, which will take place in the U.S. in 2024.
Petersen started working for the association before the 2018 World Cup in Russia. “It is a different era for our national team. We saw what happened in Russia, no one was taking us seriously then, and this also reflected the disappointment on the pitch,” he said.
“Today, we are the world’s champions but also have a successful commercial campaign across the globe.” After winning the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar, the Argentinian national soccer team has become one of the most followed teams in North America.
AFA’s U.S. expansion will be carried out by Playmaker Capital’s Futbol Sites, the digital sports media company. Futbol Sites will handle AFA’s English-language social media channels and, as a strategic business and sponsorship partner, it will connect North American brands to AFA and its top players, including Lionel Messi, Emiliano “Dibu” Martinez, Angel di Maria, Julian Alvarez and Enzo Fernandez, among others.
The hosts also discuss WWE’s merger with UFC to form a new publicly traded company controlled by the Endeavor Group and dig into the new San Francisco Bay Area NWSL expansion team.
Finally, Pelit and Gartner talk about the women’s college basketball championship, which broke records by drawing an average of 9.9 million viewers.
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