{"id":43556,"date":"2020-03-24T13:34:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T12:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cruyffalumni.org\/johancruyffinstitute-2026\/sponsorship-rakuten\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T07:14:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:14:59","slug":"sponsorship-rakuten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johancruyffinstitute.cruyffalumni.org\/en\/the-magazine\/football-business\/sponsorship-rakuten\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryoichi Fukaya: “The FC Barcelona sponsorship gives Rakuten credibility and a global audience”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryoichi\u00a0Fukaya, head of business development and innovation at Rakuten Europe and the person in charge of the FC Barcelona sponsorship, talks about the benefits of this relationship, which has positioned Rakuten as the most recognized sport sponsorship<\/a> brand in Spain<\/h2>\n

Rakuten is a relatively young brand, created in 1997 in post-millennial Japan, in a digital consumer society, with technological DNA and the desire to conquer the world. Sport sponsorship<\/a> has played a key role in its strategic expansion plan, to the point of its becoming the brand most recognized and associated with sport sponsorship in Spain. FC Barcelona<\/strong><\/a> has had a lot to do with that. “We are a Japanese company, but we do not define ourselves as a Japanese company. We are global,” says Ryoichi Fukaya<\/strong><\/a>, head of business development and innovation at\u00a0Rakuten<\/a> Europe<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Ryo, as he likes to be called, has lived in Barcelona for two and a half years and is in charge of the FC Barcelona<\/strong> sponsorship<\/a>, an alliance initiated in the 2017-18 season that was announced with great fanfare in November 2016. “To be honest, before the association with FC Barcelona<\/strong>, few people had heard of\u00a0Rakuten<\/strong><\/a> and the services we offer,” says Ryo. The Japanese manager recently gave the students of the Master in Football Business in partnership with FC Barcelona<\/strong><\/a> an interesting talk on the brand’s expansion policy and the benefits of the FC Barcelona<\/strong> sponsorship. After the session, he was kind enough to sit in front of our camera to talk about this relationship.<\/p>\n

Rakuten<\/strong><\/a> means \u2018optimism\u2019 in Japanese and it is a company that is defined by its philosophy of empowering people, companies and societies through innovation and technology. The company has nearly 1.3 billion users worldwide spread across more than 70 businesses, spanning e-commerce, digital content, communications, and fintech (financial services that use technology to create innovative products).<\/p>\n

\"Ryoichi<\/p>\n

Rakuten <\/strong><\/a>entered the world of sport sponsorship in 2004 through the top Japanese baseball team, the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles<\/strong><\/a>, thereby managing to position its brand throughout the country. In 2009, the company moved into the world of tennis, sponsoring the Japan Open<\/strong><\/a>, an ATP 500. And in 2015, it acquired Vissel Kobe<\/strong><\/a>, the club with which it entered the Japan professional football league, the J-League<\/strong>. Having achieved recognition at home, it was time to cross borders and open up to the world. In 2017, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of its founding, Rakuten chose three top-level partners to set about conquering the world: it closed its sponsorship deal with FC Barcelona<\/strong><\/a> for an initial period of four years; it became the main sponsor of the Golden State Warriors<\/strong><\/a>, who retained their title as NBA champions; and it became the official e-commerce partner of the J-League<\/strong>. To these great investments, it would add the sponsorship of the Spartan Race<\/strong><\/a>, the largest resistance and obstacle course on the planet, in 2018, and the Davis Cup<\/strong><\/a>, in 2019.<\/p>\n

Rakuten<\/strong>‘s international sponsorship<\/a> is very strategic and goes beyond just putting a logo on the shirt. The Golden State Warriors<\/strong><\/a> is the team from San Francisco, the city that gave birth to the powerful Silicon Valley<\/strong>, the heart that pumps technology and innovation around the world. Parallel to the agreement with the Warriors<\/strong>, they closed a deal with the NBA to broadcast live games in Japan. Rakuten Vissel Kobe<\/strong><\/a> ‘rescued’ Andr\u00e9s Iniesta<\/strong><\/a> when he decided that his best days at Bar\u00e7a had come to an end, and invited him to Japan to make him the greatest idol in the Japanese league and, in turn, \u201cintroduce a new football philosophy,\u201d explains Ryo. It is no coincidence either that Rakuten<\/strong><\/a> made its mark on the new Davis Cup<\/strong><\/a> when it changed its format to call itself the World Cup of Tennis. The values that Rakuten <\/strong>shares with all its partners are clear: innovation and internationalization. FC Barcelona<\/strong><\/a> reflects, even more so if possible, those same values about which Ryo Fukaya<\/strong><\/a> speaks in this interview for Johan Cruyff Institute<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n