Who is the owner of Capitanes CDMX, the Chilango almost NBA team? This is the story of the ‘axolots’ – El Financiero

As great fans of this sport, both partners found inspiration in one of the most memorable matches, the farewell of Kobe Bryant in April of that year: “It went from the typical talk of friends to doing something that was a reality,” he adds.

Under the technical direction of the Spanish Ramon DiazCapitanes debuted in the LNBP in 2017 and the fans were so eager to have professional basketball so close again that the legendary Juan de la Barrera Olympic Gymnasium It had more than 5 thousand people in the stands.

Following the success of the first few seasons, the team was invited to partner with the G-League. This is how Capitanes became the first Latin American franchise in linking with the NBA.

It was presented as the best offer for those who missed sports burst in the capital, however, the debut in Mexico had to wait and the 2021-2022 debut season took place on American soil due to covid restrictions.

This approach helped them observe the work of other teams and talk about their strategies to achieve success in this business. Already in the 2022-2023 seasonwith a larger work team to meet the demands of the new challenge with the best league in the world, took to the field in Mexican territory.

Who owns Captains of Mexico City?

In addition to being the owner of Capitanes, with a bet as ambitious as reaching a place in the NBA, Moisés Cosío He is a filmmaker, art collector and heir to a banking and real estate fortune in Mexico.

In interviews, Cosío has reported that even hours before the announcement of the agreement with the NBA to join the G-League, not everything was assured, so that final stretch was full of adrenaline. An emotion that surely relives every time his team steps on the court to continue making history.

He has always witnessed the best basketball in the world on the edge of the court, but his dreams are also on the big screen. Moses founded Detail Films and has been a producer of films such as Museum, Endless poetry, Secret memories, You will know what to do with me and Our time, in addition to the documentaries: 1982: The President’s Decision and Beautiful at night.

Where does the Capitanes CDMX team play?

“It was a very drastic change (going) from what the LNBP was to the G-League,” says Nuño. Capitanes had to move 18 kilometers from Juan de la Barrera, in the Benito Juárez mayor’s office, to settle in his new house, the Mexico City Arenain the Azcapotzalco mayor’s office.

The operations manager adds: “We required a much larger space“We needed to comply with certain demands made by the NBA that the Arena meets, since they have developed many regular season events.”

The challenge was “to start generating a consumer base new in the north of the city”, a headquarters far from other sports franchises in the south.

How profitable is Capitanes, the CDMX basketball team?

“We are close to it”responds Nuño Pérez-Pla to the question about the profitability of the franchise.

“The process of break even (balance point in accounts) It’s going to be shorter than what we had projected because We have managed to grow at a fairly good rate”, he adds and projects that they could reach it next season.

The great entry to the NBA G-League It also meant a restructuring of brand strategies to be at the level of what the best league in the world offers.

“We made a very good strategy to make a very strong leap in quality in all the merchandising offer we had, all the sponsorship assets and all the experiences we offer within the arena,” says Nuño Pérez-Pla.

The operations director of Capitanes adds that all this effort was to position itself “as the most premium property currently in the territory because, no matter the sport, we have the peculiarity of being the only team that is constantly competing in a North American league.”

This feature of Capitanes presents challenges and at the same time the opportunity to capture two different markets. “We have the possibility of impacting locally and also generating a very close interaction with all Mexicans and Hispanics living in the United States”.

According to Nuño, Capitanes’ main sources of income are:

• Ticketing
• Commercialization promotional items
• Sponsorships: They have managed to attract new brands such as: La Moderna and Revlon
• Academy: They have nine in Mexico City and one in Pachuca, impacting more than 480 children

Moving to a larger stage with superior amenities represented an advantage for the team because they went from having attendance of 1,200 people at the Juan de la Barrera Gymnasium to averaging 7 thousand attendees this year at the Arenato the point that the expectation is break records in the NBA.

Will Captains become an NBA team?

One of the objectives is make this a representative team of the country and not only from Mexico City, as Pérez-Pla explains. The NBA has expansion plans to integrate new franchises and Capitanes wants to be “one of the standard bearers of that project and we hope that we can be part of that process.”

However, Nuño recognizes that the decision between the cities that could be candidates does not depend on them: “We have to constantly demonstrate that Mexico is a country with high demand for basketballthat this is a city with the business structure to come and consume games.”

“There is a lot of talk about Las Vegas, Miamias sports capitals that are increasingly betting on that, but I think that Mexico City is a city that has been attracting all the sports you can imagine in recent years,” highlights Pérez-Pla about the way in which this great capital has been involved to diversify the entertainment offer.