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Soccer inspires frenzied fanaticism around the globe but barely makes the sports pages in the United States. It might be a niche sport in the U.S., but it’s a powerful niche, marketing experts say, with the potential to link brands to desirable customer segments domestically and abroad. BY CHRISTINE BIRKNER | SENIOR STAFF WRITER
cbirkner@ama.org
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Outside of a downtown Portland hotel in August 2014, a mob of jersey-clad fans fills the sidewalks and spills onto the street, waving banners, chanting and singing, with their smartphone cameras at the ready, waiting for players from FC Bayern Munich, a team from Germany’s Bundesliga soccer league, to emerge. When the team exits the hotel and boards a charter bus bound for Providence Park across town, where they’ll take on top players from U.S.-based Major League Soccer in the annual MLS All-Star Game, the American crowd greets them like rock stars.
The game is a rematch, of sorts. A month earlier, many of the same players from the MLS All-Star team and Bayern Munich battled each other on a bigger stage, in the 2014 World Cup game between the U.S. and Germany, and U.S. fans’ response for that match was just as fervent. The Rio de Janeiro, Brazil-based match-up aired in the Midwest at 11 a.m., yet the Globe Pub in Chicago, a local soccer hotspot that hosts viewing parties for English Premier League games throughout the year, was filled to capacity. The crowd, decked out in red, white and blue face paint, Uncle Sam hats, wigs and other starsand-stripes regalia, chanted the rallying cry adopted by fans of the U.S. men’s national team: “I. I Believe. I Believe That. I Believe That We Will Win.” That scene and that chant were replicated at massive outdoor World Cup viewing parties across town and across the country—at Chicago’s Soldier Field, at Bryant Park in New York, at Redondo Beach, Calif., and at many points in between. Now the World Cup party is over, and soccer leagues and sports marketers have plenty of work to do. In the United States, soccer long has been an also-ran, a game played by many but watched by few. It’s a niche sport, from a viewership standpoint, competing against the likes of the National Football League for consumers’ attention. And as the most-watched sport in America, the NFL is the only kind of “football” that most Americans care about.
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But U.S. soccer fans represent a powerful niche for marketers. Interest in soccer is high among two of the most valuable marketing segments, millennials and Hispanics, as well as among high earners in many demographics. American soccer fans are 4.6 times more likely to have income above $250,000, according to Exponential Interactive Inc., an Emeryville, Calif.based digital media solutions company that researches U.S. soccer fans. And these fans aren’t just loyal to their favorite teams: Avid Major League Soccer fans have 85% brand loyalty and 87% purchase consideration for sponsored products, according to Repucom, a global sports marketing research and consulting firm. To leverage the World Cup’s fanatical following and to continue to attract brands such as Coca-Cola, Samsung and Visa to sponsor the sport in the U.S., soccer marketers are working to boost soccer’s standing in the American sports hierarchy and to better position soccer to compete against other sports as a viable marketing vehicle.
‘America’s Sport of the Future— Since 1972’ Globally, the United States ranks near the bottom in terms of its level of interest in soccer: 27% of the U.S. population is interested in the game, compared with
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of the future, and it has been since 1972.” “Our motto 83% in Nigeria, 70% in Mexico, 69% in Spain, 67% is a reflection of the fact that so many times, soccer has in Brazil, 52% in the United Kingdom, and 30% in been proclaimed ‘the next big thing’ here and it’s proven China and India, according to the World Football to have the life span of the hula-hoop or the pogo stick,” report, a study on the commercial landscape of soccer Bennett says. conducted by Repucom. As with most nascent sports or foundering teams, Around the world, soccer adheres to the typical sports the primary impediment is exposure. Soccer just hasn’t fandom formula: People tend to follow sports that they, been available via broadcast TV on a regular basis, says themselves, have played. But in the U.S., it’s a whole, new Rich Luker, founder of Tampa, Fla.