Inside LaLiga's growth in America with Nicolas Garcia Hemme, Managing Director for LALIGA North America.

The Football Co Business Podcast Welcome to the Football Co Business Podcast. On this show I guess is Nicholas got C.A.M. Managing director for La Liga in North America. Nico joins us to discuss the league's approach to conquering America, sending Spanish football to Hispanic fans and beyonds the unique partnership BSPN plans for the World Cup, and whether we will finally see La Liga matches play on US soil. Nico welcome to the show. Don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel. Let's start with some background then. There are lots of leagues and clubs trying to get the attention of US fans especially now and not just those in Europe but of course in the US itself. So you have obviously majorly soccer, the USL and others. What is it that the league have been doing differently compared to other European leagues that are coming over and trying to get some US attention and talk us through the deal with the SPN because now that's quite important to the whole strategy. Yeah, so that's a very good question and I think the most important thing to highlight here is we've tried to treat this operation, this joint venture and I'll provide more details now as a core like the US as a core market. This is not a I'll say a market instant that a league is trying to execute from headquarters and they open a little office in Fifth Avenue. They light up the Empire State and here we go with Conquer America. This is a completely different approach. It's a very sophisticated and professional operation. It is a 20 year joint venture with relevant sports, 50% owned by relevant relevant sports, 50% owned by La Liga. We have around nine people in New York in the New York office and a studio, a content studio in Guadalajara, Mexico with 14 more people and when I say treating the US as a core market is we are very much PNL oriented. What I mean by that is again, we are not asking headquarters to subsidize the operation in the US. This typically doesn't work after two, three years. The main headquarters always ask why are we spending so much money? The clubs, you know, La Liga as other European leagues are owned by the clubs. The clubs don't understand why we're spending so much money. We've put a huge focus on being sustainable and profitable. We reach profitability after year three of the June venture. We are currently in the US seven and to your point, the strategy is set in five core pillars. The first one being distribution. That's where ESPN enters. Content to be able to impact in the market as wide and diverse as the US. We have events and fun engagement to try to bring the product closer to the fans and make them feel as close as possible to La Liga game in Spain. We have grassroots to support the development of the future generation of soccer players in the US. And then, as I say, commercial sustainability to make sure that all of that, it is made in a way that it is not subsidized, but mostly like self-dependent. So how separate are you from the head office in Spain? Are you, do they provide other services, even if it's not very much like in the background services, or are you fully independent from what's going on out there? So we are very much coordinated with her quarters. We have some degree of autonomy. We are not completely independent, but we have the capacity to, I will say, make our own decisions, manage our own budget and decide how the strategy is laid out and then executed. For example, I just give you an example. And that comes from mostly like year one of the Genventure. When in 2018, we started the Genventure, La Liga writes in the US where we'd be in sports. At that time, it being sports had a huge issue of distribution. They didn't reach a deal with the Comcasts and with Direct TV. So from 2017 to 2018, La Liga lost 50% of the distribution in the US market. If people cannot watch the games, that's the first entry point. If you are not even able to consume La Liga, it's very difficult to do everything else that I was explaining before. So the leadership team at La Liga North America made the decision to try to like exit the agreement with being sports before the end of the term and sign a new deal with the SPN. And that new deal in my own opinion, I think, is one of the best deals that distribution deal that any European league has in the US is very simple and clear. All 380 games in Spanish and English on ESPN+. You don't have to be finding where the new, the next game of Atlético Madrid is going to be. You have everything in one single platform. And then we support that with a linear Spanish strategy on ESPN deportes where mostly 8, 9, 10 games per match day go on linear through the portes and then some specific games on ESPN, ESPN 2 or ABC to try to like to, I would say, to try to get a bigger reach to the general soccer market. So there's some of the freets wearing some behind the ESPN pay-water? Yeah, correct. You know, nothing is free in the US because still ESPN ABC is still cable, so you need to have a cable subscription. But yeah, correct. There's a streaming service where you have everything and it's focused on La Liga at this point is through the new, I would say, app of ESPN and in the in the bundle with ESPN unlimited. But then you have some games that go through your typical cable package on linear. So who is watching La Liga in the US? We mentioned Hispanic markets, which are pretty much made up as a significant chunk of this. But are we talking young, old, second generation, first generation? What's the demographic life? So I think, well, there's multiple layers. The core one and the one that has the biggest cultural proximity if you want is his panics versioneration. These are our core audience, these are the most loyal fans, these are the guys that watch every single game or of their team. And when you think about the US with more than 60 millions