Why write about soccer? Because i think there's an interesting marketing component that few are afraid to discuss. It's lot easier to just bash soccer fans and ignore the sport. But can 2 billion people just be insane?
So here's my thoughts.
How Soccermoms clocked American Fùtbol.
By: Hadji Williams
It’s late summer. And once again Soccer fever has come and gone like a fart in the wind. How can the most popular sport on the planet (over 2 billion fans and causal players worldwide) lose out to poker stateside? As much as we love overhyped competition, swollen balls, and corruptive sponsorship ops, why do 300 million sports fiends continue to sleep on soccer? The only thing most Americans can recall about this past World Cup is that one WWF move that cost [some country?] the crown.
We’ve tried everything to make soccer hot in America: We dig up Pelè every 5-7 years. We over-hyped Freddy Adu... We flashed sports bras. We pretended Mia Hamm had a marketable personality... We threw in Nike loot (Truckloads of Nike loot!)… Not even Mr. Global Godbody a.k.a. David Beckham has been able to bend the masses to dribble with our feet.
The theories are many: odd scheduling, lack of scoring, lack of superstars, too many foreigners,… But I think it comes down to two simple factors: Soccermoms and Shot Clocks.
CLOCKS
Soccer is the world’s only real-time sporting event. A soccer match runs 90 minutes. Period. 9-0. Once that whistle blows, Soccer Clock floors it backwards from 90. And when it hits 0, you ain’t gotta go home but you gotta get your flags and fightin’ on up outta here ‘cause the game’s over.
FYI: Soccer Clock runs through commercials. Blasphemy, I know. But Soccer Clock ain’t stopping for soap, sex, cars or whatever else you sellin’. Mr. Soccer Clock don’t care about your media buys; you didn’t buy it. Soccer Clock is on a mission until it zeroes out—and that includes timeouts.
Now compare this with American sports:
GOLF: 72 holes. That’s 18 holes times 4 rounds… spread out over 4 days. (5 if it rains.) And don’t let there be a playoff—you might have to get your mail forwarded to the links. No offense, y’all, but four days of anything is not a game—it’s sick-leave.
TENNIS: Best of five sets; sometimes three. Now a fast tennis match goes 2 hours. Once again: a “fast” match—as in a blowout—runs about a buck fifty.
FOOTBALL: Four 15-minute quarters. 60 minutes total, plus a 15-minute halftime. Yeah, right. The average football game runs 2:25 hours, minimum. Playing football is like being on a commercial shoot: Hurry up and wait… Hurry up and wait.
BASEBALL: Birthdays and anniversaries have cycled and countries have been overthrown in the time it takes to finish 9 innings of baseball.
NASCAR: 400 laps, 500 laps, 200 laps… makes no never mind. Go take a nap, fix dinner, mow your lawn, kill your neighbor… Don’t worry, they’ll still be hangin’ rights when you get back.
And only the NBA can turn a game of fastbreaks, and quick-hitting teamwork into a grinding snoozefest.
Now marketers love this snail’s race; in fact, we’ve helped create it. All those extra commercial breaks and TV timeouts… We want you connecting with brands at least as much as the game. But that’s hard to do when Mr. Soccer Clock don’t care.
Fans love the turtle races, too. We can’t imagine a sport where commercialism takes a backseat to competition. It took a few decades, but look at what we did to the Olympics has more logos than flags and athletes. And when it comes to college basketball and football, the NCAA may go down as the greatest integrated marketing firm in history.
So until that clock starts to play by consumer rules, soccer will remain relegated to late-night satellite feeds in bars where English is the second/third language and Saturday play dates in suburbia. Speaking of which…
SOCCERMOMS
Soccermoms killed soccer. There, I said it.
Self-indulgent, suburbanite-dwelling, culturally myopic, bangs-‘n’-capri pants rockin’, Oprah-worshipping White Women have spent generations sucking the beauty and sportsmanship out of soccer. They have reduced soccer to a milquetoast play-date for their SUVs full of soft rugrats.
But on a global scale, soccer is athletic meritocracy meets tribalistic expressions tempered by socio-economic hurdles. In short, soccer to the world is basketball to the hood. From Peru to Ireland to Bolivia to Ethiopia kids play soccer. Hard. They kick through wars and famines. They kick through plush grass and over rough concrete. They kick in sand and dirt. They kick in rusty cleats and fresh kicks. They’ll kick with cardboard and tired rubber taped to their feets. They kick with bare feet. And they like it all just the same.
Soccer is hoops. Cash or no cash, scholarships or not, goal or no goal kids is kickin’. One ball, nine kids. One ball, one kid or one ball, one hundred cats… it don’t matter. Once that rock drops it’s on like immigrants vs. minutemen.
The result has given soccer more styles than the world’s got rivers. Some teams are pick ‘n’ rollers and backdoor cutters; other squads run ‘n’ gun; some are deep-threat strikers... The Brazilians flow different from the Kenyans who flow different from the South Koreans from the Italians from the Egyptians from the Brits… Now mix in some geopolitics, some alcohol, some ethnic pride, random bigotry plus the occasional crew of hooligans and soccer’s a beautiful thing…
But not in the land of the free. Soccermoms have put it thru the American colander and drained all the flavor out. To prop up their little rugrats fragile esteem, they’ve dressed soccer up in special cleats and shin guards ($$). Plus official soccer shorts and soccer jerseys ($$$). And of course little Kyle and Becky need their special field ($$$$). (Can’t have ‘em out there on dirt patches in the middle of nowhere. What are they, black kids?) Oh and don’t forget the pricey coaches who homogenize all the individual flavor out of each player, and the tournaments which showcase the excess of access way more than any amount of joy the kids could take in playing the game ($$$$)… And of course, there’s mom’s must-have vehicle for toting around in ($$$$$).
Madison Ave and Hollywood nurtures this mass dysfunction thru complimentary marketing campaigns and image (at a healthy profit), which is why American soccer is consistently presented to all as resembling the backdrop to a Lifetime sweep’s week flick.
As for their more “urban” counterparts: The same forces that perpetuate American soccer’s whitebread ideal further isolates and intimidates black and brown kids into believing that soccer is just not for them.
Combined with the oft-cold shoulders and “fall in line” attitudes they get from soccer’s establishment when they attempt to participate and you end up with a lot of potential Pèles choosing basketball, track, and football, etc. instead. And what talent we do develop gets put the through such ringers that those who become great soccer players often do so in spite of, not because of American soccer.
But hey, at least Carol has a nice orchestrate activity that‘ll keep little Trevor and Jessica occupied while she gasses up the H2 for her monthly pilgrimage to DKNY.
And isn’t that what American soccer’s really all about?
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Hadji Williams is a 15-year marketing vet and author of KNOCK THE HUSTLE: How to save your job and your life from Corporate America. Email: author@knockthehustle.com