-based Luker on ballgame, says Michael Lynch, head of U.S. consulting Trends, a research consultancy that has conducted fan at Repucom. “It’s, by far, the most popular sport in the research for ESPN since 1994. Soccer was positioned to world for a reason: Everybody can play it. All you need gain traction in 1994, when the U.S. hosted the World is to have a soccer ball and you can play. Countries Cup in nine cities across the country, but following a that, economically, may not be what the economic surge in fan interest during the tournament, interest superpowers are, are at equal, if not better, scale because fell away when the sport left the airwaves. “It was of the power of what fútbol can do to the marketplace. In pre-Internet. There were no broadcasts of international this country, though, we’ve got a lot of options.” games, so you just couldn’t get soccer until 1996 with The NFL garners the most followers of any sports the launch of MLS, and even then, it had an extremely league in America, with 76% of sports fans stating that limited reach.” they’re interested in American football. Meanwhile, Dan Courtemanche, executive vice president of 60.7% follow Major League Baseball, 59.7% follow communications for New York-based MLS and Soccer college football, 54% follow the National Basketball United Marketing, the marketing arm of MLS, the U.S. Association, 42% follow the National Hockey League Soccer Federation and the Mexican National Team, has and 42% follow NASCAR. MLS attracts 30.8%, with been with MLS since its founding and he concurs: only 9% of Americans reporting that soccer is their “Our first broadcasts were on a new network favorite sport to watch on TV, according to called TNT. At the time, they were searching Repucom. More Americans are interested for content, any content, so they put on in Ultimate Fighting Championship, The June 22, a few soccer games.” professional golf, World Wrestling 2014, World Cup Soccer promotions, too, Entertainment and Indy car game between the U.S. and were few and far between. racing than MLS, the study Portugal had 24.7 million U.S.In 2002, ESPN ran the same shows. based TV viewers, according to number of ads for its coverage Professional soccer, of course, Nielsen, more than any other of the World Cup as it did for doesn’t have as long a history that year’s National Spelling in the U.S. Until MLS launched sports event in the 2013Bee: one. “We didn’t really know in 1996, there hadn’t been a 2014 sports season, apart what we had with the World Cup professional soccer league in the U.S. from the 2014 NFL in 2002, ” says Seth Ader, senior since 1984, when the North American championship games. director of sports marketing at ESPN, Soccer League ceased operations after who is responsible for ESPN’s soccer a 16-year run. Roger Bennett, co-host properties, including the FIFA World of the weekly Men in Blazers soccer Cup, MLS and the English Premier show, which previously ran as a podcast on League. “It was taking place in Asia, the games were on ESPN’s website, Grantland, and will be a weekly TV show at very unfavorable times for the U.S. population, and on NBC Sports Network to accompany the network’s even though the U.S. had a terrific tournament and we coverage of the English Premier League this fall, says: went as far as we’ve gone ever, many people didn’t see “Since the 1950s, it’s been boom and bust, league after it, unfortunately.” By the 2006 World Cup in Germany, league opening up with great fervor and promising ESPN increased its promotional efforts as soccer’s that ‘soccer is here and now,’ but soccer is not a sport popularity picked up steam. that’s going to have an overnight revolution in America. The game’s cable and broadcast exposure followed Instead, its climb is slow and steady, and we’re seeing a suit. From 2007 to 2009, MLS had a TV deal with AXS harvest of 20 years in which the sport has come so far, so TV (formerly HDNet), and soon after secured deals with fast.” Men in Blazers’ motto is, “Soccer is America’s sport
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ESPN, NBC and Univision. In May 2014, MLS signed TV deals with ESPN, Fox Sports and Univision to broadcast its games through 2022 for $90 million per year, up from the $18 million annual average that the league receives in its current deals with ESPN, NBC and Univision, Sports Business Daily reported. MLS’s expanding reach was emblematic of the sport’s growing penetration, as a whole. In 2011, Fox secured rights to broadcast the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups for $425 million. In 2012, NBC signed a threeyear broadcast deal with the English Premier League (EPL) for $250 million, showing games on weekend mornings on its cable channel NBC Sports Network, on sister cable stations and, once, in place of Meet the Press on NBC. As of May 2014, EPL broadcasts on NBC channels garnered 30.5 million viewers, and 4.9 million viewers watched 10 matches on the final day of the EPL season in May 2014, up 172% from the previous high of 1.8 million for coverage on the last day of the 2011-2012 season on ESPN2 and Fox, according to NBC.
