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# 2 La Liga
The Premier League is easily the most marketable and followed league in the world, with television revenue for broadcast rights running into billions of pounds. Other European leagues can only look from afar and admire the Premier League's almost 30-year-old marketing model.
While La Liga does not have the same massive appeal as the Premier League, it was home to two of the greatest players of the current generation by a long way for the best part of almost a decade.
Ronaldo brought with him to La Liga a whole new generation of dedicated and passionate followers and it is unarguable that television viewership of La Liga increased with his arrival, as fans tuned in every week to watch their idol set or break a new record in the Primera Division.
The Ronaldo-Messi rivalry is well documented, with everyone on one side of the decade-long argument of who the better player is.
Such has been their utter dominance that all individual award ceremonies in the last ten years have been duopolized into their personal battleground and their competition has been so intense that it spawned a website dedicated to just the two's stats and records.
While it might be nearly impossible to determine who the better player is, the fact that the two best players played for the two biggest clubs in the same league at the same time was a momentous gain and marketing cash cow for La Liga.
El Clasico is the most watched club game of football in the world, with all the history and legendary players attached to it creating a special appeal.
However, the arrival of Ronaldo at Real Madrid in direct rivalry with Messi at Barcelona skyrocketed the popularity of the match as fans saw it as an opportunity for both players to come up face to face with one another and prove who the better player is.
There were always at least two La Liga matches involving both teams, with the Copa del Rey and Spanish Super Cup providing extra platforms for El Clasico to take place and the LFP (Spanish football authority) took the opportunity to cash in on the popularity of its marquee fixture as millions of viewers from around the globe tuned in for Messi and Ronaldo to battle it out with their teams for 90 minutes or more.
Despite Ronaldo's departure, El Clasico will continue to take place and both teams' giant stature means they will continue to attract world-class players (albeit on a level lower than Ronaldo and Messi).
Millions will continue to watch Barcelona tackle Real Madrid or their favorite teams in La Liga as it was in the days before Ronaldo and Messi, but make no mistake about it, the marketability of the duo was boosted by their direct competition with one another and with one half of La Liga's most marketable pair gone, La Liga's appeal is bound to take a hit.
