Cosmic Marketing
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It takes real sporting star quality or an achievement of a certain magnitude to bring a city to a halt. Citizens deserting cars and walking for blocks to crane their necks for a brief glimpse of a sporting icon or to queue for hours in a vain attempt to secure what passes for an autograph but resembles more the idle scrawling of a toddler let loose with a Sharpie.
I’m not referring to the presence of someone who purely brings in tow a clatter of photographers or occasionally necessitates a cavalcade of cars to carry out the simplest of duties. I’m pointing to the type of shutdown and chaos that a Presidential visit causes or the type of traffic congestion and disruption only seen when apocalyptic weather descends upon unprepared metropolitans (I clearly am yet to recover from having to endure a four hour drive home before Christmas, a journey I normally comfortably complete within a half hour). Put to one side thoughts of your standard All-Ireland victory homecoming or as readers of a certain vintage may recall the throngs that lined the route from Dublin Airport to College Green when the Republic Of Ireland squad returned home from Italia 90. Both well deserved but paling in significance to the football team who, without possessing a single player and haven’t played a competitive game since 1985 but who have twice brought Times Square to a complete halt over the past six months.
New York is once again going Cosmos crazy. So much so that a celebration of Pele’s 70th birthday, devoid of the Brazilian legend it must be noted – the closest you could get was to have your picture taken with a cardboard cut-out, and some weeks later the official launch of the club’s advertising campaign have New Yorkers clambering to jump on the bandwagon. It is a marketers dream, a large supporters base, merchandise selling out on a scale that must be making the Yankees look over their shoulder and for what, a brand, a legendary one but one all the same that is living on the hope that it may return to competitive action in an expanded MLS in two years time. Just yesterday the organisation completed its latest signing, bringing to three its list of star names. Carlos Alberto, the captain of the 1970s Brazilian World Cup team who will tog out in an Ambassadorial role alongside Pele and former Italian striker Giorgio Chinaglia, all serving to hype up the eventual arrival of Director of Soccer Eric Cantona’s modern breed. The marketing machine has been so successful that one would wonder if they would jeopardise the project by hiring high maintenance footballers and be forced to endure the distraction of actual play.
There is a view that is often expressed by American sports journalists in particular which says that there is no place within any piece of work for the notion of the “club”. The club as we would see it, a sporting body at which we invest so much time and emotion, whose jersey we wear, DNA we feel a part of is a fraud. They will claim it is a misnomer, a relic of sporting emotion from days gone by, one that has been replaced by clinical institutions; franchises, corporate bodies with the sole intention of making money, horse trading in our heroes, devoid of the any sense of tradition and ruled out by a temporary custodian who will exit stage left at the very first sight of a potential pay day. With such an approach is it any wonder that the MLS has failed to fully weave itself into the hearts and minds of soccer fans Stateside. A sporting choice that fans are been conditioned to make not via a real love for a sport but more by who has the most impressive looking posters or promotional tools.
Last Friday I set out on what I thought was a relatively simple mission, a friend now a resident in America sent me a quite straightforward request. Working on the basis that many of his new found peers come from a background which failed to forge in them any impressive level of soccer skill our intrepid emigrant registered for a local five a side league, the hallmark of which was for each player to line out in the jersey of their nearest club. A global coming together facilitated through various shades and designs of polyester sportswear. Simon O’Gorman of this parish wrote glowingly of the relationship we as fans have with the merchandising wings of our clubs. To do so is to overcome a scarcity I could never anticipate of League Of Ireland merchandise. Three shopping centres a total of eight sport shops and the sole return, the possibility of buying a Bray Wanderers shirt, the only shirt some of the country’s leading sport retailers had in stock. I could however have had my pick of two New York Cosmos jerseys, a hoodie, two different tracksuit tops but instead was left with a sense of increasing frustration and the quizzical looks received when asking a litany of staff members for a jersey of any of the Dublin clubs. Contrast the League where clubs have pulled in great attendances this year with the hollow God that the Cosmos is.
There are clubs who have done great work in marketing themselves and ensuring they capitalise fully on the marketability of the clubs, providing a service to proper fans who wanted to support and contribute to their club. It also increases the awareness of the League. How many eyes are drawn by the St Pat’s Superstore in Inchicore or likewise Shamrock Rovers’ facility in Tallaght but beyond that there is little of no awareness of a national league in the places where potential fans are bombarded by opposing sports and leagues. We’re a long way off the hype and overblown exposure of the Cosmos but some help could be badly done with.
