The first LaLiga Santander season without Lionel Messi in 17 years is a chance for reflection on the fact that Spanish football has lost its top stars in recent years, all for financial reasons.
For a while, LaLiga boasted arguably the three biggest names in world football and among the most recognisable figures in sport: Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
Boasting three icons like that is a luxury for any brand and it can be wholly transformative.
Just look at the NBA in the 1970s, the forgotten cousin of North American sports leagues with empty stands, a mixed bag of players, some very good but the league as a whole lacked something, as well as interest.
Then along game Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and the popcorn-making, money-generating machine clicked into action. A young Michael Jordan joined them a few years later and the NBA became the powerhouse industry it remains to this day.
The procession of stars has been constant ever since and the league is adored the world over, with incredible revenues that permit even average players to earn eye-watering sums of money.
The comparison is clear: LaLiga has lost its Bird, Johnson and Jordan in the space of just a few years. The brand enjoyed a period of massive expansion under Javier Tebas but has lost its way and must reflect on the successes and failures that have led it here.
Losing those three stars – and all of their departures were down to financial factors – is a lot to take and LaLiga must reinvent itself, as well as analyse what it could have done better. For example, in nine years of Clasicos involving Messi and Ronaldo – one of the most intense sports rivalries of all time – they didn’t appear together in the build-up to a single game.
Did LaLiga make the most of the opportunities these global stars gave it? Have they left a lasting legacy? The latter is a question that perhaps time will have to answer.
Now Tebas’ secret weapon is an investment fund, but in the Cold War atmosphere that exists between them, there was no chance Florentino Perez would let him control Real Madrid’s TV rights for the next 50 years.
