Major League Soccer and the Hispanic Market

American sports organizations are making to attract Hispanic fans. Hispanics are the fastest growing demographic group in the US and their buying power is growing rapidly as well

This week the Wall Street Journal published an article on this topic indicating how many Hispanics come from countries where soccer is a national passion, which Major League Soccer is trying to tap.

The U.S. league is sponsoring games featuring Latin American teams in the hope that fans will stick around for U.S. matches the same day.

“For us, the Hispanic market is incredibly important,” said MLS commissioner Don Garber. But catering to “the Hispanic market” is a big challenge for U.S. sports promoters, in part because Latinos here have ties to more than a dozen countries.

Eduardo Carvacho has been navigating the Hispanic market for U.S. soccer teams since 2007. He started out building a fan base for the Columbus Crew in Ohio, where most Hispanics were recent arrivals.

The U.S. Major League Soccer has created strategies for reaching out to Hispanics. Traditionally, however, it has been difficult to reach the Hispanic market, even more difficult than the other American sports.

Of those Hispanics who do consider soccer their favorite sport, many of them are already fans of other teams and other leagues.

MLS has to compete with the English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, and the Italian Serie A, along with all of the leagues in the various countries with which Hispanics may have ties, and any league where players from those countries could be featuring.

Those games are shown in new channels like ESPN Deportes, GolTV or other channels like Telemundo. An MLS team has to somehow make its case to become a favorite team.

This is dozens of leagues with hundreds of teams, all competing against MLS for the attention of the U.S. Hispanic soccer fan.

This is in stark contrast to the NBA, the NFL, and MLB, who don’t have serious competition as the top league in their sport. Any fans they can attract to their sport will be attracted to the league and its teams.

The playing style favored in MLS, a very physical game where skill tends to lose out to brawn, is generally not very appealing to Hispanic soccer fans.

It is obvious that the MLS has unique challenges facing American soccer. Back in the 70s, with Cosmos´ Brazilian star player, Pelé, things did not fully work out.

Now, with more Hispanics living in the United States, things would seem a little bit easier.

However, it is important to note that the most successful teams by far in generating fan support in MLS have been in the cities with the lowest Hispanic population: Toronto and Seattle.

Philadelphia, with a mere 8.5% Hispanic population, is doing very well in season ticket sales, and Portland (8.5%) and Vancouver (1.36%) will without doubt continue that trend.

Compare that to FC Dallas’s poor attendance in a region that is over 35% Hispanic and a picture starts to emerge.

Market researches still believe that if the MLS is able to attract better players and more interest on the part of media and broadcasters, the MLSr may one day be the favorite league in the U.S., not only for Hispanics but for millions of Americans.

The growing interest on the U.S. soccer international team is another point in favor for the MLS.

Most importantly, there are markets more fertile than Hispanics for American soccer and identifying and reaching out to those will give MLS it’s best chance at robust growth.

The Americano