I’m not referring to the presence of someone who purely brings in tow a clatter of photographers or occasionally necessitates a cavalcade of cars to carry out the simplest of duties. I’m pointing to the type of shutdown and chaos that a Presidential visit causes or the type of traffic congestion and disruption only seen when apocalyptic weather descends upon unprepared metropolitans (I clearly am yet to recover from having to endure a four hour drive home before Christmas, a journey I normally comfortably complete within a half hour). Put to one side thoughts of your standard All-Ireland victory homecoming or as readers of a certain vintage may recall the throngs that lined the route from Dublin Airport to College Green when the Republic Of Ireland squad returned home from Italia 90. Both well deserved but paling in significance to the football team who, without possessing a single player and haven’t played a competitive game since 1985 but who have twice brought Times Square to a complete halt over the past six months.
New York is once again going Cosmos crazy. So much so that a celebration of Pele’s 70th birthday, devoid of the Brazilian legend it must be noted – the closest you could get was to have your picture taken with a cardboard cut-out, and some weeks later the official launch of the club’s advertising campaign have New Yorkers clambering to jump on the bandwagon. It is a marketers dream, a large supporters base, merchandise selling out on a scale that must be making the Yankees look over their shoulder and for what, a brand, a legendary one but one all the same that is living on the hope that it may return to competitive action in an expanded MLS in two years time. Just yesterday the organisation completed its latest signing, bringing to three its list of star names. Carlos Alberto, the captain of the 1970s Brazilian World Cup team who will tog out in an Ambassadorial role alongside Pele and former Italian striker Giorgio Chinaglia, all serving to hype up the eventual arrival of Director of Soccer Eric Cantona’s modern breed. The marketing machine has been so successful that one would wonder if they would jeopardise the project by hiring high maintenance footballers and be forced to endure the distraction of actual play.
There is a view that is often expressed by American sports journalists in particular which says that there is no place within any piece of work for the notion of the “club”. The club as we would see it, a sporting body at which we invest so much time and emotion, whose jersey we wear, DNA we feel a part of is a fraud. They will claim it is a misnomer, a relic of sporting emotion from days gone by, one that has been replaced by clinical institutions; franchises, corporate bodies with the sole intention of making money, horse trading in our heroes, devoid of the any sense of tradition and ruled out by a temporary custodian who will exit stage left at the very first sight of a potential pay day. With such an approach is it any wonder that the MLS has failed to fully weave itself into the hearts and minds of soccer fans Stateside. A sporting choice that fans are been conditioned to make not via a real love for a sport but more by who has the most impressive looking posters or promotional tools.
Last Friday I set out on what I thought was a relatively simple mission, a friend now a resident in America sent me a quite straightforward request. Working on the basis that many of his new found peers come from a background which failed to forge in them any impressive level of soccer skill our intrepid emigrant registered for a local five a side league, the hallmark of which was for each player to line out in the jersey of their nearest club. A global coming together facilitated through various shades and designs of polyester sportswear. Simon O’Gorman of this parish wrote glowingly of the relationship we as fans have with the merchandising wings of our clubs. To do so is to overcome a scarcity I could never anticipate of League Of Ireland merchandise. Three shopping centres a total of eight sport shops and the sole return, the possibility of buying a Bray Wanderers shirt, the only shirt some of the country’s leading sport retailers had in stock. I could however have had my pick of two New York Cosmos jerseys, a hoodie, two different tracksuit tops but instead was left with a sense of increasing frustration and the quizzical looks received when asking a litany of staff members for a jersey of any of the Dublin clubs. Contrast the League where clubs have pulled in great attendances this year with the hollow God that the Cosmos is.
There are clubs who have done great work in marketing themselves and ensuring they capitalise fully on the marketability of the clubs, providing a service to proper fans who wanted to support and contribute to their club. It also increases the awareness of the League. How many eyes are drawn by the St Pat’s Superstore in Inchicore or likewise Shamrock Rovers’ facility in Tallaght but beyond that there is little of no awareness of a national league in the places where potential fans are bombarded by opposing sports and leagues. We’re a long way off the hype and overblown exposure of the Cosmos but some help could be badly done with.