Hispanics, 60% of them being Mexicans, you don't have to explain to them what La Liga is. They watch Ugo Sanchez and others playing at La Liga, either Real Madrid, Barcelona. You had the Armando Maradona in Sevilla. So it comes from, I would say, inheritance. Then when you move to the second generation Hispanics, these are younger, more digital, I would say a little less loyal in the sense that, yes, they follow La Liga and they can be interested in a specific team. But then they also have the NFL team and they could have a team in Premier League that they also follow or the local MLS team that they attend the games. So it's a more, I would say, fluid demographic. And then of course, with the two biggest powerhouse, I would say in almost like the soccer world with Real Madrid and Barcelona, it's a very attractive product for the more, I would say, casual general market soccer fun in the US. That one is diverse, young, multicultural. And sometimes is the harder one to attract to La Liga. But that's where we have developed a number of different strategies to try to have a lot of entry points in that funnel to make sure that we attract this, I would say, multiple layer strategy of fans. So with the younger fans, do you have a good idea of where they're coming from if they're not coming necessarily directly from their parents? Are they coming through social media? Are they coming through? I mean, obviously La Liga has this partnership with the sports as their naming partner or the league itself as well as being a part of the club of the video game. Are you seeing a big shift for that? Whenever we do our research in the US, the US always at work, our outbreaks, any other country apart from Saudi Arabia in terms of access points in the football through video game. All of the above, like, you know, this typical answer. It really depends on, as I say, like the different layers that we were talking on the fans. But this is why one of the first things that we did when we started this adventure was setting up a content studio that focused solely on creating content for the US and Mexican markets in Canada, obviously. Why? Because like for the specific demographic, the second generation and the general market soccer fan, you needed to have, like, short form content. You needed to have digital products that were closer to them, whether it is the fantasy or whether it is through EIFC, as you were mentioning. We've seen a lot of interest in profiles that you will not even think of just because they access or they get attracted to La Liga through a different platform or entry point that the traditional TV. It is true that when you specifically talk about the Hispanics, sometimes is an inheritance process, meaning my father is a real Madrid fan or my grandfather was a real Madrid fan. I used to watch the games with them at home. So though I become a real Madrid fan or maybe a Barcelona fan just because I want to be, you know, an opposite to the family tradition in that sense. When we speak to leaders from other leagues, I try to break into other markets whether market is the US or the Middle East or South America wherever else it might be, there's a tendency to usually pick the players who are native to that league. So Middle East and players in different divisions is actually this kind of thing. So there isn't a huge amount of compared to in the past. There's a huge amount of Mexican players playing in La Liga right now. What's the strategy there? Do you still look for those nationalities or do you kind of go more for the the high profile players? Is it been so more on the likes of you? I'm going to be doing bappies and you're an Antoine Griezmann's as opposed to trying to find local market look interest. It's a very good question, Paul. I think when you tap into specific markets and I have some experience in the past working in the international development of La Liga from Madrid, the Asian market, for example. It's a very, I would say, a hero-oriented market. They need to have a hero that they follow, that they want to watch and they want to follow and they want to see behind the scenes to get attracted to it. I don't think that necessarily applies to the Hispanics and we need to understand specifically that it is not a single cluster. Like what the Malan has nothing to do with the Salvadorian or has little to do with the Salvadorian or a Mexican or an Argentinian. Like each one of these communities, we are talking several millions of people in the U.S. are different in that sense. And I feel the difference between these Asian soccer fans, for example, with what we see with the Hispanics or the South American and Central American is that you don't need to explain to them why they should follow a specific team. They have had legends playing there forever. You had the your Colombia and they have a surroliga, the Peebe Valderrama. If you are Mexican as I was saying, like you had uosanches, you have like La Yuen, you have like Guadado, like there's been a tradition and I would say a sort of culture around La Liga being the where all the best players of this community is travel to. Now say, having said that when we are talking about the general soccer market, that's where you need these big names. That's where the M-Bapest, that's where the Bellingams, that's where the Laminjamal now are really being the ones that are moving the needle. Grisman, when you see him exploring other collaborations with the NFA, with the NBA, these fans see these things and they say, why is this guy at an NBA game? Who is him? And then they try to follow. You can go even and expand beyond lifestyle, culture, music. There's a lot of angles that suddenly are the, I would say the interest detonator for a fan and then the fan tries to explore more what is it that makes like that team or that player special and why they should follow them. So when it comes to other leagues and I mentioned some local leagues in the US, but obviously