3 Marketing Lessons from England’s Premier League
A Closer Look at Why the Other Football Is Gaining Popularity in America
In the old days, American fans of the English Premier League had to go to ridiculous lengths to follow their favorite clubs. Up until very recently, live Premier League games were available only via a satellite-TV subscription, which meant either paying for an expensive dish or, if you were lucky enough to live in a soccer-crazed city, heading to a local bar way too early on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Fast-forward to 2017 and suddenly every single Premier League game is available live on the NBC family of networks or streaming on its website, from the titanic clashes featuring Liverpool and Manchester United, down to the relegation battles between tiny Huddersfield Town and Brighton and Hove Albion.
Soccer is now the fourth-most-watched sport in America, having surpassed hockey, golf, and tennis in just a matter of years.
For decades, American soccer boosters have been claiming that “football” is the sport of the future, and it appears that their prediction has finally come true, particularly as it pertains to the Premier League. While the television ratings for global soccer events like the World Cup are often tossed around as proof of soccer’s newfound status in America (more American viewers watched the 2015 Women’s World Cup Final than the NBA Finals or the Stanley Cup Finals that same year), the real markers of progress are the weekly viewership numbers for the Premier League.
In 2015, NBC inked a new deal for the television rights to the Premier League worth $1 billion. At the time, that astronomical number was scoffed at, but so far it appears that NBC’s gamble has paid off. For the 2015–2016 season, NBC averaged 514,000 viewers per match; the total viewership for the season — 36 million viewers — was up 36 percent from the previous year. Taken as a whole, soccer is now the fourth-most-watched sport in America, having surpassed hockey, golf, and tennis in just a matter of years.
What follows are three marketing lessons professional sports leagues in America can take from the rapid growth and success of the Premier League.
1. Atmosphere Sells
The banners. The packed-to-the-gills stadiums. The songs and chants. These are some of the iconic details that make watching a Premier League match so unique. Even the most raucous NFL game feels tame compared to the sheer joy and energy (and occasional violence) that ooze through the screen during a Premier League match. This phenomenon has its roots in many historical and cultural factors, but here is the most obvious reason: With the exception of the more niche sports, like rugby and cricket, soccer is by far the most popular spectator sport in England. Imagine what would happen if American NHL, NBA, NFL, and MLB fans were forced to channel all their passions into a single sport! That passion is heightened by the fact that each team plays only 38 matches in a Premier League season, which transforms even the blandest encounter — Watford versus Swansea City, for example — into a huge event.
Professional leagues in America, on the other hand, seem to have done all they can to suck the life out of the viewing experience for fans at home. If you’re watching Los Angeles Dodgers home game from your couch, you won’t see any signs or banners, because they are banned from the stadium; the stated reason for the prohibition is that they obstruct the view of other fans. If there is one sight that every baseball fan knows well, it is thousands of empty seats during day games or even primetime games between less popular teams (think Tampa Bay Rays versus Minnesota Twins). There is even a Twitter account dedicated to documenting these sad sights. And even if NBA fans created clever songs or chants, the viewer at home would never be able to hear them, because arenas insist on blaring prerecorded cheers and music throughout the entire game.
Even the most raucous NFL game feels tame compared to the sheer joy and energy (and occasional violence) that ooze through the screen during a Premier League match.
All these shortcomings illustrate one of the main flaws in the marketing of professional leagues in America: By privileging the in-stadium experience, the leagues are taking away from the TV-viewing experience, and TV is where the real money is made. Of course, the huge banners at Premier League games (most Premier League teams allow banners and signs as big as 10 by 10 feet) can obstruct the view of fans in the seats, but the league higher-ups know they add to the atmosphere that translates so well over television. In terms of packing stadiums, the Premier League caps tickets for traveling away fans at £30; Virgin Media recently struck a deal with the Premier League to offer a £10 discount on the already capped price for a select weekend of games. And if there are sports in America that rival the Premier League for organic crowd noise and excitement, it’s college football and basketball; it’s no coincidence that college football and basketball saw an increase in TV ratings during the 2016–2017 seasons, while both the NFL’s and NBA’s declined.
2. Speed: Don’t Take So Long
One of the familiar complaints about soccer from American sports fans is that the game is too slow. However, this gripe doesn’t really hold water when you consider these facts: According to the Wall Street Journal, the average NFL game has only 11 minutes of live game action out of the average two-hour, 54-minute game. For baseball, the Wall Street Journal calculated that there is an average of 18 minutes of action in a two-hour, 58-minute game; one hour and 14 minutes is devoted to just the time between pitches! In soccer, the only scheduled break in the action is halftime, and other than the occasional injury, the match continues, unabated, for two 45-minute halves. The only American sports that compare to the action of soccer are basketball and hockey, but even they are chopped up by endless timeouts, referee reviews, and, of course, commercials.
How does this all relate to marketing? The answer is simple: These leagues are not responding to the changing TV habits of their customers, particularly younger customers. According to Nielsen, adults age 18–34 spend significantly less time watching live TV compared to adults 35 and over; the average daily TV viewing time for the younger group is only two hours and 45 minutes, less time than the average length of an NFL or MLB game. The takeaway is clear: American professional sports take too long! The younger audience could watch a two-hour Premier League game and still have time left over in their daily TV viewing to watch an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
3. Focus on the Future (Fans)
And speaking of younger fans, the Premier League does a better job than almost every other league of engaging with the future of its audience. For example, the club West Ham runs a promotion called Kids for a Quid, in which kids under 16 can buy a ticket for £1 for certain matches. Arsenal, a famous London-based team with a large American fan base, has organized a junior-supporters club called Junior Gunners. Membership in this club comes with an app designed by the digital agency Koko that allows young fans to design their own avatars and play Arsenal-themed mobile games.
Three million American kids play some form of organized soccer every year, which is double the number that play tackle football, and 1 million more than play baseball.
In general, soccer’s increased popularity, especially among a younger audience, can be charted by the huge leaps in social media buzz. For example, the UEFA Champions League, European club soccer’s most prestigious tournament, has seen its social media buzz double year over year. According to the same metric, even MLS teams in America have seen their online popularity balloon: In 2015, the social media buzz was up 34 percent compared to the previous season.
Capturing the loyalty of the younger audience and converting it to future advertising dollars is a critical opportunity for English soccer clubs for one big reason: More American kids play soccer than any other sport. By far. Three million American kids play some form of organized soccer every year, which is double the number that play tackle football, and 1 million more than play baseball.
You can be sure that marketing executives for every Premier League club are aware of those numbers, and that goes a long way in explaining why they are so successful at marketing their league. If traditional American sports hope to keep up in the future, they need to start looking across the ocean for direction.
Photos: Shutterstock
Originally published at www.brittonmdg.com.