“So many times, soccer has been proclaimed ‘the next big thing’ here and it’s proven to have the life span of the hula-hoop or the pogo stick.” - Roger Bennett, Men in Blazers
Around 2005, U.S. fans began to mention soccer players in ESPN’s focus groups, citing Real Madrid and Portugal national team star Cristiano Ronaldo and Argentine star Lionel Messi among their favorite athletes, Luker says. “As soon as you have soccer players and teams showing up in the favorites list, you know it’s arrived.” In 2010, Bennett started appearing on a weekly soccer segment about EPL soccer on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “One of the first weeks I was on, [Morning Joe panelist
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and advertising executive] Donny Deutsch cut me off mid-sentence and said: ‘Why are we talking about this? We’re Americans.’ I said, ‘Donny, do you have grandchildren?’ And he said, ‘Yes, what’s that got to do with it?’ I said: ‘It’s like, a dog can hear a dog whistle and young people hear it, too, but old people can’t. People who have grandchildren don’t watch soccer. [Soccer fans are] all 18 to 30. There’s a massive, young audience who are connecting to this sport in a way that you used to connect to baseball back in the days when you were growing up.’ ”
The Soccer Fan That young audience could create lifelong fans for the sport, Ader says. “It wasn’t until the last decade or so that kids have been able to see a significant player on national TV. If you ask a kid now who’s 10 or 12 years old, they’ll tell you that they’re probably going to be watching soccer their whole lives.” By 2012, soccer had become the second most popular sport after football among people ages 12 to 24, and No. 4 overall for the entire population, according to the ESPN Sports Poll. Research confirms that soccer’s most significant following resides in younger demographics. Since 1995, the avid fan base for soccer between the ages of 18 and 34 has grown 250%. And in 2014, MLS caught up with MLB in terms of its popularity amongst 12- to 17-year-olds, as 18% of this age group are fans of both, according to the ESPN Sports Poll. “Our target demo isn’t a 45-year-old guy,” Courtemanche says. “Our target demo is the millennial audience first and 12- to 17-year-olds second. We’re seeing that shift. The younger audience’s tastes are different and their attention spans are different. A soccer game is only two hours long,” compared with NFL games that often last three hours and MLB games that regularly exceed that mark. To connect to that young audience, MLS works through its “minor league” teams in the United Soccer Leagues (USL), which offers teams in more than 100 U.S. markets. USL co-markets with MLS through partnerships with feeder teams and through use of social media within its local clubs. “For young players, the games give them something that’s aspirational and inspirational,” says Tim Holt, president of USL. “These guys are hometown heroes, so to speak, and it allows [young fans] to see the best soccer in their local market.” Beyond youth, another key segment of soccer fans is the Hispanic audience. Soccer is the fourth most popular
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MLS vs. EPL Major League Soccer
Geographically speaking, soccer now has wide appeal in the U.S. MLS hotspots extend from Seattle to Kansas to New Jersey. EPL fans, meanwhile, are more likely to live on the coasts and in college towns, but Midwestern cities also are home to large EPL followings, according to Exponential Interactive (see chart at left).
League Plays
English Premier League
MLS hotspots extend from Seattle to Kansas to New Jersey. EPL fans are likely to be on the coasts and in college towns. Source: Exponential Interactive Inc.
sport among Hispanics in the U.S., with 54% of Hispanics reporting that they’re interested in soccer, compared with 30.8% of the general U.S. population, according to Repucom. The Hispanic audience has helped MLS secure corporate sponsors with brands such as Adidas, Anheuser-Busch and Pepsi, Courtemanche says. “Thirtythree percent of our audience is Hispanic. If a company wants to try to connect with a young, Hispanic audience, it’s a perfect fit.”
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Soccer’s expanding reach across the U.S. has been a long slog for the sport’s marketers, and gaining regular TV exposure was just the first step. In 2010, when the U.S. was bidding to host the 2022 World Cup, MLS set a goal to be among the best soccer leagues in the world by 2022 by focusing on four factors: the economic viability of their clubs, the relevance of the clubs, the passion of their fans and the quality of play. To improve the economic viability and relevance of the league’s clubs, MLS provides marketing toolkits and has a club services group that helps its teams share best practices for increasing their revenue through marketing, PR and ticket sales strategies. Those efforts seem to be paying off. From 2009 to 2013, MLS attendance grew 13.6%, from 3.6 million to 6 million, according to Repucom. Some MLS teams’ attendance rivals those of the “Big Four” professional sports leagues. The Seattle Sounders was tops in terms of attendance for the 2012-2013 season, at 44,000. Teams across MLS averaged 18,594 fans per game in 2013, down 1.1% from 2012. Four teams besides Seattle logged 20,000 or more fans per game in 2013: the Portland Timbers, the LA Galaxy, the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Montreal Impact. MLS taps into fans’ passion the way that many brands do these days: through content. In 2014, the league created “Mike Magee’s Day Off,” an online video parody of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off featuring Chicago Fire star Mike Magee, with cameos by Chicago Fire teammates, U.S. women’s soccer star Hope Solo and Thierry Henry of the New York Red Bulls. The video aired on MLS’s YouTube channel and Chicago Fire’s website, and it garnered 450,000 views on YouTube as well as media mentions by ESPN, USA Today, The Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune. MLS also partnered with the NBC Sports Network for a 30-minute show, MLS Insider, and it sponsors KickTV, a soccer channel on YouTube that is a joint venture between Google, Soccer United Marketing and Bedrocket Media Ventures, a New York-based online video company. It features MLS content and content from European leagues such as the EPL, La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga.
