Reaching into Hispanic homes hasn’t been easy for MLS, but through marketing arm Soccer United Marketing, that has changed dramatically over the past few years. In order to capture the attention and loyalty of first-generation Latinos living in the U.S., SUM sponsorship guru Kathy Carter focused on traditional things like food, family, religion and music that bring people together, identifying that “a lot of that revolves around soccer.”
Now confident that it can successfully tap into the huge and ever-growing “new generation of Latino immigrants,” SUM sells prospective clients on the claim that “it can not only introduce newly arrived Latinos to Major League Soccer (MLS), but it can also reach the fútbol fanatic who still fervently follows ‘El Tri.'”
While star power provided by the likes of Cuauhtemoc Blanco and “a disproportionate amount of international players … from Latin America” (see the Red Bulls’ Juan Pablo Angel and Columbus Crew’s Guillermo Barros Schelotto) is “a big lure” for companies looking to reach the Hispanic consumer base, Carter says that “at the end of the day, the fan focuses most on quality,” which could explain the following that the Houston Dynamo has built despite not having a single player of Hispanic descent.