there is a lot competition in the US from external leagues. Where do you see your competition? Because it must be very, let's go into the Hispanic market as well. I mean, League Ramex, they quite clearly are after the US market, the US Hispanic market as well. The Premier League, a pretty much after every market, the Champions League is a bigger threat so a lot of leagues these days. Is that, are you seeing yourself as a second choice, a first choice, a third? What's the M strategy there? I think Paul, the biggest competitors are time and attention. It's not even any more league versus league or even soccer versus NBA or like I'm trying to have you decide into chime into watching a league again versus watching a show on Netflix or going for dinner or breakfast in that sense because in the US games are early in the morning with your significant others. So I feel time and attention are the biggest, I would say, competitors that we are all fighting for. I want to think that especially in the soccer ecosystem, the US especially is a sufficient enough vast and big and diverse market for I would say multiple leagues to have the capacity to impact differently the growth of soccer in the country. And we've seen that, we've seen even collaborations with other soccer leagues, Bundesliga being on ESPN 2 and in the end it really like lift all boats in that sense when we have an approach that is not necessarily like I'm fighting against you or the other like even sometimes the games are not even at the same time. We are not even in the same TV window. So what we want is to make sure that the interest for soccer keeps growing and that people choose soccer as part of the, I would say, culturally or emotionally a driver for their free time. Yeah, the more often we chat to executives in the US, that does seem to be the the common phrase, the high tide lift so ships phrases, it doesn't use quite often in a sense where you all try to self-sock and grow that as a fan and then you can have fans who, as you say, they may have a Bundesliga team, a LL, an MLS team, whatever their favorite so and then you can all, you'd much rather create soccer fans necessarily than rather create a dedicated league fan. If you don't have a strong local league, it's very hard being a foreigner if you want to become your first option. I don't care if a fan watches Real Madrid in the morning and then they are a follower of Atlanta United in the evening. That's good for everybody because we are able to in some ways leverage the power of soccer and the same way goes to other verticals. I mentioned before grassroots, we do have programs where we try to provide access to underserved communities to play soccer, whether it is through free summer camps or working with the US soccer foundation in renovating peaches and things like that. We select some players and bring them over to Spain for 15 days to train and play against La Liga Academy teams and what we want is these players then go back to their local team and keep training and have had an international experience that allow them to move to the next step in their career. It's not a, I'm not trying to find the new American soccer legend or soccer player for La Liga. That's not how it works. It's very complicated with the level or the performance development that we are expecting from these players in La Liga team. Go back to Atlanta United analogy, we use a second to go. Do you think that there's a need to be strongling behind players or players, fans, experiencing live soccer in a stadium and that can help them convert, ins and maybe sitting down and having breakfast and watching and watching La Liga because we'll get on to applying La Liga match in the US in a short time. But I can imagine if you're a fan and you need that in, but then go to a match and have the experience of watching whether it's that Lansing United game into Miami game doesn't really matter. But having that live soccer experience that then makes you a lot more of an easier style when it comes to kind of going, you enjoyed that. Watch this in the pub, watch this in the bars, watch this at home. I think so. I think it's, and it doesn't necessarily need to be going to the stadium to watch an Atlanta United game. It could be just having the capacity to play soccer. If you don't even have facilities to play and have some relationship with it that is beyond just watching on TV, like you're going to choose another option. You're going to choose going to an NBA game or going to an NFL game or going to Cirque du Soleil or whatever it is because it is how we typically try to, I would say, experience free time, spending time with people and have some social interactions. So I do agree with you. Sometimes that you mentioned that before, the EFC is the entry point, like the capacity to play on a video game. And you don't necessarily need to be a crazy soccer fan, but you try the game, you like it. And then suddenly you know all the electrical and materials by heart or the different players on La Liga because you are buying packs and trying to improve your team. These are like different entry points. If these options are not available, it is complicated for the work that we do every day to interest you in La Liga. We can do like we've done this year. We are like executing like six different big weekend activations called partidazo where we do pick up soccer tournaments and watch parties in six different cities across the US. But that's not enough to cover the whole country. You need to have proper soccer ecosystem that runs well and provide options for you to express the love for the beautiful sport. So let's talk about watching La Liga on TV then. It must be an easy sum. There's no disrespect to the rest of the league. An easier sell to get fans watching El Clasca watching Rammel Dread vs. Barcelona. But this actually only happens if you exclude Europe and Cup competitions twice a year. It must be harder to get them to