Fútbol, Football, or Soccer?

By most measures, the NFL has MLS beat. The NFL is one of the most successful and profitable sports leagues in the world with huge attendances, TV audiences, and merchandise sales. MLS, in contrast, has trumpeted as success the fact that some of its teams recently reached profitability and that it signed a TV rights deal in which it would actually be paid (as opposed to having to pay) to broadcast its games.But in one way, MLS is cleaning the NFL’s clock: marketing to Hispanic fans. A recent New York Times article covers the NFL’s struggles in marketing to this segment of the population and also contains some interesting morsels about the efforts of MLS to do the same.

The article cites a survey of “600 senior-level sports industry executives” in which 44% said that MLS was doing the best job of marketing to Hispanic fans of any American sports league. It mentioned that Hispanics account for 35% of MLS fans and that all teams have Spanish-language radio broadcasts.

But the picture is not completely rosy. As Andrea Canales at Sideline Views points out, not all MLS teams have websites in Spanish, shockingly including the L.A. Galaxy. Either Team Beckham has ceded the Spanish-speaking fans to Chivas USA or the marketing department there needs a wake-up call.

For a while, it was the whole league that needed a wake-up call. MLS’s initial marketing efforts were geared almost exclusively at “soccer moms” and their families. Gimmicks like having the clock count up and the shootout turned of may serious fans, including Hispanics. As MLS has matured as a league, so too has its marketing policy. It now promotes itself to suburban soccer families as well as Hispanics.

Some teams have been more successful in marketing to Hispanics than others. The Galaxy’s failure to even put up a Spanish language website stands in contrast to DC United’s sustained efforts to reach out to the large Hispanic population in the nation’s capital. United boast one of the best fan clubs in the league, which is not coincidentally a mix of white and Hispanics. The Barra Brava takes their name from fan clubs in Latin America and sings in both English and Spanish (they also recently brought their brand of support to a Washington Capitals hockey game to mixed reviews). They have a manager of Hispanic relations, whom I have often seen quoted in Spanish-language media in the area.

One interesting aspect of appealing to Hispanic fans is the language in which it is done. As the Hispanic population in this country grows, so too does the diversity within it. In the year 2007, it cannot be assumed that Hispanic means primarily Spanish-speaking. As the American-born population increases, the number of Hispanics speaking English at home has risen as well. (This linguistic shift has not occurred without controversy: see the furor raised by the magazine Tu Ciudad, which is geared toward a Hispanic audience but published since its 2005 founding in English).

The growth in Spanish-speaking Hispanics has been linked with a shift in sporting taste. The same New York Times article quotes a study showing that the NFL is the most popular of all sports leagues among Hispanics who speak primarily English at home. Is this because they speak English or simply because such fans have grown up in this country and feel more connected to American football? According to David Steinberg, general manager of Fox Sports en Español, “the key word is acculturation”

Both the NFL and MLS face a demographic imperative in figuring out how to appeal to Hispanics, both in English and Spanish. The Hispanic population truly arrived in the American psyche when, in 2003, they overtook African-Americans as the largest minority in the country. Today, Hispanics account for “one of every two people added to the population through immigration and birth.” Tomorrow’s America will be more heavily Hispanic than today’s. Whether these Hispanics will become fútbol, football, or soccer fans is the challenge for both the NFL and MLS.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 5th, 2007 at 8:51 pm and is filed under General, Immigration, In the News, Latin America, North America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.