Neymar is now the highest salaried athlete on earth, but that doesn’t sound like his primary motivating factor in moving to Paris Saint-Germain. In a series of Instagram videos posted after the move, Neymar said that his father didn’t want him to leave Barcelona. He did it anyway because, in his words, “an athlete needs challenges.”
As long as Neymar was at Barcelona, he would be compared to Lionel Messi. Even after Messi retired and Neymar became the club’s biggest star, he wouldn’t have been able to escape Messi’s shadow. If he scored 73 goals in a season, fans would have focused less on the incredible accomplishment and more on analyzing how it stacked up against Messi’s famed 73-goal season. So he left.
In swapping Barcelona for PSG, Neymar has put a huge challenge in front of himself. There is no one to hide behind if he fails and no one who will receive more credit than him if PSG wins the Champions League. He’s also betting on his ability to make PSG into a bigger club than it is right now. As Gary Lineker put it...
That’s certainly true right now. But at Barca, he was blocked. Neymar thinks he’s taken one step back to give himself a better path to take two steps forward.
Can PSG get as much global exposure as Barcelona?*
In terms of television coverage, PSG has some work to do, but it’s not impossible for them to get on TV as often as Barcelona in key markets. They’re lucky that Brazil isn’t an issue — La Liga and Ligue 1 are equally accessible on Brazilian TV. Neymar’s biggest fans were already watching Brazilian stars play for PSG, and now even more Brazilians will be flipping over to PSG when they play at the same time as Barcelona.
The picture is a bit less rosy in China. Ligue 1 is on LeSports, which Christopher Lau of Wild East Football tells me is less accessible than the networks La Liga is on, PPTV and Guangdong Sports. However, Lau believes that Neymar’s move could ignite huge interest in PSG among Chinese soccer fans, which could cause these deals to change in the near future. PSG’s ability to cut into the dominant market share that clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United and Bayern Munich currently hold in China will be key to their long-term success.
Photo by Hong Wu/Getty Images
And then there’s the United States, where PSG and Barcelona are both on a channel owned by PSG chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi — beIN Sports. Since the channel went on the air, Barcelona games have pre-empted everything, causing PSG matches that overlap to be shown on a delay. It’s possible that Neymar’s capture could cause beIN Sports to change its broadcast strategy and put more PSG games on live TV, even if it means pushing Barca and Madrid to online-only or Spanish-only channels. BeIN Sports USA did not respond to a request for comment on this matter.
PSG has also been a second-tier team in terms of Champions League coverage, with Premier League clubs, Barca, Madrid and Bayern getting top billing. Interest in Neymar will lead to some tough decisions at FOX about which games to feature.
Branding opportunities at Le Meurice for, like, six days
Barcelona is a wonderful cosmopolitan city that rich and famous people often visit, but when it comes to celebrity-spotting, Barcelona is no Paris. While FC Barcelona often provides an excuse for famous people to visit Catalonia, celebrities are in Paris on a daily basis for every reason imaginable.
As cynical as this sounds and as revolting as it may be to serious soccer fans, it’s important for Neymar to become a huge global brand with penetration among people who don’t watch soccer. Instead of Neymar pointing at Calvin Harris, expect to see Jay-Z and Beyoncé pointing at Neymar in pictures in the near future
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