Prestige and development of talent from and for the sports industry, LaLiga Business School, LaLiga’s educational project, has six master’s degrees, two of them also in English, courses for the training of managers and active footballers and scholarships for athletes. José Moya, its director, gives the details in an interview with EFE.
A project that has 40% foreigners in its master’s degrees and a high level of employability. “In LaLiga we have more than 63 professionals working who have studied in our masters, plus people in internships. In the clubs, more than 100,” says José Moya.
Ask: How would you define the LaLiga Business School project?
Answer: It is part of the educational department of LaLiga. It was created mainly in two ways. The first, to provide the sports industry with value in the form of human capital and thus help its growth. It is also a department that provides prestige at the image level. It is a department in which we carry out all projects based on the conviction that the sports industry needs to grow and become professional. There are many alumni working both in LaLiga and in clubs and in the industry.
Q: What does this project contribute to LaLiga?
A: Education has no dark part. It’s legacy. It brings important prestige to the institution. We have never measured the impact of the educational part on what it has had on the LaLiga brand; but it is prestige and talent. It is to help the sports industry grow. Every year I tour the LaLiga clubs to offer our students, of different profiles, to help the clubs grow. In the end, the masters are also a key to the clubs and all parties are delighted with the project. Provides brand value.
Q: There is more and more competition in education in the sports industry. Why choose LaLiga Business School?
A: It is a unique, innovative project, pioneering in its philosophy. When LaLiga decided to create its educational department in 2017, we decided to do it differently. We are the ones who train the students, without intermediaries; It is a direct transfer of knowledge from LaLiga, from the sports industry to the students. We design the master’s degrees, we select the teachers, we develop the practical cases, we find internships for the students, the classes are at the LaLiga headquarters… The student feels part of the industry from the first moment because they are immersed in it.
When the project was proposed, we decided to give it a different vision than what was in the education and sports industry. We decided that to train these professionals we would be the ones to train the students. The only company in the world that does this is Google, we follow their model. Furthermore, we do it with a vision that the talent that stands out, we keep. At LaLiga we have more than 63 working professionals who have studied in our master’s degrees, plus people in internships. In the clubs, more than 100.
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Q: Another important part is helping footballers to train before they retire…
A: We have two courses in which we are in direct contact with soccer and tennis players. We designed the Global Players Program exclusively for our active LaLiga players, with streaming and in-person formats when the competitions end. We try to teach the students, the players, to be prepared for what happens after their career. That they capitalize on the contacts they have, that they understand well the industry, the work office in which they are involved… and that they grow as managers. We have been working on this project for three years and it has been very successful. There are 30 places, they filled up very quickly for this course and we already have players signed up for next season.
As a result of this course, the opportunity arose to do the same with the ATP. We developed an exclusive course for ATP players, LaLiga ATP Business Education Program.
Q: Can athletes from outside the world of football enter?
A: Within our master’s degrees we have a program that we launched together with LaLiga’s institutional relations department, led by José Montero. We give out six scholarships, we call them ‘extraordinary champion scholarships’. They are scholarships for athletes, world champions, Olympic medalists… in which we allow them to study with us so that they are trained and that their integration into the labor market outside of elite sport is much better, that they acquire those skills and tools that allow them develop a career outside of professional sports practice, but within the sports industry. It is a talent, like that of footballers and tennis players, that we should not allow to go away; We have to retain them in the sports industry because they can provide incalculable value.
Q: How many master’s degrees does LaLiga Business School offer?
A: We have eight master’s degrees. There are six, but two are dubbed by language. We also have two educational lines. One is with the masters and another, ‘in company’, are agreements with federations, Olympic committees, sports federations… to train industry professionals; not just new talent coming in. We have agreements with executives from the League of Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea… for example. Plus, they are custom-made. They tell us, ‘we want to come for ten days and learn more about the exploitation of sports venues and security’; made.
We also have an ‘Executive Education’ line, aimed at professionals in the sports industry; in the widest range. This includes sports journalists, representatives agency workers, sports directors… everyone who has to do with sports.
Q: What is the profile of students in your master’s degrees?
A: There is a little bit of everything, depending on the master’s degree there is one profile or another. In marketing, they are younger, those who have just finished their degree. In football there are more varied profiles, everything. In digital they are younger and in MBA older, because we ask for five years of professional experience or three in the sports industry.
What we do notice is that now that sport is increasingly considered an industry, a place where you can work and live well, there are more and more people from other industries who want to switch to sport. And we love being able to count on that talent to continue growing.
Q: What is the rate of foreigners in master’s degrees?
A: We have around 40% foreigners, still with a lot of room for growth in that area. Above all they come from Latin America and nearby countries in Europe. In the end, we are a benchmark at a sporting level. We are the site with the most offers in education and sports. Madrid is also a cheaper European capital than Paris and London, for example, and with Spanish life that everyone likes. It has become a very important educational destination.
Q: The educational season is about to end, what new courses are you working on for the next one?
A: We have launched a ten-hour course for June on artificial intelligence applied to sports. They ask us for it a lot. We have done courses on economic control, the transfer market… we also do that help to the clubs. We try to stay up to date on everything. That’s the good thing about designing everything ourselves.
With information from EFE.
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