GOAT meets GOAT

Mission

When Lionel Messi moved to Paris Saint-Germain, Samba Digital secured an exclusive interview ahead of the world’s media – organizing a live Twitch broadcast between the Argentine star and Ibai, the world’s biggest sports streamer.

The interview, dubbed “GOAT meets GOAT” was watched live by 3m people, and resulted in an 100% increase in PSG’s Spanish-language Twitter account.

Here at Samba Digital, we are the digital agency for PSG in LATAM, Brazil and the US. And to be involved in one of the biggest stories in football history was something that deserved the team’s undivided attention.

Action

It was very important for the Samba team to do the story justice on the PSG Spanish, Portuguese and English channels, as the whole world was going to be watching Messi’s presentation in Paris. With this in mind, we moved quickly, contributing ideas to the global strategy of the in-house PSG Digital Media team.

Over the next few days, the team relocated to Paris and collaborated with PSG, providing value through special Messi graphics and a unique production with Ibai, the world’s biggest sport streamer. In addition to assisting the in-house team as needed.

Ibai’s arrival in Paris was something the team worked hard to achieve. He is a friend of Messi’s, even going to his farewell party at the player’s home in Barcelona just a few days before. As a result, the connection between them appears more genuine and fun on camera.

This interview took place at the stadium and was notable for being Messi’s first Twitch appearance. With Samba behind the camera, over 300,000 people from all over the world tuned in live to watch, resulting in a total of 2.7 million views.

In the days after the interview, the innovative approach to his presentation was covered by media across the world. With Bloomberg saying that “Messi’s Twitch interview shows how social media is conquering sport”.

All the major media outlets in Argentina (Clarin, Olé, La Nacion, ESPN, TyC Sports) and Spain (Marca, El Pais, AS, Goal) covered the activation. With Twitch highlighting the video, calling the interview “GOAT meets GOAT”!

Following that, the Spanish streamer posted his first ever Vlog on his YouTube channel, detailing his journey to Paris, which has been viewed over 5.6 million times.

The Samba Team stayed in Paris during the week and on the weekend to cover Messi’s pre-game presentation to the crowd. Tomás Marcó del Pont, Pedro Caffa, Tomás De Micheli, and Tom Carter were on hand to generate live content for the match against Strasbourg at the Parc des Princes. To finish off what had already been a crazy week, the team even became celebrities in Argentina by appearing on ESPN!

Taking Ibai to the Parc des Princes became a trending topic on the day he spoke to Leo Messi, and the Twitch live results demonstrates how vital it is for the club to connect with social media influencers.

Metrics

On the 5th of August, PSG’s Spanish Twitter channel had an impressive 523k; now it has over 1 million, nearly doubling in one month. It was also the first European football Spanish account to hit the 1 million mark.

The English account experienced comparable growth, going from 658k to over 1.1 million in the same time span. Even the Brazil account grew over 100k new followers in just a week! And that’s just for Twitter.

The club also added:

Instagram – 12M new followers
YouTube – 2M new subscribers
TikTok – 7M new followers
Facebook – 2M new followers

Their total of 132 million followers across all platforms still places them behind Barcelona (326m), Real Madrid (317m), and Manchester United (180m), but the gap has narrowed significantly. With Messi, Neymar, and Mbappe in their lineup, the distance between them and the rest of the league might close even further by the end of the season.