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Cool Story: Real Madrid Partners With Snapchat

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Real Madrid C.F. has figured out what it takes to win on the soccer field. The world's most valuable soccer team, with a valuation of $3.26 billion, calculated in May 2015 by FORBES, is now doing what it can to assert its dominance off the field of play. Placing a priority on social media expansion,  Real Madrid has honed in on one particular platform -- Snapchat -- and has brokered a deal to become Snapchat's first individual sports team with an "Official Story."

The first Official Live Story for Real Madrid will capture this coming weekend's highly anticipated match-up against FC Barcelona in what is referred to as ‘El Clásico’. It is a high profile event wherein Snapchat hopes to capture the best from a fight between Liga BBVA's first place (Barcelona) team against the second strongest (Real Madrid) in the league.

Spectators at the stadium will have the opportunity to submit their own Snaps to a Live Story option on their mobile devices for potential inclusion in the Story that will be curated by a dedicated team at Snapchat. The result will be a brief video broadcast that all of Snapchat's roughly 100 million daily active users will be able to access on their phones.

Within the past 24 hours, Real Madrid also launched its own Snapchat account.  According to Rafael de los Santos , Global Head of Digital for Real Madrid, in the 12 hours since launching a channel, Real Madrid has accumulated an average of 200,000 views per story posted.

"We keep an eye on every single social media network and have seen how Snapchat has been growing and growing in past few months . . . especially with millennials," said de los Santos. "We are very keen on taking advantage of every single channel out there to communicate with our fans and capture the next generation of fans."

While Real Madrid is new to Snapchat, it already has developed strong followings on other forms of social media. Real Madrid has accumulated over 85 million Likes on its official Facebook page and has a growing following on Twitter with more than 17.5 million followers at the moment.

"We have 450 million fans around the world. Our goal is to reach every single one of them regardless of whether they are here in Spain, Malibu or Alaska," said de los Santos. "This is a content driven deal. Monetization down the road may be an opportunity, but it isn't driving us right now."

Darren Heitner is a lawyer and the Founder of South Florida-based HEITNER LEGAL, P.L.L.C., which has a focus on Sports Law and Entertainment Law.