Soccer has proven to be a tough sell in the United States. The North American Soccer League began in 1968 with a national contract to broadcast games on CBS, but the ratings were dismal and, because the league tended to draft past-their-prime players from other parts of the world, it never got much respect globally. By 1984, the league had disbanded.
 
Things have changed a lot since then, though. The increasing Hispanic population in this country has afforded the NASL's heir apparent, Major League Soccer, a loyal base and, if recent deals between brands and various teams and League are any indication, a newfound respect, at least in the marketing world. One major indication: Ad spending for Spanish-language TV soccer programming rose almost 60 percent last year to $250 million, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.
 
"There's more of a market to reach Hispanics [with soccer] and you can look at any match today in the United States that pits a Mexican team against an American team, or any of the Mexican matches, and they draw huge Hispanic audiences," said Bob Dorfman, evp and cd, Baker Street Partners, San Francisco, and editor of the Sports Marketers' Scouting Report. "It's a great way to target the Hispanic audience in the United States and to reach this group in one fell swoop," Dorfman said. "Soccer is the way to go."
 
That may in the end have less to do with the sport's reach than its importance to the Latino audience, said sports marketer Brad Rothenberg, a partner in the San Francisco-based BRC group.  "If you can gain the trust of a Hispanic consumer through soccer, you can translate that brand trust to anything," he said. BRC mounts the annual Verizon Wireless La Alianza de Futbol Hispano, considered the nation's largest Hispanic grass roots soccer program for adults who play in unaffiliated leagues.
 
Rothenberg says that because some 80 percent of the Hispanics living in the U.S., either are or come from countries where soccer is by far the leading sport: "When we say it's the predominant sport among Hispanics, it's part of their connective tissue."
 
That connection isn't lost on marketers who, in trying to make inroads with Hispanics in the U.S., have embraced soccer as well. One of the pioneers in U.S. soccer patronage is Heineken USA's Tecate, a Mexican brand which this month is expected to roll out a series of exhibition soccer games destined for five U.S. Hispanic markets as part of its Futbol Tecate summer program of Mexico's Primera Division (First Division) league, considered Mexico's equivalent of MLS.
 
But Tecate's not the only brand vying for this turf. Miller Lite recently unveiled its soccer marketing program tied to the CONCACAF (the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Footbal, i.e., the continent-wide soccer governing body for North American plus Central America and the Caribbean) Champions League, a multi-tiered effort via TV, radio, out-of-home, digital and via branding of commemorative packaging and well-known soccer stars turned pitchmen Omar Bravo and Cuauhtémoc Blanco, who also was signed in April to serve as the first-ever brand ambassador of Best Buy.
 
Fresh with the new tag "A champion combination," a series of three TV spots for Miller Lite began rolling out late last month that showcase the brew "in situations in which it can be paired up to create the ultimate pairing of life and beer," said Federico Traeger, creative director, Lopez Negrete Communications, Houston, which handled creative duties.
 
"Our goal is to make Miller Lite synonymous with soccer for our Hispanic consumers and the scale of this program will help to do that," said Jesica Duarte, Miller's senior manager of Hispanic Marketing. "We're offering a summer full of activities that will help us to connect with Hispanics in a way that is fun and relevant to their interests." Though beer marketers have traditionally tapped into the Hispanic market, the competition to serve as the designated beer sponsor of major soccer sporting events is growing, said Duarte.
 
Whether U.S. Hispanics will take to MLS's home-grown version of soccer, which is considered more of a physical game and not the finesse game that the Mexicans appreciate, is an open question.  For the moment, though MLS is having success promoting games with foreign teams. Hispanics are filling major sports stadiums to see soccer games in the U.S., though they are often rooting for teams from their native countries.


 
For instance, on a recent Wednesday night, MLS mounted an exhibition game of Rumbo al Mundial's Mexico versus China at Quest Field in Seattle, which by most standards would be considered, at best, somewhat of an emerging Hispanic market with a significant Latino presence.
 
