How To Get Soccer On A Whole New Level In the USA

The US Women's Football Team (Soccer, if you're that way inclined!) just won the World Cup, sparking off massed celebration both in the stadium and across the country.

Now, it's all about marketing the game.

At the moment, there are 1.7m registered women playing soccer and 2.5 million men.

Both men and women's leagues are professional in the USA. And the US men's team has beaten the Netherlands and Germany and won the Gold Cup, while the USA beat (almost) everybody it played against in the Women's World Cup, and won the lot.

Having said that, it's not as though we're seeing a lot of love from major channels and sponsors outside of the major tournaments, and people aren't exactly wandering around the streets of New York City with a Carli Lloyd top celebrating Team USA's 5-2 victory over Japan.

The US Soccer Federation would love to see its two domestic leagues - MLS and NWSL - with its stadiums filled out.

So, here's some suggestions to try and make this happen:

1) CARLI LLOYD, SUPERSTAR

Carli Lloyd's image on Time Square? Carli Lloyd promoting Nike products at every turn? Carli Lloyd being the face of women's sport in the USA for as long as we can remember? Carli Lloyd should also be putting this message out to people: "Get to soccer games and support the game. We cannot do this without you." Of course, it goes without saying that tickets to Lloyd's team, the Houston Dash, will now be sold out because of her.

2) GET THE TEAM ON THE TALK SHOWS

It's pretty obvious that in the next few weeks (and quite possibly months), we are going to see members of US women's team on every talk show from Oprah to Jimmy Kimmel to the early morning slots. They have to make sure they go on the shows....and make sure the message is simple: We want more and more women to play the sport. And we want funding to make sure the game isn't just available to wealthy suburbian kids whose parents don't like them playing football (and let's face the facts, that's what soccer is in the States on a large part).

3) MAKE SURE GOLD CUP 2015 IS WELL ADVERTISED

I'm surprised that Fox Sports hasn't immediately started to harp on about its coverage of the Gold Cup, or seeing an advertising spot that goes: "From World Cup to Gold Cup.....USA can win again!" or something like that. I'm also surprised not to see Fox Sports immediately try and dominate with Gold Cup coverage after the World Cup victory.

4) MAKE SURE THE GOLD CUP IS WELL COVERED

We would HOPE that Fox Sports will put the semi-finals and final (and all USA games) of the Gold Cup on ordinary cable TV, so people don't have to have a sports package to see the USA soccer team play. Remember: Soccer is about the only competitive mainstream sport out there if you don't like NASCAR or baseball. And the reason why we say competitive sport is that Americans like to see competitive Americans, and at the moment, it doesn't look as though the USA's going to bring home success in tennis, and Jordan Spieth - despite his early success - isn't been touted as Tiger Woods is. Fox can win on the ratings side, the US authorities win overall.

5) GET THE WORLD CUP GAME OUT ON DVD/DIGITAL DOWNLOAD

One of the USA's greatest international triumphs needs to be out there and marketed as soon as possible on DVD. People WILL buy it. If anything, to show how to take advantage of terrible defending.

6) RE-MARKET THE SHIRT

Some people bought the Team USA shirt for the game, but most people liked wearing a more patriotic blue, red and white. But Team USA doesn't play in red, white and blue generally. The home shirt is WHITE. So get the extra gold star on the shirt, put Carli Lloyd or anyone's name on the back, and market, market, market. And make sure you've got guys wearing the 'Carli Lloyd shirt', because it breaks down that barrier. A win like this SHOULD be breaking down gender equality.

7) MARKET MLS/NWSL

Marketing people from MLS sides should work together and say: "Listen, how can jump on this bandwagon?" Well, why not do a team-wide promotion where on one day later in the season, in celebration of Team USA's wonderful soccer victory, teams give away 1000 free seats (or more, depending on capacity) in each MLS stadium. It gets fans in the ground to see what a live game is like. The average attendance is 20,000, and climbing. Imagine 30,000. That's pretty healthy.

The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), which averages just 4,000 per game should do the same with the tag-line: "You've seen them win on TV. Now see them win in person". Hopefully they'll see a jump. Apart from Portland, where the team averages over 13,000 a game. Fox Sports' new deal will help...and now looks like a great move.

