Federico Grinberg, Co-Founder of Futbol Sites
What is needed to be an entrepreneur in the media?
To be an entrepreneur in the world of media, one needs a lot of virtues and qualities, including initiative, creativity and integrity, technological innovation and an unwavering compromise for customer service.
Federico, please tell us, what is Futbol Sites?
Futbol Sites is the largest network of soccer sites in Latin America, with the largest audience in its category, according to the latest ranking from Comscore from December 2014 (Sports Category/Latin America without Brazil)
How is the Futbol Sites Network put together? How many websites are included in the network?
Futbol Sites has 50 websites within its network, of which 20 are produced internally, representing 80 percent of the audience. The other 30 websites belong to Exclusive Publishers, who trust Futbol Sites for commercial representation. Only sites that produce premium content and who have large audiences, locally or regionally, are accepted as part of the Futbol Sites network.
What does it mean for Futbol Sites Network to be #1 LATAM in Ranking Comscore Sports?
It means confirmation by a third party of regional leadership in audience, which we had already been registering for a long time.
Knowing the soccer fan on the internet, what are the differences between users in each Latin American country (including versus the fans of other sports or versus fans in the U.S.)?
Let’s start with the south of the continent. The Argentinian and Uruguayan fan is similar: absolutely passionate, breathes soccer 24 hours a day, wakes up and goes to bed getting information about soccer, but above all about their club. They love their teams, the teams are their pride and passion, and I am not talking about small groups but a large percentage of their population. In these two countries, soccer is everything. Brazil is very similar to Argentina in the way it lives soccer, the main difference is the concept of fidelity: when the teams are doing badly, the fans do not support them as much. In Argentina, this is unique phenomenon, since there is an expectation and loyalty to the team during good and bad times, and that is reflected by the number of visitors to the web portals. On a lower step, I would include Chile, Colombia and Ecuador. Soccer is also a great passion there, and it is the major sport in each country, but with the exception of very high-scoring teams, the level of loyalty and fanaticism that exists in the other countries already mentioned does not exist. In these countries, the national selection also finds them more united, perhaps because they are not used to the achievements that countries like Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay have, and so their expectation and passion for their national selection is more intense. Mexico is a world apart, perhaps because while soccer is the number one sport in the country, there is also a lot of consumption of American sports, and their fanaticism for its teams is not a big as the rest of South America (with the exception of cities like Monterrey, or other high scoring teams). Central America is in a state of flux, especially Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, where, since they don’t have very strong local leagues, watching Barcelona with Messi or Real Madrid with Cristiano, becomes a matter of state and paralyzes millions of people. Then there is a group of countries with a much smaller futbol tradition like Nicaragua and Panama, but where a growing interest can be seen. Finally, there are the countries that are more Americanized in their interests, like Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean countries where Baseball is king.
How is the ranking of “Visitors by State” composed in the United States?
Considering our entire audience in the United States, the top 5 ranking is made up of California (20%), Texas (13%), New York (12.5%), Florida (9%) and Illinois (5%). But the presence and distribution of Hispanics throughout the United States is so spread out that we also have another 40% of the entire audience distributed throughout the other states.
Contact Federico Grinberg at http://advertising.futbolsites.net/contacts/