watch the smaller teams. How would you do that? Do you have separate tactics? Do you have kind of tempo or moments or specific darbys that you try to educate fans on or players that you need to educate them on? Yes. So I think it's a good problem to have to have real money that I'm about to run out of that league. I think our job will be much more complicated if we didn't have these two powerhouses. Now, having said that, one of the biggest differences between La Liga North America, the joint venture and the operation that we have created in the US versus what I've seen from other leagues doing in this market is you need to be in the market and have a close relationship with the broadcasters that own your rights to make sure that you are able to provide and generate the proper storytelling for people to get hooked with a Girona. A couple of years ago, as you know, Girona had an amazing run. The viewership went through the roof for that club. The sports performance has to do with the performance on the pitch for sure. So we work very closely with the SPN in providing shoulder programming, creating high-level productions, documentary style around why there's the biggest bass community in Boise Idaho in the world outside of the bass country and how they follow a ledity club and why you should care about that or why there's a crowd. crazy via Real Fan in the, I would say, outskirts of LA that his whole house is painted yellow, his car is yellow and he loves via real beyond anything else. These kind of stories, you need to be in the market. You need to be close to the broadcaster and you need to have a very close collaboration. If you add to that the content studio in Guadalajara, you have the capacity to not only be here and find the stories but also produce content around these stories and serve it to the different partners to make sure that they keep capitalized on them. And then it's understanding, as you say, is there a specific player, Fidalgo now in Real Betis, is crushing the numbers in social media, destroying them. Like we haven't seen these numbers, even more than some Real Madrid or Alético de Madrid or Barcelona players. So we try to capitalize on these things as a trend and we tell ESPN, "Hey, guys, you should put attention because it is outperforming any other kind of content, any content that we do with Fidalgo." And then they reinforce the coverage for the Betis games in that case. And there are two follow-up questions for there. What is he doing in this different social media? Why are his numbers blowing up? It's basically like the connection with Mexico and in general with the Hispanic community. Like sometimes you find these sort of like, I don't know, connections or I would say legacy or his performance in the national team in other events and then suddenly players wants to get connected there. You know? So what we try different content, for example, with Almeida coaches. Like sometimes coaches could be your, I would say, ambassadors or your images in the market if you don't have a specific player that represents that demographic. And we have seen that content like that sometimes help us support, I would say, a specific match day that we want to promote. To the point where our graphics are a coach against a coach to promote a game instead of like the players of that team. You know, it's finding these stories what matters in the end. And the second follow-up question was, "Boys Idaho has the second largest bass community outside of the bass country in Spain." How does that happen? Yes, I'm not an expert in history, so please take it like with a grain of salt. But yeah, basically, I think it was during the civil war, there was a need for shepherds, specifically in that region in the US. And there was a whole community that migrated together. And as a very, I would say, proud people that the bass people are, they wanted to maintain kind of like their origins and their habits and their language and their dances and their sports. So there's a space there called the Basque block, which is basically a whole neighborhood dedicated to maintain the tradition of the bass country. So as a company, we've seen massive growth in YouTube in recent years. But we're not alone in that. So the league, you're as well, back in 2024, the league was the first league in the world which 10 million subscribers. Today is the most subscribed to league on the platform. And we're on the Barcelona team of subscribe to teams. And first of all, I assume YouTube is a huge entry point for fans in the US as well. But is there a reason why you think the league is up to that? I mean, there is obviously a lot of competition for me. Any chart you see always has the Premier League heading shoulders by the other European leagues. What's the league even doing different on YouTube? I appreciate it. You could do a whole show on this, I appreciate it. Yeah. And I'm not an expert on content specifically in that sense. But like my, what I've learned working here is a lot of leagues were just like taking the highlights, putting them on YouTube. And that's it. There was not a real YouTube strategy or a shoulder programming on YouTube to cover what was happening for La Liga. That was not an option. We understood that digital was centrally, was not secondary. And we needed to have a specific strategy around every single social media platform. Specifically on YouTube, I think it's about like consistent publishing, making sure that you have local content or local relevant content for specific targets that you are trying to engage or activate. I'll say player driven storytelling when possible, collaborating with our clubs to get access to these kind of content. It's important because as you say before, for some communities, that's what really like drives the interest. And then the highlights, you know, it's the crown jewel in the sense that a lot of people or younger demographics sometimes will not watch a whole game or