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To promote its stateside EPL coverage, NBC Sports Network launched a video series on its website and on YouTube starring former SNL actor Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso, a bumbling American football coach who has decided to give coaching EPL “football” a try. (In one video, he tries, and fails, to work as a soccer analyst for NBCSN and takes a new job as the coach of a middle school girls’ soccer team.) European clubs see tremendous value in the American soccer fan, Bennett says. “For Real Madrid, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, the U.S. has become a top priority in terms of global branding. They’ve targeted America very aggressively. We’re seeing a wave of footballers coming over like pillaging Vikings.” MLS doesn’t see EPL and other European leagues as competition, but rather as a cross-promotional opportunity, Courtemanche says. “A rising tide lifts all boats and we’re the biggest boat on the water as a domestic league. We believe it’s smarter to partner with them than compete against them, especially when they’re only over here two weeks, at most, out of the year. A club like [MLS All-Star opponent] Bayern Munich hasn’t been here in 10 years and a club like [EPL’s] Arsenal, which played in New York recently, hasn’t been here since 1989. Fans can watch them on TV every week during the season and that’s fine because it’s really a complement [to MLS games]. Due to the time difference, they’re on in the mornings in the U.S.” NBC promotes MLS’s evening games during its morning EPL games, and vice versa. “When the English Premier league is out of season, our ratings actually go down a little bit because we haven’t had the crosspromotion,” Courtemanche says.
American All-Stars The best marketing for any sport happens on the field, and MLS must compete with EPL and other European leagues for soccer talent. MLS has players from 60 different countries, and during the last few years, it launched a strategic initiative to secure top-level American talent, signing 10 U.S. World Cup team players to long-term contracts, as well as 12 players who competed for other countries in the World Cup. In 2007, the league mandated that every team had to have a youth academy to develop professional players. “Those academies are free,” Courtemanche says. “You have to eliminate the cost barrier if you want the best talent. We have to sign international stars, we have to retain U.S. National Team stars like Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley, and we have to groom the stars of the future.”
But soccer stars in the U.S. aren’t yet as marketable as athletes in other sports. They’re less recognizable and there aren’t many soccer stars turned celebrities like David Beckham. Other players, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, are known the world over and are gaining recognition in the U.S., appearing on the covers of fashion magazines and signing big endorsement deals, but most soccer players, in general—and fewer MLS players specifically—have yet to become household names.
In 2002, ESPN ran the same number of ads for its coverage of the World Cup as it did for that year’s National Spelling Bee: one. Adds Jessica Giordano, senior director of global sports and entertainment consulting at GMR Marketing, a global marketing agency specializing in sports based in New Berlin, Wisc.: “I was at a conference where [U.S. Men’s National Team] Coach [Jürgen] Klinsmann was speaking and he said, in Europe, if you walked down the street and saw [Manchester United star] Wayne Rooney at the local pub, you’d hold him accountable for his play the night before. But if you walk into the Whole Foods in LA, you might not even recognize Clint Dempsey. We’re so far behind Europe and the South American countries when it comes to that.”
Future Goooooooooaaaaaaallllllls Superstars aside, increasing soccer’s popularity in the U.S. rests on increasing sports fans’ exposure to the game, Ader says. “The best way to market soccer is to expose soccer. The more people who see it, the more people like it. The highs and lows of the World Cup are more dramatic, more severe, than any other sport. The way our U.S. game against Portugal ended [a 2-2- tie], we were in the catbird seat and then all of a sudden, we were nowhere, in five seconds. Sports fans, in general, appreciate that kind of drama.”
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Soccer’s exposure is growing and the sport’s drama— flailing attempts at drawing penalty cards and all—is growing on American consumers, he says. “The U.S. soccer landscape is changing. It’s hard to see it, month to month, year to year, but it’s a generational shift. Five or 10 years from now, it will be a different story.” Adds Courtemanche: “The New York Red Bulls played [London-based] Arsenal a few weeks ago. Arsenal’s been around for 120 years. The Red Bulls have been around for 19. It takes time. We’re in our 19th season, and we’re seeing that change and growth. We don’t compare ourselves to the NFL or MLB. If you have a market of 70 million and growing, you can have a pretty successful business.”
