Barça Innovation Hub boosts online education enrollments

The coronavirus pandemic has developed a significant change in the professional and education fields, modifying the daily routines of many people who have been pushed to use telematic tools and have left online education as the only alternative to continue with their activity.

Considering this situation, Barça Innovation Hub (BIHUB), the center of knowledge and innovation of FC Barcelona, throughout its e-learning platform, Barça Universitas, has seen a significant increase on the enrollments of their online programs that offer education on different fields related to the Sports Industry.

During last April, Barça Universitas, nearly tripled the number of new students in comparison with the same period in 2019. They passed from 340 to 997 new enrolled students which is an increase of 193%. This also represents an increase of 110% in March 2020 compared to March 2019 when they just had 474 new enrollments where we could see the trend of the online education market with the measures of home confinement stablished on March 16th. This number of enrollments in April 2020 is even more remarkable because it overcomes the number of students enrolled in the 2016/2017 season, the season when Barça Universitas was launched when they had 983 enrollments in the entire season.

Marta Plana, Secretary of the Club’s Board of Directors as well as Barça Innovation Hub responsible has outlined: “The Club decided to go for online education throughout Barça Universitas (BIHUB’s education platform) and it has become in the actual context in a strategic tool not only for the present time but also for the future. With the e-learning platform we have developed one of BIHUB’s main goals which is sharing knowledge and developing professionals in the Sports Industry as well as seeking new revenue streams for the Club”.

Today the online platform has 25 online programs where 15.000 students from more than 125 different countries come to study and learn. The themes and areas covered by these online programs is broad and it covers: training methodology, nutrition, psychology, sports performance, leadership, sports management, sports communications, sports marketing amongst others.

In the middle of the current situation four new programs have been launched to join the already existing ones: Physiotherapy and Readaptation for Muscle Injuries in Football (Juanjo Brau, Head of Phisiotherapy of FC Barcelona and Football’s First Team’s physiotherapist), Certificate in Basketball Training Process Optimization (Jairo Vazquez, Strength and Conditioning Coach of the FC Barcelona Basketball’s First Team), Sports Ticketing (Octavi Tarrés and José Luis Beltrán, from the Ticketing and Facilities Management Area of FC Barcelona) and Sports Digital Marketing (Geoff Wilson, well known expert in the field and the Sports Industry).

 Barça Universitas, BIHUB’s education platform

Barça Universitas, BIHUB’s education platform that covers offline and online education, was born at the same time as BIHUB with the main goal to help the future generations of professionals of the Sports Industry acquiring knowledge and talent as well as helping transmit the knowledge of the Club and of our professionals and other recognized experts and institutions in the Sports Industry.

At this moment the knowledge area is part of BIHUB’s platform and has developed an ecosystem with global partners all around the World with more than 30 different Universities amongst them we can find: Georgetown, ISDE, ESADE, la UB, la UPC, Blanquerna, Johan Cruyff Institute or INEFC.  Barça Universitas has also developed 8 different master’s where more than 500 students have already studied.