will not have time to watch the whole game. I'm not very aligned with people that say that the attention spam is very low for these demographics because then they go to Twitch and they watch for five hours straight. So it depends on the content. But then they watch a highlight. They love. Like it's insane. They didn't expect something like that. And that helps to, as you say, as an entry point to convert them in, I would say more loyal fans. That is the tough part is not easy. Is how do you get somebody that just watched randomly because you know, now, especially with shorts, you just like swipe up and then suddenly it appears to a more loyal fan or something that is more, I would say, an avid follower of La Liga. You've alluded to already in this conversation already, the importance of getting into kind of football adjacent themes, whether it's music, fashion, etc, things like this. It's something which the US has always been very well known for, whether it's kind of fits before an NBA game or the importance of music for the Super Bowl. What is it that La Liga are doing here? So what specifically your partners are doing to kind of capitalize on this? How are they making sure that their content or your content doesn't just kind of hit the football fans, it hits maybe another soccer curious that are interesting, another wider culture? Yeah. So that is where our partners are key to the strategy, meaning we have developed a solution based approach. It's a very use term. Everybody says it, but like this is true in the way that we approach our sponsorship partners. What I mean by that is we try to understand, for example, let me put you specific examples. Walmart. It decides to start investing in sports sponsorship. They haven't done it before and they've chosen soccer and in particular La Liga and MLS. They are creating a whole retail section for soccer into their digital ecosystem. They want to own the biggest soccer moments in history or at the moment if you want. So we have created a whole platform around it, classical. Of course, they want to own the best soccer moments. It's a classic for La Liga and we organize massive events. I'm talking like five to 10,000 people in Houston, which you have like a Mexican traditional Norteña's band playing before the game. Then you have the game watch party happening. A ton of activations around soccer. You can buy merchandise. So you are mixing in the same event pure soccer watching the game with La Liga Legends, with lifestyle. You can buy gear. You can buy not only the jerseys of the clubs, but also like specific like I would say merchandise that you can personalize. You have activations. You have music. You have food. So when you link all of these things together, the chances for you to attract somebody that may not be necessarily interested in soccer, but may want to go to an event with their friends to enjoy something like this for free are much higher. McDonald's, for example, is a different example. They are trying to provide access to soccer to underserved communities in particular Hispanics, but not only Hispanics and promote the healthy line of products around breakfast because they've seen one of the big research done in the US that I don't remember how many percent of kids go to school without having breakfast and how important breakfast it is for kids. So we put together a series of La Liga summer camps free of charge for up to 200 players per market to come to a soccer camp organized by La Liga and they have breakfast with McDonald's and then we have a fan fest and other things. There's no watch party. There's no product as La Liga in the sense of watching a game tied to this, but the whole platform makes sense for the challenge that McDonald's was trying to solve. So when you have an approach like that, you are able to impact in different, I would say, interest points and attract these people to your product or to your property in these sense. You mentioned food. That was far less than interesting one because I'm quite guilty of this as well. I always associate football and culture and the top two are fashion and music always. But I had a similar conversation with Syria about a year ago actually and food came up then as an entry point, mostly because of once again, because the population in the US are Italian and a lot of Americans have their first age to put into Italian culture is going to be through food. Is that big one for you then? You mentioned having the warm example there and having food trucks or similar. Do you think that overlooks slightly the importance of food and fans to get through these things? It depends on the target audience. Hispanics in particular is food, religion, music and soccer. So these are the pillars of how they socially relate to each other. It's a. around it's a family lunch you cannot miss every Saturday with mama cooking for everybody and everybody there at home. So food is a big and important aspect of the culture and the tradition. I will say less so maybe for the general market or the casual soccer fun, but this is America like everybody's used to go to a five hour NFL game and have your hot dogs, your beers and sometimes you wonder if people are there for the game or they are there for the food and the you know tailgate. So I think you have to have it as another like vector that you need to provide for if you want your events or your I would say like executions to be successful. Content wise we haven't done a lot related to food talking about his Spanish food, but there's opportunities there for sure. It's more I would say the specific demographic that we are able to mobilize really gets I would say interest in these aspects for sure. So obviously the most all the biggest most I catch in way to grow fan in the US is or was the proposal to bring Ville Royale and Barcelona to Miami for a league game. There were supports, there were protests, ultimately it was councils. Where do those plans sit now