"We had 56,000 people in the [sold-out] stadium, all wearing green [the Mexico National team's color] and none of them were rooting were China," said Kathy Carter, evp of MLS' marketing arm, Soccer United Marketing, New York.
 
There are other indications of growing success. Telemundo's live broadcast on April 16 of the Mexico v. China contest was the most-watched program during its time period among adults 18 to 49 in Chicago, Dallas, Houston and New York, per Nielsen Media Research.
 
Nationally, the contest pulled in an audience of nearly 2 million total people, per Nielsen Television Index (NTI) preliminary data.
 
"The ability for U.S. companies to utilize the sport of soccer to target the U.S. Hispanic, and the Mexican-American in particular, has been really quite incredible," Carter said. "We've got a list of companies lined up essentially that want to come to support the Mexican National team and other things that we do."
 
That may be at cross-purposes with MLS's goals. Nevertheless, since Hispanics account for as much as 40% of its fan base, MLS is taking its brand message "Football, Futbol. Soccer." to potential U.S. fans.
 
She noted that the league has four big games scheduled through yesterday (June 8) that already are sold out in San Diego (Mexico v. Argentina); Chicago (Mexico v. Peru); Seattle (Brazil v. Canada); and Boston (Brazil v. Venezuela).
 
For its part, MLS is looking to grow its current roster of 14 teams to 15 in 2009 when the Seattle Sounders FC come on board and to 16 teams in 2010 when a Philadelphia team is named, according to MLS.
 
In the meantime, soccer-themed programming created for Spanish-language TV has become the latest outgrowth of the sport.
 
Last month's Hispanic TV network upfront presentations showcased several reality shows and enhanced live soccer broadcasts as network executives hoped to pull in soccer aficionados that marketers want to reach.


 
Among them El Juego Supremo, (The Ultimate Match), a reality soccer competition series from Univision that has picked up Nissan North America and Sprint as exclusive sponsors. Both marketers will be able to integrate products in select scenes such as Nissan's Titan and Rogue and Sprint's Motorola I335 Nextel walkie-talkie phone and soon-to-be-released Samsung Instinct, out on June 20.
 
El Juego Sumpremo is exactly the type of branded entertainment property that Nissan wants to be a part of," Ben Poore, vp, marketing communications, Nissan North America, said in a statement. "Nissan has a large number of Hispanic vehicle owners, and this unique property allows us to continue to engage with the Hispanic community through their passion points."
 
The series was created by Univision and the marketers' ad agency, The Vidal Partnership, New York. A few years ago, Vidal created a successful soccer reality show El Reto Final, (The Final Challenge), for Nissan and Sprint on the cable net Fox Sports en Espanol.

Fox Sports en Espanol, meanwhile, is launching Vive to Sueno (Live Your Dream) a soccer talent search presented by Sears, said Lisa Scholtes, regional sales manager and director of integrated sales, Fox Sports en Espanol.
 
Twenty players will be selected via the talent search and will get the chance to play against Mexican professional players in a live televised match.
 
The tournament will take place over three weekends in the top 10 U.S. Hispanic markets and will feature some 7,000 players and include as many as 125,000 player participants, families and soccer spectators.
 
"The beauty of this program is that it creates national media out of truly local grassroots events," Scholtes said. "Our goal is to give a chance to every soccer player who is out there." A five-part reality series in 2009 will follow the individual stories of the selected players.
 
Rodrigo Lombello, COO of soccer network GolTV, says the sport is winning over marketers because it cuts across generational and ethnic backgrounds as well as acculturation levels and can reach large numbers of Hispanics.
 
"The main thing that's happened is that the ratings, and the great numbers that soccer is delivering, go a long way in convincing people that soccer is a valuable market, Lombello said. "You don't have to convince anyone that it makes sense to buy soccer anymore."