It is the first week of September and that can only mean one thing.
Football is back in the US.
Last night saw the reigning champions, the Taylor Swift-supported Kansas City Chiefs squeeze past the less fancied Baltimore Ravens in the season opener.
This weekend we will have a full schedule of games culminating in Monday Night Football’s coverage of my historically underperforming NY Jets at the equally unimpressive San Francisco 49ers.
Of course, the new season is accompanied by wall-to-wall TV coverage, not just the matches themselves but the days of pre and post-match assessment, colour commentary, reviews and forecasts.
And the American Football season also opens the door to a fantasy football league on a scale British sports fans can only dream of. Entire TV channels – streaming and cable of course – are dedicated to discussing the wager fuelled pastime. Even Disney owned ESPN has a dedicated Fantasy Football channel.
But in a nation where too much sport is still not enough, it is worth remembering that this is still Baseball season. Baseball remains America’s national game. As the wonderfully understated Regular Season draws to a close after each team has played 162 games stretched over six months, we will soon learn who is going to the Post Season and ultimately the fabulously named World Series at the end of October.
So, for the next two months, we have the wonderful spectacle of both football and baseball sharing our screens and competing for our attention.
And that isn’t all. In the background the Major League Soccer Season is rumbling on.
Soccer in the US, even with Beckham and Messi lording it Man City-style down in Miami, is largely a side show. For anyone who is interested in watching the round ball game there are pretty much limitless opportunities to enjoy Premier League, European and South American games on demand, so the domestic fixtures, limited to a 10 year $2.5billion deal with Apple TV, don’t get the attention they crave.
In America’s sports bar society where a night out and meet-ups with friends coincide with ‘catching the game’, being on such a minority broadcast platform, infrequently available in the majority of drinking and eating establishments, means the reach of the sport is severely hampered.
But, come mid-October, when the soccer Regular Season concludes, the top sides enter the MLS Cup to decide the season’s champions. It is still restricted to those with an Apple TV account but when the knockout rounds begin, a smattering of interest is expressed.
So, with this much sport, what chance does soccer have of finally making the big breakthrough.
Only time will tell. One thing the beautiful game has in its favour is that soccer is a young person’s sport. At youth level, more than 810,000 play at high school level.
And not only are U.S. soccer fans younger, they’re also more diverse with 40% being fans of colour. MLS business reports claim 30% of its fans are Hispanic or Latino.
This bodes well for the future. The US already boasts the 2nd Largest Spanish-speaking population after Mexico— with 13% of the U.S. population speaking Spanish at home.
By 2050, one in three people in the US will speak Spanish.
Brands, sponsors and broadcasters are paying attention to that.
As consumers, Latinos in the U.S. currently represent a $1 trillion marketing opportunity, and as Hispanic communities grow, so does their wealth, Economic data reveals their spending power rose at 6% compounded annual growth over the last decade, compared to a sluggish 3% for the non-Latino white population.
And Soccer is growing in another key demographic – females.
The recent Olympics in Paris saw the USWNT – the clumsy acronym used for the US Women’s national soccer team – defeat the Germans in the semi finals and claim gold with victory over Brazil. A feat their male counterparts can only dream of.
Women’s soccer is also growing at home too, on and off the pitch.
In the past weeks, the women’s game has made the bold but widely applauded decision to distance itself from the men’s game and set its own course based on the needs and opportunities it sees ahead.
That means creating new agency for women’s soccer players, clubs and the infrastructure which supports them. And club ownership and expansion are where the women’s game is making rapid progress.
This week, basketball icon and sports investor Magic Johnson became part of the ownership team at women’s soccer team Washington Spirit. And across the nation in LA, Angel City FC is now officially the ‘most valuable women’s sports team in the world’ following significant new investment.
The two people leading that investment are Willow Bay, dean of University of Southern California school of communication and journalism, and Bob Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company, sinking a combined quarter of a billion dollars into the franchise.
Angel City was founded as an expansion club in 2019 by Hollywood actor Natalie Portman and quickly attracted the support of sport and entertainment royalty including Mia Hamm, Billie Jean King and Jennifer Garner.
And while football fans the world over are lamenting their clubs becoming global businesses and brands, Angel City FC are quick to point to their roots.
While embracing their celebrity attracting brand status, their founding statement claims: “Angel City is not just another football club. We’re a brand on a mission to make a difference in this world. We’re born of the streets of Los Angeles and stand side-by-side with our community.”
Music to the ears of die-hard Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool fans, surely?
So, while all the chatter this weekend will be about NFL and the billion-dollar franchises it represents – quietly in the background soccer executives in both the men’s and women’s game will be talking to broadcasters, private equity, sponsors and brands about a different future.
Best perhaps to leave it with the words of Willow Bay, who with a lengthy media career that spans Huffington Post, Good Morning America and The Today Show, sums it up perfectly.
“This is a great business story, a great sports story, a great community story, and certainly a great story about driving equity with a purpose-driven brand.” she said.
