SUM explains marketing SuperLiga in MLS and Mexico

SuperLiga 2009 has come and gone and this year Tigres UANL beat the Chicago Fire on penalty kicks in front of a sold-out stadium at Toyota Park. Next year, four more MLS teams will battle Mexican clubs, but the stakes are not only different for Mexican and MLS clubs, but for the various competing MLS clubs. Soccer United Marketing (SUM) has factored stadium ticket sales into player paychecks as an incentive for franchises to ratchet up their efforts to attract Hispanics to SuperLiga, and subsequently to MLS.

Boston Pro Soccer Examiner spoke with SUM's Senior Vice-President of Marketing and Communications Dan Courtemanche, who explained the marketing plan behind SuperLiga.

LE: Is the purse the same if a Mexican or American team wins SuperLiga?

Courtemanche: There’s a pretty specific formula involved with that. The Mexican clubs don’t make money off the tickets sold. They have a fee to come up here and play in the games, much similar as to what would occur if they were playing an exhibition game, but they’re guaranteed their fee and travel expenses and as they progress, they can make more money. Whereas the MLS teams have a much higher upside by selling tickets at the stadiums and they also receive money as they progress throughout the tournament, so it’s a little different formula. It places a bit of the onus on the specific MLS clubs. The Chicago Fire sold out the SuperLiga final, so clearly the financial upside is greater for them by selling it out than had they drawn 12,000. The potential to generate more revenue is there for the MLS clubs whereas it’s a finite number for the Mexican teams.

LE: How does SUM promote SuperLiga?

Courtemanche: The focus is in the local markets when it comes to promotional dollars and traditional market dollars, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t promoting it both nationally and internationally. We work very closely with our partners at the Univision networks to ensure they’re promoting it on their networks, whether it’s like programming – MLS games or Mexican league games or other sporting events -when they’re promoting SuperLiga. It could be Univision.com where they were very engaged with promoting SuperLiga. From a PR perspective we work very closely with all the Spanish language and English language media outlets throughout the country, but certainly Spanish language.

We have a strong connection that we’ve forged through the years with the media down in Mexico and for the USA-Mexico game, three of our staff members from the PR group went down and met with 13 media outlets over a two and a half-day period. Part of those meetings were discussions of SuperLiga, the future and the past, and the fact that we have top-flight players such as Blanco and now Landin, down in Houston, a young player. Interest in MLS in Mexico continues to grow, so we push hard from a PR standpoint.

LE: What is SUM's marketing strategy for SuperLiga?

Courtemanche: Our marketing strategy is to target soccer fans versus the general sports fan. We believe there are enough soccer fans in this country that MLS and international soccer can thrive on the fan base that exists.

Even some soccer fans may not know what SuperLiga is and it’s our job to work harder to educate them as to what it’s all about, but ultimately we’re targeting the soccer fans and not somebody who’s a hard-core Boston Red Sox fan or a Revs fan. We’re going to work harder on those fans that are coming out to the Mexico-Brazil game or Brazil-Venezuela game at Foxboro when they put 50 or 60 thousand people in the stands. We want to convert those fans into Revolution fans and SuperLiga fans.

Chicago Fire sells out SuperLiga final

Boston Pro Soccer Examiner followed up with Chicago Fire Vice-President of Communications Rebecca Carroll to find how they successfully marketed to Hispanics and sold out the tournament final.

“We held community-based events with our players,” said Carroll, “and we worked with soccer organizations such as the IYSA [Illinois Youth Soccer Association]. We invested strategically through paid advertising, primarily Hispanic broadcast and print outlets, and of course pushed numerous storylines among mainstream and Hispanic media to push the energy and excitement that built around the tournament leading up to the final.”

So it seems that to attract and pay the fees of top Mexican clubs, SuperLiga must raise its profile and increase ticket sales, and to increase ticket sales participating MLS clubs need to excite the public about this Mexican-US competition. Whether it’s investment in Hispanic communities before the games or accommodations at the games, it means exploiting opportunities to prove to Hispanics that the US has an exciting soccer product and wants to include them. The rivalry is built-in and the fans are generations deep, but like the Chicago FIre, clubs need to actively market to Hispanics to raise the profile of SuperLiga.

Follow Boston Pro Soccer Examiner and LE Eisenmenger on twitter!