Both leagues need to push via email and Twitter to get people involved and more in a conversation. If there's a member of a Gold Cup or World Cup-winning squad, Team USA needs to be marketing the hell out of them.

8) LOBBY GOVERNMENT

If I'm the US Soccer Federation, I'm lobbying government off the back of this success to get more funding to get more soccer pitches in urban areas. Why? It's fairly simple. The No.1 game amongst Mexicans isn't baseball. It's soccer. And if you provide more and more pitches - which are simple and don't have the equipment duresses of American Football, baseball etc - then you might scout for talent. I would love to see more Latin Mexican-Americans in the US squad. It's also good for marketing to the Latin base.

9) SPORTS ILLUSTRATED?

Now, I'm confident that the women's soccer team will be on the front of Sports Illustrated on Tuesday, but could the game be 'sexed up' by getting team members on the Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit issue? Whether you like it or not, the Swimsuit issue is fantastic marketing. We hope that in time the ESPN Body Issue will also do stuff for men or women's soccer players, not just Bryce Harper.

Why Sponsors Aren't Going To Run Away from FIFA

It wasn't so much rain that hit FIFA in Switzerland on Wednesday, but a flood that Moses would have been proud of.

14 FIFA people were indicted by the US Department of Justice on charges that included multiple charges, including fraud and racketeering. Sports marketing executives who paid more than $150m in under-the-counter deals for media rights were given the indictment treated.

A lot of people wanted FIFA President Sepp Blatter to be one of the names on the DoJ's list, but it didn't happen. It's funny, because he's favourite to be re-elected as FIFA President on Friday - his fifth-straight victory for the post. Blatter has faced wave after wave of scandal - including the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar ahead of the USA (although he apparently voted for the US), but still managed to hold onto his Presidential post. Why? Frankly, because he's made FIFA an awful amount of money over the years, and there's nothing more than football federations want than the chinking of coins. And he's been around a long time, so he knows how to talk to biggest names in FIFA's fiefdom: The sponsors. 

Of course, this has led the bigger scream: What will happen to the relationship with the sponsors?

The 2014 World Cup's premier partners were Adidas, Coca-Cola, Hyundai, Emirates, Sony and Visa, with other sponsors including Budweiser, McDonald's, Castrol,  and Johnson & Johnson, to name but a few.

You can be sure that every single one of them - who pays around $10-25m to be a FIFA partnership (according to Sponsorship.com), probably called Blatter to ask what in Pele's name was going on. After all, being a partner collectively cost a total of $1.6bn for the 2014 World Cup - and that isn't cheap (although you could say that the exposure to the billions of people watching the games on their TV, computer and mobile screens was worth the money). 

A lot of people looking at Sepp Blatter and the current situation want Blatter out. But it hasn't come from the sponsors.

The sponsors COULD throw their toys out of the pram, and demand Sepp Blatter's resignation or they cancel their sponsorship deal. A highly-paid lawyer could call the indictments 'breach of contract' and they could walk. After all, big consumer companies don't like to be associated with corruption, for fear that consumers will walk away from them in protest. No company likes a worse indictment than the Department of Justice - an indictment by Twitter.

But the sponsors won't. After all, their continuing payments to FIFA keeps their competitors away.

But they won't. Does Adidas really want to give up their sponsorship contract? You can guarantee that Nike - who does perfectly well out of making kits during World Cups as it is - wouldn't mind putting their toe into the ring to get even more World Cup exposure. Nor would Under Armour. Coca-Cola? Pepsi - already associated with the Super Bowl - would grab the chance to sponsor the event. Plus, they can sell a lot of Pepsi at football games. Continental Tires? Goodyear. Johnson & Johnson? Pfizer. McDonald's? Subway. Visa? Mastercard (or American Express). The list goes on.

The most likely sponsor to walk out would be McDonald's. McDonald's has had scandals worldwide over the last few years, which has hugely impacted the company. And now things are going so badly in the USA that it's no longer reporting monthly sales data. New CEO Steve Easterbrook may well want to reduce spending - and the chance of being 'guilty by association' - by cutting the relationship. That is, if Easterbrook doesn't consider the World Cup far too big a marketing opportunity. 

