Raiders Games on Spanish-Language Radio? <i> Si </i>

John Paley took a walk around the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum parking lot one day last fall shortly before the kickoff of a Raiders game.

What he saw during that walk helped set in motion plans by a dozen Latino radio stations statewide to broadcast Raiders’ football games in Spanish this season.

“Everywhere I looked, there were cars with bumper stickers for Latino radio stations,” said Paley, who is president of Lotus Satellite Network, a Hollywood firm that packages and markets sports programming in Spanish to more than 100 Latino stations nationwide. “I was shocked,” he said.

What this has presented to Paley--and a growing number of advertisers--is a marketing opportunity that has gone mostly untapped. The Latino community--often stereotyped for a sports interest mostly limited to soccer and baseball--has taken to the Raiders with a passion. In fact, the team estimates that up to 25% of its seats are sold to Latinos.

“More often then not, the fans who wear the Raiders jackets, who wave the pennants and wear the Raider buttons are Hispanic,” said Al LoCasale, executive assistant for the Raiders. “And many of our fan clubs are filled with a disproportionate number of Hispanics,” he said.

Indeed, more than 50% of the members of the year-old Los Angeles Raiders Booster Club of Orange County are Latino. Of 143 current members, 75 are Latino, said Armando Leon, president of the Fullerton-based fan club.

But the fact that the team has a Latino coach, Tom Flores, is not the rallying point, he said. “The attraction is the brand of football that the Raiders play,” said Leon. “It’s the same kind of tough football we used to play in the neighborhood when we were growing up.”

With this interest in mind, Lotus--which also broadcasts Los Angeles Dodgers games in Spanish on its flagship Los Angeles Latino station, KWKW--pursued the right to carry the Raiders games this year.

It should prove profitable. While Lotus will pay the Raiders an amount estimated in the low six figures, the company expects revenue of $500,000 from the deal. Advertisers will pay $65,000 for the largest ad package available--six radio spots per game on the dozen stations for a total of 20 pre-season and regular season games.

Last year, the Raiders were broadcast locally in Spanish on KTNQ. Now, however, besides carrying the games on KWKW, Lotus will also broadcast them in Spanish on radio stations from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to San Jose.

Certainly, plenty of potential listeners are out there. Latinos are estimated to account for 5.9 million California residents--nearly 22% of the state’s total population. The first multistation broadcast is scheduled Aug. 15, when the Raiders play the San Francisco 49ers in a pre-season game.

“I don’t know of any other football team doing anything like this,” Philip Maher, editor of Sports Marketing News, said. “But it makes sense. The Raiders are already one of the most popular teams in the NFL. No matter where their games are broadcast, if they’re in Spanish, they’ll get an audience that they wouldn’t conventionally attract.”

“Maybe this will fall on its face,” said Rick Kraushaar, president of Lotus Hispanic Reps, a division of Lotus that sells advertising nationally. “But advertisers don’t seem to think so.”

For example, the Nissan Dealer Assn. of Southern California will spend upward of $75,000 this season advertising during Raiders’ broadcasts on Latino radio. “It gives us a market that’s hard to reach,” said Bob Sharon, manager of the association. Eastman Kodak is also negotiating with Lotus. Lotus has also signed up a major airline, a soft drink maker and a grocery chain, but for competitive reasons, these advertisers have asked not to be named before the season begins.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Lotus’ Paley. “These companies aren’t advertising just to help me send my kids to college.”

The Name Dances On

Although Fred Astaire died last week, his name will live on at 150 dance studios worldwide.

“His passing will have no impact on how we market ourselves to the public,” said Charles L. Casanave Jr., president of the Fred Astaire National Dance Assn., the Miami company that franchises Fred Astaire dance studios. The company does no national advertising, but its individual franchises place ads locally.

The company--which has taught more than 1 million people how to dance--was established 40 years ago by Casanave’s father and Astaire. Astaire personally trained the original instructors. “My father told him at the time that some day the company would be a living memorial to his name,” said Casanave. In fact, the company sent out letters to all the franchises last week to remind them that the name will not change.

Ad Firm to Split

The ad agency that made American Airlines “something special in the air” and which helped make Chrysler Chairman Lee A. Iacocca a household word is preparing to split off from the ailing entertainment conglomerate that owns it. Executives at New York-based Bozell, Jacobs, Kenyon & Eckhardt are negotiating to buy back the agency less then two years after it was purchased by Culver City-based Lorimar-Telepictures Corp. for $40 million.