Global football in the US market. The internationalization of FC Barcelona and its media coverage

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to analyse the media coverage of the launch of FC Barcelona in NewYork (September 2016), when their commercial office was opened. Other specific objectives were to describe the club’s internationalization strategy and to understand how its values were portrayed in the media. The authors used methodological triangulation, based on an analysis of the discourse in 199 news items published in the media over 3 days, 10 press releases by the club, and in-depth interviews with journalists and club directors. The authors concluded that the discourse with two points of focus (one economic and one social) that has been established by FC Barcelona contributes to reinforcing its slogan ‘more than aclub in the world’. However, this is not achieved by appealing to traditional values, but through the capacity of the organization to alter and adapt these values to modern times. © 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.