and how important is it to move this forwards and is there a need to kind of like change the approach or where are we with that situation. Yes, so the Miami game game I think it was a very it's a very important I would say part of the strategy in the sense that we think it's necessarily that this conversation happens and that like European leagues find a way to I would say properly develop internationally if they wish to, but at the same time there's a lot of stakeholders that you need to take into consideration and I'm not talking only about who needs to approve or not if the game has to take place or not. I'm talking local fans need to understand why this is important for the sustainability and growth of La Liga in Spain to bring these these games abroad. Players the same coaches, everybody needs to be on board for this to be successful and I think one of the reasons why we didn't decided to pursue was because we felt that not all the stakeholders were where we needed them to be for this to be a real success. And that sense what is important to highlight is everything I talk about before like we have created an operation that is sophisticated and strong enough to not need the game as a matter of survival. You know, we have a solid strategy. We've been profitable since year three. We've generated $77 million in revenue in the past seven years. If you look at that in more detail, 36 million of these 77 have been reinvested in the market and the other 41 go back to the club and the clubs can take that money and reinvested in the market at their own level. So the game is not going to make a break or make the the strategy in the US. The strategy in the US is solid and we are here for 20 years like the general manager was signed for 20 years. Now we do believe that if we want to be a league that is seen as innovative bold that takes risks and we I would say care about our fans. I would think there's nothing better for fans in the US than to be able to experience something that maybe they will never be able to experience because traveling to Europe and paying for all of that is not easy that we need to pursue and keep trying to to bring that game. But we need to make sure that all the stakeholders are aligned and that's what we are working on. So clearly having a look at how an other league again in the US is important but obviously the biggest funnel when it comes to football fandom is the World Cup. It brings in fans who are, in other words, passionate fans already. It brings in those who maybe have never watched a game in their life but want to follow the national team which you have for that nation maybe. It's, firstly, it's kind of how I go into football. I start to point out the event as because I saw Italy and Baja at USA 94. What is it that the league are doing? Is there a specific plan to capitalize on the US World Cup? Are you going to target in players or in teams that have a lot of league representatives or is this more of kind of a long-term thing where you're not focused on the roughly 30 plus days of the tournament and it's going to become a bit more? Well, you nailed it. We need to understand, as you say, that the World Cup is a 30 plus days. The KPI for the World Cup is going to be a viewership. It's like who's able to in some ways make themselves be seen during that period of time is what everybody is trying to do. I got to say Paul, a lot of people don't even have a clue on how they want to activate around the World Cup and we are like a couple of months from the World Cup to happen. We do have some plans more generic to be there where the fans are going to be and make sure that we are part of the conversation but in any means we are trying to be a main player is not our competition. I feel what is important is to think on the legacy and the long term after the World Cup. If your ship is the KPI for this summer, retention is going to be the KPI after September. It's who is able to be there and have a solid offer for you Paul that got interested in Italy because of whatever and now wants to continue to follow or be close to the soccer experience and you don't have any options around you. The whole strategy that we put together, the structure, the operation that we have set allows us to have a lot of options for fans to continue to engage with soccer and specifically with La Liga if they wish to whether it is through TV and ESPN and the distribution strategy, live events that we put together, the grassroots problems for their kids you name in and we have it or we are trying to have anything like something for you, whoever you are and whoever you want to relate to soccer, we are trying to have a solution for you in that sense. So do you, whether it's personally or professionally have a team that you are going to be rooting for maybe a couple of teams that you want to see do well? Come June July. Yeah, I have an issue. I'm half French, half Spanish. So I'm always going to win whatever way it works. I don't know, I don't know, we'll see but I'm always in that situation. If ever they play together, I have to choose one and I'm not like, I would say, I don't want to have that conversation between my mom and my dad. But yes, mostly I follow like Spain and France in the in the world class, but it depends. Sometimes you suddenly like see a team playing like Croatia a couple of years ago and you're like, wow, this team is amazing on what they are doing, like beating everybody. It's insane. So sometimes you can also get, I would say, interested in a different team. Once yours have already got eliminated just to be clear. Well, I think if you're spreading your bets across Spain and France, I don't think it's going to be too sad to come to the real scene of the tournament. Nico, it's been a pleasure having you on. Thanks a lot, boy. And best of luck. I'm the best of luck with everything after that as well. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks a lot, boy. Thank you.