Ideating Against Pain Points: Growing ‘Football’ in America

I was recently pointed to this great post written by Chris Michaud of Continuum and was inspired by Ken Gordon’s comment to me of “cool things happen at unusual intersections”. Which got me thinking of how I could merge my passion for football (soccer) and my design background to solve the problem of growing football in America to the same level that it is around the world by being bold, innovative and spotting opportunities in the marketplace to exploit. I am going to follow Chris’s structure of identifying problems, challenges and pain points and ideating around how these could be solved. But first, a little context…

Put simply, football is the global game.

In many countries around the world, it is the national sport, has an incredible fan following and amazing history. In England it is a huge part of the culture and it has been for many years. Rooted in history, football emerged from a more violent form of the game, Mob Football, before growing into Association Football and becoming more regulated (there is much more to this and, if interested, have a read of the following book: The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football by David Goldblatt). It became popular in England when it was the working class sport that everybody looked forward to at the end of their week. The routine of attending a football match on Saturday at 3pm were what people looked forward to at the end of a long week of work. The game then started to spread throughout the world through the British Empire.

The game we see today is vastly different, and the commercialization of the game completely changed the landscape. It allowed for teams to inherit vast sums of money from television rights, shirt sales and global fan bases that they could pay players amazing amounts of money that turned them into global superstars, just look at David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi etc.

One thing stayed constant: Football has a cult following and creates emotional engagement with fans starting from a very early age. I have memories of growing up as a kid with my Dad taking me to Old Trafford to watch Manchester United and listening to commentaries of the late week night games secretly in my room when I was supposed to be in bed or even sneaking into my brothers room so we could listen together.

Every brand wants that emotional engagement with their customers. Sport has the unique power that evokes emotions in people that they will remember for a lifetime. Ask any sports fan the question of their favorite memories following their team, and they will be able to reel off many memories of incredible experiences that they have had following their team and they will be smiling whilst telling it. Ask the same question of people who purchase products from other brands, and I don’t think that you would get the same emotional response.

This puts all sports teams in a unique situation that they can capitalize on. So why hasn’t football (soccer) taken off in America to way it has around the world? And why is it not close to other American sports such as Basketball, Baseball or American Football?

Using the method of identifying a problem and ideating on a solution, here are some possible solutions that could have an impact.

Problem: Is there an overload of sport?

Sport in America is huge, American sports (NFL, College Football, Basketball, Baseball, Ice Hockey) are followed with such passion which isn’t replicated around the world. This begs the question, how does football (soccer) fit in?

• The MLB regular season lasts for 162 games
• The NBA regular season lasts for 82 games
• The NHL regular season lasts for 82 games

Is it possible for football to have the same emotional impact on American’s when their attention is elsewhere following their teams in other sports on an almost daily basis?

Solution: Don’t fight it, embrace it.

American Football bucks the trend here as it only has 16 games in the regular season, one game a week and people plan their lives around this weekly event. Football (soccer) has a similar weekly schedule although a greater number of games, how do we encourage people to make football part of their weekly routine? Scheduling seems to be the easiest route. The MLS season runs from April to December and for a number of months competes with all of the other American sports. The opportunity here is during June, July and August. The only other sport competing for fans attention during this time is baseball, however this period of time is right in the middle of the MLS season where the trophies are not handed out.

Why not start the season earlier and slightly reduce the number of games to have the ‘Race to the Playoffs’ and the actual playoffs happening during this period (aka the most exciting part of the season) where you may be able to capture attention of fans who wouldn’t normally be watching. Oh and by the way, the European football season is also closed during this time, so you may get admiring glances from football fans in Europe crying out for their weekly dose of football action — “I’m a Manchester United fan, but whilst they’re not playing, I’ll check out San Jose Earthquakes”. Doing this would make it much easier for fans to fit football into their busy lives.

Problem: Is Football’s format appropriate to reach US audiences?

Football is an intense sport. Two 45-minute halves that require you to be completely immersed. Other American sports last for a much longer period of time where you don’t need to have this focus. How can the MLS cater for different audiences that may not be used to this type of action?

Solution: Be Innovative

Many sports are trying to create different formats to entice a new fanbase to the sport. I’ll use cricket as the prime example, it was seen as long (a test match lasts 5-days) and even the shorter form of the game lasted 1-day. In 2003, the governing body introduced a brand new format to the sport called Twenty20, without going into detail, this format encouraged big hitting and the match lasted for 2–3 hours maximum. It changed the game forever. It encouraged a new breed of fan to come and enjoy the game as well as encouraging more people to take up the sport.

MLS football is in a similar position, why not gamble and see what is possible. You never know, it could be America’s gift to the world.

An initial idea… why not have an MLS 6-a-side tournament over a weekend to provide a break from the league action and allow fans to see a slightly different form of the game whilst still following their team. Or to take it one step further…an all star 6-a-side tournament where players from the league can volunteer to play and teams have a nominated captain who is able to build his own team to compete in the tournament.

Problem: Every game needs to be meaningful

There is nothing exciting about watching a game between two teams who have nothing meaningful to play for. For it to be attractive to fans, games need to have something riding on them so that the teams aren’t just going through the motions and predicable scores happen. The beauty of sport is it’s unpredictability.

Solution: Incentivize all teams

Every fan wants to see their team fighting for trophies but there is also something special about supporting your team to avoid relegation. From my experiences in England, these games are sometimes some of the most exciting to watch with the amount that is riding on it. A match between Stoke City and West Brom can all of a sudden become an exciting game for a neutral fan to watch. Adding promotion and relegation to the MLS alongside regulating the league system to allow for this to happen would ensure that there are many more meaningful games throughout the season that would entice fans to watch.

If more teams need to be added to create this league structure, then the MLS shouldn’t look much further than La Liga in Spain where they allow some of the larger teams to run a ‘B Team’ (Barca B, Real Madrid Castilla for example) to play against other small clubs. Doing this allows them to blood some of their more promising young players to gain vital experience to allow them the greatest chance to get into the first team whilst also improving the overall quality of football in the US.

Hopefully you enjoyed reading this, and it shows that using design thinking methodologies of understanding the marketplace and users and spotting opportunities to exploit and ideating against pain points or problems can be applied to any subject matter or challenge.

I’d love to start a discussion around this, so any additional thoughts or feedback is welcomed.