Many years ago when I was a sports journalist, before asking to be transferred from what was then called the “toy department” to what I considered a more important one, a well-known sports publicist would close his shop during the World Series and go on vacation.
His reasoning made sense: In those days baseball was the dominant sport and World Series coverage would leave minimal space for P.R. – created sports stories.
Of course, those were the days when popular sports of the present era – like professional football and basketball – had not reached the powerhouse status they are today. In addition to baseball, prize fighting and thoroughbred racing were considered the major sports, which should provide a valuable lesson for sports marketers and PR practitioners: Always be on the lookout for new opportunities and remember that the sporting event that will dominate the world’s sports coverage from June 11 to July 19—the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament—was once not even an afterthought by the great majority of American sports marketers who targeted North America, and also by sports editors, who decided what sports deserved coverage. It was considered a foreign sport that only was popular in countries other than the U.S. Its coverage in American media was almost nil.
As a young boy, I remember my father, who emigrated to the U.S. from Europe, would take me to a soccer game on the rare occasions visiting European teams would play a few games in the New York area. The crowds were sparse. Language used by most of the spectators were those spoken in various European countries, except when spectators were speaking to their children in broken English. Ticket prices were cheap. That’s no longer the case.
Today, the popularity of soccer in the U.S. is a no-brainer. That’s why the moguls that control the sport have chosen the United States as a site of the World Cup and have scheduled its championship game to be played in our country.
Prior to the championship game at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on July 19, which will have a half-time show featuring Shakira, Madonna and BTS as headliners, games leading up to the championship one will be played in cities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Teams from around the world will battle it out on the pitch during the tournament, as pitches from baseball players will receive greatly reduced media coverage.
While they are not even close to being in the same leagues as baseball, football and basketball are today, there are a bunch of minor or emerging sports that sports marketers and their PR advisors should consider: They include, but are not limited to, pickleball, flag football, beach volleyball and all women sports.
The trend to those sports is propelled because they permit all body types to participate, unlike the 200 plus pound football players, baseball pitchers who can throw a ball with speeds reaching 100 miles an hour, or the six foot plus basketball players.
For brands that can’t afford the millions of dollars required to become an “official sponsor” of today’s major sports events, and even for brands that can afford it, aligning themselves with an emerging sport provides a comparatively inexpensive option. While emerging sports still have niche support, sponsoring them can gain brands a loyal customer base, unlike the many consumers who tune in to major sporting events like the Super Bowl and Olympics and don’t care about which brand is sponsoring the event.
Sports marketers and their PR advisors should remember that in the U.S. soccer was once considered so minor that it didn’t receive a column inch of print coverage or a few seconds of mentions on television until 1994, when the FIFA World Cup was held in our country. It was the first time that the sport received major media coverage, leading to the creation of Major League Soccer (MLS) in 1996.
Today, soccer, once shunned by marketers in the U.S., who like their public relations advisors are blinded by the spotlights of baseball, football, basketball, the Super Bowl and a host of mega international events, is a major sport and still growing in popularity.
For brands that have minimal sports marketing budgets, or for those with long-term outlooks (which is rare in today’s marketing environment because of Wall Street’s short term influence), tie-ins with an emerging sport or two can bring big dividends.
It’s prudent to remember that at one time professional football and basketball were not considered major sports; neither in the U.S. was the world’s most popular sport—soccer—which began getting consideration by marketers that targeted North America in the 1970s.
Sports marketers and their public relations advisors should remove their blinders and consider emerging sports as part of their marketing plans.
As Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in his 1374 poem “Troilus and Criseyde,” (which I’m sure all you liberal arts majors know), “An ok cometh of a litel spir” (An oak comes from a little shoot).