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Band of Outlaws Some of the U.S. team’s most ardent supporters at the 2014 World Cup in Rio were the American Outlaws, a soccer fan group with 18,000 members and 127 chapters across the country. The group was founded in 2007 by Justin Brunken, Korey Donahoo and Ben Cohoon, three twentysomething soccer fans in Lincoln, Neb. “We’re not hooligans,” Brunken says. “We were in Nebraska and we considered ourselves outlaws or outliers in the sports world because everyone liked NASCAR or football. We would go into bars and ask them if they could turn on a U.S. soccer game and have that be the main thing, instead of Nebraska football.”
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Phil McFarland, owner of Small Bar Division, The American Outlaws built its organization in a headquarters for the Chicago chapter of the American grassroots way. At first, its founders sent e-mails to Outlaws, says that the group’s use of social media has friends around the country who liked soccer. Then helped pack his bar with soccer fans. “A lot of previous they made T-shirts and built a website to let fans know soccer fan clubs had been kind of stodgy, weird, old which games they would attend. guys that young people wouldn’t aspire to be a part of. For the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the American Outlaws comes in and they’re young, they’re American Outlaws organized a trip for 50 people to fun, they’ve got this great branding, this smart identity. attend the event, and the group drew more attention They brought the party to the game, and for a bunch from other American fans there. Word continued to of twentysomething kids who want to be fans, it just spread through social media, and local chapters then spoke to them.” formed throughout the country. “When we started, it When ESPN was looking for a way to promote its was all about communication,” Brunken says. “There was World Cup coverage, it turned to the American Outlaws. no one talking about where to watch soccer, other than ESPN created ads and YouTube videos featuring shots maybe on online forums, but nothing that said: ‘Go here. of American Outlaws cheering sections, with celebrities This is where people are meeting up.’ Our website and such as Jon Hamm, Jimmy Kimmel and Kevin Costner social media helped grow the base.” reciting the “I Believe That We Will Win” chant (co-opted The group’s website helps members find their local by U.S. soccer fans from its NCAA football beginnings), chapter bar, and chapters have social media pages ending with the tagline, “We Are All American Outlaws.” where fans can post photos and connect with each Focusing on the fans helped ESPN solve the other. “People love it,” Brunken says. “People want dilemma of how to position the U.S. national to share that they’re at the game and they team, Ader says. “They are in the met Timmy Howard. … It’s a community mid-teens in terms of their world that’s proud of what they do and what Global brands ranking. We don’t want to set they’re a part of.” such as Coca-Cola, expectations so high that if For an annual fee of $25, Samsung, Visa, Adidas they lose, people will stop members get a T-shirt and and Nike invested significant funds caring about the World bandana, and discounts and effort in an attempt to ride the Cup, and we don’t want on soccer tickets and wave of 2014 World Cup-focused to set expectations too low merchandise. The American soccer interest. TV advertisers spent so they’re not worth tuning Outlaws works with United $378 million on soccer-related into. Rather than focus on Airlines and Avis, which campaigns in 2013 in advance the team, itself, we decided to offer travel discounts to shine a light on the support. members, and the World Soccer of this summer’s World Cup, up When we heard that the Shop, which gives discounts on 43% from TV ad spending American Outlaws had hired two apparel and provides swag for the during the 2010 World Cup, or three jets to go to Brazil for American Outlaws’ parties. “We’re according to Nielsen. the World Cup, we knew that this picky about who we work with,” was more than just a group of faceBrunken says. “A lot of our partners, painters who were getting excited we tell them we want them to help about soccer. This is legitimate. Whether they’re going members and fans get to games. They know about our to Honduras or Costa Rica, or Salt Lake City in the fans and they wanted to be involved.” snow, these guys are legit and they really do follow the The American Outlaws chartered jets for 500 of team wherever they go.” its members to go to the World Cup, and members Says Brunken: “It’s all of these soccer nerds together. also travel to matches for the U.S. men’s and women’s They’re like-minded people. We think of the whole national teams throughout the World Cup qualification thing as an AO family. People have American Outlaws cycle, hosting pre-game parties to gather fans together tattoos. If someone from Boston comes to a game in and bring that passion into the stadium. “If someone is LA, there’s an LA AO person who says, ‘Just stay at my on the fence about soccer, we don’t try to convince them house.’ Other sports, they’re so big that [marketing the that it’s the best sport,” Brunken says. “Once they come sport] feels like another job for them. For soccer, it’s like and experience it at an American Outlaws chapter bar or a passion. They want it to grow. It’s a goal for us to grow a pre-game event, or in the supporter section at a game, it together.” m they’re hooked.”
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