By J Hutcherson - WASHINGTON, DC (Jan 27, 2012) US Soccer Players -- The news that Arsenal - Manchester United drew 1.2 million viewers in the United States for a live game early on a Sunday morning has opened a new discussion for the what it means for televised soccer to succeed. Use whatever cliché you would like, but the impact of that game should have the holders of other foreign soccer rights in the US wondering what they need to do to follow Fox's lead with the Premier League.
Before dismissing that with 'buy the rights to the Premier League,' remember we're talking about broadcasters that already on the rights to competitions featuring the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, and the giants of Serie A. With that in mind, what are the most undervalued soccer properties in the USA?
The Champions League
Yes, the most high-profile club competition on the planet that's already receiving the Fox network treatment for the final. Remember, we're talking about undervalued properties, the ones with the biggest potential upside. That describes the Champions League in America, a competition where all of the games except for the final start on weekdays during work hours in the US. From an impressive ratings perspective, that makes it almost impossible to get the kind of ratings the Champions League might be able to generate.
There's a simple if untraditional solution. For the good of the finances of all involved, UEFA should move the knockout stage games to a European Central Time primetime slot on weekends. That puts the biggest games of the European club calendar live on American television in the middle of the afternoon when the National Football League is in its offseason. The focus of the mainstream American sports fan is there for the taking, especially when they figure out they can watch the best soccer players in the world battle for two hours without losing an entire afternoon to stoppages in play, timeouts, and punditry.
Mexico's Primera Division
US-based companies spend considerably to align themselves with Mexican soccer properties for ad campaigns in the United States. They know there's a huge market for it in this country and that it resonates with the target demographic. Yet there's been very little work to broaden that audience. The rights fees have already been paid, the television networks are already in place, and the distribution channels on and off line are there. All that's needed is a commitment to include the English-speaking viewing audience.
With the Mexican Primera Division paying the most to players, drawing the biggest crowds, and getting the biggest club soccer ratings, there might be a complacency in success. Fair enough, but with all respect to the transformation we've seen in Mexican club soccer from a frankly boring version of the game to one that offers a compelling style, how much more could they do with a broader audience and the revenue that audience might be able to generate? That starts with access.
The European Domestic Cups
League and Association cups are a category of soccer properties owned in the US by a variety of broadcasters. Some are obviously more valuable than others. The FA Cup reserves weekends for its games, though there's an argument that some American fans tuning in might not know they're seeing a Cup game or a Premier League game. There isn't enough brand separation in the US coverage model, and too much is left to the viewer to figure out.
That's the broader problem. It's one thing to ask fans to pay attention to a league schedule, quite another to drop ancillary cup competitions into that schedule and expect the average American sports fan to follow along. Remember, we're talking about mainstream sports fans connected with soccer, not the already committed. That's the point for all of these undervalued properties, their potential to grab hold of a wider audience.
You might be asking why the domestic cups over the leagues? Well, there are fewer games. It's asking a lot of a mainstream American sports fan to follow multiple leagues in the same sport. It's why there's not a huge market for Japanese baseball or Russian hockey in the US. The focus is always going to be limited, the end result of telling those mainstream fans a compelling story. 'You should be interested in this because… and here's where you go to watch it.'
What Fox's broadcast move did was make the second part of that statement a whole lot easier. Not a channel way up in the outer reaches of a digital cable or satellite system. Not an appeal to buy a sports tier.
Other than perhaps the FA Cup final, that's not a likely future for any of the other domestic cups. Instead, the opportunity is in rebranding them for an American audience. This doesn't require appealing to a myriad of organizing bodies to adjust their schedule for an American audience. It's more about packaging, wrapping these games in something mainstream American sports fans understand. That would seem easier to do with a tournament than with a league schedule.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
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