And the TV partners? No sane media organisation is going to turn down the monster ratings and the potential earnings that come from advertising revenues just because of a scandal. 

The sponsors have said that they are worried about a scandal....but they aren't leaving yet (thanks for the headline, CNN Money!).

And we don't think they will be anytime soon.

Me and Storify....

Storify is quite possibly one of the best social storytelling methods in years.

It basically collates posts from around the world about a certain subject, and all you have to do is give the story a headline, and add a description, and start adding things.

As you can see on the right hand side, every major social media player is represented, from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to Instagram, Tumblr and yes, Getglue (the latter being a good measurement of people watching a program).

It's quick, it's fun, and you start learning about people's feedback on a certain subject. For example, when this writer did a piece on Sky Sports' F1 Adventure, we learned that the comments were overwhelmingly positive - which is sometimes different to one's own Twitter feed, where - if you're unlucky - all you stream are cynical people, all you get are cynical tweets, therefore making you hate life.

It went down a storm at South by Southwest - taking home the top social media prize. Storify also went a little nuts about SXSW itself, publishing over 1,000 stories from its users. That's really cool.

How's it going to affect the future?

In our opinion, Storify's going to let media agencies present how their clients' products have been in the social world in a fun way. Clients are going to love Storify's simplicity - and it could be a gamechanger. And on the other side, clients are going to be able to jump into Storify, start searching about what people are saying about the product, and be able to have a clear, unsold version of how everything's being received. And if you're Lionsgate Films , you're probably in heaven right now because your social media marketing drive helped The Hunger Games gross over $100m in the opening weekend's box office. (NOTE: Don't worry - we'll have a Hunger Games campaign Storify story up soon!!)

In the future (we hope), Storify's going to be able to tell people searching for a certain subject how many tweets/Facebook comments/Instagram pics etc there were on a certain subject. While that may not spell good news for the likes of E-Buzzing.com or Google Analytics, at least having all your social media comments all under one roof will be exceptionally helpful.

But Storify does have problems

1) There is no search activity for Storify stories. In other words, all you've got is this line at the top of the home page:

You can only click through on those featured topics, which is all well and good - if you wanted to research what the latest economists are saying about Greece. But what happens if you wanted to see how many Storify stories there are about Tim Tebow, Peyton Manning, or Jesus Christ (they are't one at the same, sportsfans!). 

2) There is no search facility for users. All you get is this:

This is well and good, but what happens if you just want a list of users - like you do Twitter or Facebook, or see if your friends are using it? 

And more's the case, what happens if you want people to follow you on Storify - or you follow other people? Why should you have to go with Storify's recommendations? And why can't you get recommendations about certain subjects (ie college football/ drinking/ Alcoholics Anonymous). 

3) Where are the recommendations?

Social media lives and dies on RTing and liking, but on Storify, it's hard to tell if someone likes or hates my story. Of course, I can try and spread a bit of buzz about the story using the 'Notify' button, which comes up after a story's complete (letting tweeters know that their piece has been quoted), but how can I get more subscribers to my stuff so more people can read it? And more's the case, is Storify relying on Twitter/ Facebook for feedback on articles - couldn't Storify have a 'comments' section all for itself.

The good news is is ....

In the future, Storify's going to be absolutely awesome. It just needs a couple of (big) tweaks!!

Oh, and here's a link to Storify story I wrote earlier...

The guys from Storify got back to me after reading my piece, and said this: "Great suggestions. Some of which are coming very soon".

I thought "very soon" was going to be in around 101 days, so imagine my surprise when I jumped onto Storify and saw this....

That's right! You can now put in any story you want to search, and Storify will come up with the stories. This should end up stopping complete duplication - but if you're really passionate about the subject you're Storifying, do yours anyway, publish it, and THEN go and search for another term. There's no point in having an idea, and getting down because someone else has already done it. After all, most ideas aren't original anyway!

We wait for the second part of our recommendations with (bated) breath....

But great work by the Storify guys - and good to see that this writer wasn't talking (complete) rubbish....