CASE STUDY
Saudi Arabia has big sporting ambitions. In recent years, the nation has made big plays in golf, tennis, and Formula One. It sees sport as a vehicle to engage its young population, improve fitness, and change perceptions of the country. Its most eye-catching investment, unsurprisingly given the game’ s global reach, has been in football.
Some of the world’ s biggest names have signed for teams in the Saudi Pro League, helping raise attendances and global viewership figures. This has been followed by the biggest deal of all: Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 FIFA World Cup, the first-ever 48- team tournament to be held in a single country.
One of Saudi Arabia’ s leading football clubs, Al-Nassr FC, is owned by the state-controlled Public Investment Fund. Cristiano Ronaldo is the league’ s most highprofile player, and he has 115 + million followers on X and 651 million on Instagram. Al-Nassr club has become the most-followed team by football fans outside Saudi Arabia as well.
Alawwal Park Stadium, where Al-Nassr plays its home games, will temporarily expand its capacity from 27,000 to 46,000 for the FIFA World Cup 2034. The stadium will continue to be used for university sports, community use, and women’ s football.
Analysis by B Kink Fire Analytics and KPMG found that the Al-Nassr FC club had 1.178 billion total engagements across 15 media platforms in 2023 and 60 + million global followers. Al-Nassr has created $ 680 million in brand visibility in 2023, making it the seventh biggest football club in the world.
Al-Nassr continues to set the benchmark for brand visibility and engagement in Saudi Arabia and globally. It has a strong presence across multiple media platforms and represents Saudi excellence on the global stage.
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