Barcelona Dragons prepare their return to the Catalan capital for 2024

Barcelona Dragons prepares its return to the Catalan capital. The Spanish American football franchise, owned by businessmen Bart Iaccarino and Carlos Alonso, is preparing to return to Barcelona for the 2024 season. The entity began operating in December 2020 as Gladiators Football Costa Daurada and signed an agreement with the Reus City Council to be based in the city. In March of last year, it reached an agreement with the European League of Football (EFL) to recover the name of the legendary franchise.

“The future lies in returning to Barcelona; we are in Reus because of how well they treat us, but the numbers are not what we are looking for, we have to do better, so in 2024 we hope to return to the capital”, explains Iaccarino to Palco23. “We had an empty stadium and first-class facility, but the EFL reached an agreement with the National Football League (NFL) to bring back the teams from Europe and we didn’t hesitate when they gave us the opportunity to bring the Dragons back.”

On the other hand, the manager assures that he will not be associated with FC Barcelona again because “fans are two different profiles, our challenge is to generate our fans and have our followers in the city”. Increasing the franchise’s base and fans will go through “cultivating small dragons and that they be the ones who take them to the field, spreading word of mouth and making propaganda in the streets and at school”.

Barcelona Dragons will not associate with FC Barcelona again

To continue with its expansion, The entity has a financing round open that it expects to close in August, raising between 400,000 euros and 600,000 euros. To develop the franchises, the founders invested around 250,000 euros. “We have gone from being a limited company to a public limited company and now we are starting a recruitment campaign,” he explains. “We are in talks with local and foreign investors who want to enter, we are not closed to a specific number,” he clarifies.

In January of this year, Iaccarino founded the company Barcelona Dragons 2021 with a share capital of 60,000 euros and whose corporate purpose was “participation in official sports competitions in the form of American football, the promotion and development of sports activities, as well as of other activities related to or derived from said practice, such as advertising, marketing, brands, training, sale and distribution of material”.

For the current season, the entity has a budget of 670,000 euros, an amount that it wants to repeat for the following year. In order to cover it, the manager hopes to sign more sponsorship agreements, after having reached one with Bodegas Yzaguirre as official sponsor.

The franchise enters between 40,000 euros and 60,000 euros if it fills the stadium

Currently, 50% of ticket revenue comes from the ticketingsince, if he achieves the sold outyou can enter between €40,000 and €60,000 per matchup. The rest of the entity’s income comes from the fee for the 170 subscribers, spending on the match day as restoration and merchandisein addition to other actions that the entity can promote.

The challenge now is to stop depending on the ticketing. “Yzaguirre has been our first sponsor, but we are looking for other partners that they bet on this sport, ”says the manager. In addition, the entity has exchange agreements with Schara, San Miguel, FlaixFM, Reboots, Coca Cola, Codorniu, Donjoy, Solemade and Rexssport.

In the future, and with the goal of returning to Barcelona, ​​”the ideal would be to cover the budget with sponsorship, being able to invest on match day, lower tickets or play in larger stadiums.”