Despite its Major League Soccer wins, Chivas USA can’t hope to compete in the marketing game against the star power of David Beckham and the L.A. Galaxy.
But the sister team of the wildly popular Mexican franchise plans to even the score.
“We are pursuing our own star player, but are only going to bring in someone who will make us better on the field and sell lots of tickets,” said Shawn Hunter, general manager of Chivas. “Beckham has been a good investment he is dong well on the field and he has sold tickets. So we’re studying that, since if you make a similar investment you want to be accurate.”
Meanwhile, Chivas has hired O’Brien Marketing in Santa Clarita as its media-buying agency. O’Brien’s mission is to try to integrate Anglo fans into the Latino fan base, where Chivas had concentrated its efforts until now.
The three-year-old team is owned by the Vergara family, which owns Chivas Guadalajara, one of the most popular sports teams in Mexico. The L.A. franchise has made good use of its Mexican heritage by projecting a similar homegrown image. Just as the Mexican team uses only Mexican players, Chivas USA has recruited locally through a large grass-roots network of youth soccer clinics and summer camps.
“That’s our connection with the children that their first moment of truth in sports should be with the Chivas, not the Dodgers or the Galaxy,” Hunter explained.
However, the team will now start advertising in English-language media to attract non-Latino fans.
“Until now, it was predominantly Hispanic dollars,” C. Pat O’Brien, chief executive of his namesake agency, said of Chivas’ marketing strategy. “We’ve researched the radio and newspaper general markets, and we’ve created relationships this team didn’t have in the past.”
Specifically, O’Brien plans to use Los Angeles Newspaper Group, a chain of community dailies including the Daily News, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune and the Long Beach Press-Telegram, to target neighborhoods where interest in soccer runs high.
Last season, Chivas won Major League Soccer’s Western Conference championship, while the Galaxy finished in fifth place. But Beckham has changed the game. The Galaxy currently ranks ahead of Chivas in the 2008 standings, and on April 26 the Galaxy beat Chivas 5-2 in their first meeting of the year.
Likewise, in the battle for fans, Galaxy has attracted an average of 24,450 people this year, compared with 18,160 for Chivas.
But Chivas still has a long season to prove its strategy.
“The best way is to outperform Galaxy on the field in 2008,” Hunter said. “When the MLS Championship match comes to Home Depot Center on Nov. 23, we’re focused on being on the field not in the stands.”
