Struggling for a Foothold
As soccer fans around the country comb the wreckage of the United States’ World Cup disaster for clues as to what went wrong, marketers targeting soccer-hungry Latino households in Southern California are shrugging off the national team’s last-place finish.
“Things couldn’t be working out better for us,” said Harlan L. Rimer, president and chief executive officer of Los Angeles-based Four-S Baking Co., which earlier this week unveiled a Galaxy soccer ball promotion tied to its Weber’s bread line. “We were looking for something that would appeal to [Latino] kids . . . and soccer does that.”
The Four-S promotion got an unexpected boost when Mexico’s national team advanced to the second round. Said Rimer: “Mexico being there in round two made me look like a genius.”
But as Galaxy executives and their marketing partners hold up World Cup fever as proof of the sport’s increasing popularity in Southern California, sports marketers say the U.S. team’s early exit failed to help the sport gain ground in broader markets.
“Every time there’s a World Cup there’s a movement to get the U.S. behind it, to get fans to embrace it and be excited by it,” said Chicago-based sports marketing consultant Darcy L. Bouzeos. “So, could a good showing have helped? Absolutely. There’s nowhere for soccer to go in this country but up.”
Major League Soccer executives counter that while the national team’s implosion was disappointing, it was, at most, a temporary setback.
“It was a missed opportunity for soccer in this country,” said MLS Executive Vice President Randy Bernstein. “But it was not a major blow for this sport’s future in the long term.”
Soccer remains the undisputed king of the sports world outside of the U.S. Nike and Adidas, which view soccer gear sales as an increasingly important part of their revenue, spent heavily to outfit the world’s top national teams. Nike also has signed a $120-million, long-term sponsorship agreement with the sport’s U.S. governing body.
Many marketers are convinced that the sport will one day join basketball, football and baseball in the U.S. sports pantheon. Until that day, though, soccer will continue to serve as an effective tool for reaching fast-growing Latino markets nationwide. The nation’s 28.4 million Latinos have $325 million in disposable income, reports Dieste & Partners, the Dallas-based advertising agency that handles MLS’ English- and Spanish-language advertising. Dieste also notes that the Latino population is expected to soar to 42 million by 2050.
With these things in mind, the Galaxy’s owners looked at players’ marketing potential in addition to their athletic ability when they began assembling the team that took to the field three years ago.
“We built up an international roster with players from Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil and Mexico,” said C. Patrick O’Brien, the Galaxy’s vice president of corporate sponsorships. “We knew from the start that it was important to go after the Hispanic market.”
Corporate sponsors have largely followed the Galaxy’s lead.
Los Defensores, a Los Angeles-based legal clinic, incorporates Galaxy players Mauricio Cienfuegos and Paul Caliguiri into its commercials. The familiar faces “let people know we’re supporting the Hispanic market in L.A.,” said Nereida Casarez, general manager of San Pedro-based Walker Advertising, which handles the law firm’s advertising.
McDonald’s Corp., another Galaxy sponsor, is readying a pair of soccer promotions--a $1-per-ticket donation to Ronald McDonald House and a discount voucher good for an upcoming Galaxy home game. McDonald’s also aired a World Cup commercial on Spanish-language television broadcasts that shows the Arc de Triomphe morphing into a soccer scene and then morphing into its familiar Golden Arches.
“With soccer, our primary Los Angeles market effort is aimed at Spanish-speaking consumers,” said Tito Zamalloa, McDonald’s assistant marketing manager in the chain’s local region. “Our brand is enhanced by our association with a sport that has so much relevance with the many families who are our customers.”
Rimer allied his bakery with the Galaxy shortly after taking over as Four-S president and chief executive in 1997. “We know that we have a real strong core base in the Hispanic community with our Weber’s bread,” Rimer said. “So I began looking for something that would appeal to Hispanic kids--and that’s soccer.”
Even non-World Cup sponsors have jumped into the advertising fray in recent days. Coors rushed a radio commercial onto Southern California’s Spanish-language radio stations to celebrate Mexico’s unexpected advance into the second round. Sports marketing experts say soccer won’t match the allure of home-grown sports such as basketball until its famous players are household names. It’s not enough that die-hard fans are gossiping about a deal that could bring German World Cup star Jurgen Klinsmann to the Galaxy, or whether former UCLA midfielder Cobi Jones, who played for the Galaxy, might be heading for a European league.
“The game needs to have players who create a buzz, who get people talking the way NBA players do,” consultant Bouzeos said. “There are all these soccer moms out there, all these kids playing soccer . . . but I don’t know how many of them can name the players on the U.S. team.”
Soccer might get an assist from Walt Disney Co., which is broadcasting MLS games on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2. And Disney executives have expressed interest in owning an MLS team that would play at newly refurbished Edison Field in Anaheim.
Like any sport, soccer is governed by numbers. Attendance at MLS games fell 16% last year from the premiere season’s average of 17,416. League executives say they’re comfortable with average attendance this season that’s holding at about 14,700. Television ratings for the league’s second season also fell slightly, and the MLS knows it is suffering a temporary dip as fans flock to World Cup broadcasts.
League executives are betting that casual fans drawn in by World Cup telecasts will stay tuned for the eight remaining MLS games to be broadcast by ABC--including what the MLS believes will be a sold-out league championship game at the Rose Bowl in October.
“We’re on our growth plan, which calls for steady, progressive growth,” Bernstein said. “And there’s no way, in my mind, that the World Cup, even with the U.S. team’s poor showing, won’t, in the long run, help the MLS grow.”
