Women’s World Cup ’99: Interview with Marla Messing

The following is an edited version of the teleconference World Cup USA ’99 president and CEO Marla Messing had with the media March 11: MARLA MESSING: Today is our 100th day-out mark, and as you can imagine, we are very busy and we thought it would be a good time to give you an update or some highlights of what is going on in our offices and how we are preparing for the tournament. For those of you who saw the press release that went out this morning, you know that as of yesterday, we have sold 260,000 tickets for the tournament. Again, for a frame of reference, as of the final draw weekend, about four weeks ago, we had sold 215,000 tickets; so since that time, we have sold 45,000 tickets, or more than 10,000 tickets a week. This is still without no real ticket advertising and no real sponsor promotions that will kick in for the tournament. In terms of the women’s sports angle on this, we continue to believe and people are telling us that this will be the largest attended women’s sporting event — women’s-only sporting event in history. I think from a soccer angle, this will be the second largest soccer event to take place in the United States after the 1994 World Cup. To us, what it really means, is there is a lot of demand, a lot of anticipation and excitement for the tournament; that the atmosphere at the stadiums will be terrific. We continue to expect that for certain games we will have full, or almost full stadiums; and for other games we will have very respectful numbers for a major women’s sporting event. From a marketing perspective, I think the [result] in the All-Star Match showed us that there are a lot of great players out there. While the U.S. may be the favorite, we believe the tournament believes that there is at least four other teams that will contend for the final: China, Germany, Norway and Brazil, which has up to more than 25 percent of the field; and again, will make for a very competitive tournament. There is a lot of great first-round matchups that have been set and every city will see one or two top seeds in its city. In terms of some interesting potential matchups that, again, we are looking at just from a tournament perspective, the U.S., if it advances, could play Italy, Germany or Brazil in the quarter final in Washington, D.C., but perhaps more significantly or in a more exciting fashion, it is possible that the U.S. could meet Brazil in the semifinals on the 4th of July at Stanford Stadium, which would be a rematch of the USA/Brazil round-of-16 game from the 1994 World Cup; so, of course, we have to see how the competition goes, but it could be a very historic day on July 4 at Stanford Stadium. In terms of competition, we know again from the draw and from meeting with all the national associations and all the teams that they are taking this tournament very seriously. We expect between six and eight teams to be here prior to the tournament for two to four weeks to train in the United States. We will be providing the media with details about those schedules, but we have heard from Korea, Japan, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Brazil that they will be here prior to the tournament training. They are scheduling a number of “friendlies”. The Algarve Cup is about to take place, and then the U.S. will return for its Road to Pasadena Tour. In terms of television, I think you know where we are in the domestic television front. With the matchups being set by the draw, the international sales have begun in full force. In Europe, we believe deals are completed or almost completed for coverage in Germany, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Russia and Sweden as well, as with Eurosport, which reaches 55 countries in Europe, and will show anywhere between half to all of the matches of the tournament. Around the world, places like Brazil and Ghana, Nigeria and Canada, and even the Middle East, have picked up coverage of the tournament and there will be lots more to go between now and our June 19 kickoff. So the distribution and coverage of the tournament from a television perspective will be very strong. With 100 days to go and ticket sales going well, we spend a lot of our time focusing on the atmosphere at the stadiums, and we are going to be talking to you in greater detail about that on April 19 when we do one of our final national press conferences. At that point, we will unveil the trophy which looks great, and we will be talking about things like opening and closing ceremonies where we have some very exciting young Hollywood entertainers participating. We will be unveiling our official song and we will be talking more about the type of fan-festival atmosphere that will accompany the games. We all know that one of the great things about this sport is its very unique international aspect, and we will certainly be capitalizing on that; and this tournament will feel very much like a World Cup tournament. So that is where we are with 100 days to go. We continue to believe that we will achieve our mission statement of staging a breakthrough event for women’s sports and inspiring the next generation of female athletes. In terms of attendance and viewers, coverage in the competition, it will be a breakthrough event; and again, in terms of inspiring young women to get involved in soccer and to stay with the game and to aspire to compete in a World Cup or an Olympics will be part of our legacy. Q. Can you tell me whether you have finalized any dates for the practice venues in — especially New York? MARLA MESSING: I do believe that training sites are locked in in all cities. I don’t have the information in front of me, but we can get that for you. Q. Has Debbie Keller situation been a distraction for the team that you know of? MARLA MESSING: No. In terms of how the team is dealing with, that I think you would have to address that to them or to Tony DiCicco. You know, from what we do around here, our job is really to put on the tournament. We don’t — we are not too involved in the team’s day-to-day activities. Q. Just curious, do you have any sense as to what is primarily driving your ticket numbers? Is it a soccer crowd? It is a women’s sports crowd? We had discussed once before, Americans love the event kind-of-thing; have you gotten any sense as to what is the primary factor? MARLA MESSING: I would have to say that our sense is, it is a soccer crowd. At this point, because the sales are really driven by word-of-mouth or by when the U.S. team appears on television, we see a nice spike in sales, we believe that it is really a sophisticated soccer audience that is buying the tickets and that doesn’t really need to see a lot of advertising to make them buy. We do believe as we get closer to the tournament we will start to see those big-event people get involved and want to be there, and perhaps that women’s sports crowd as well. But, in answer to your question, we think it is a soccer audience right now. Q. I know you have declined to answer this before, but I will ask it again: You obviously have projections as to where you would be and what you are shooting for. Are you prepared to say if you are above, behind schedule, and what you are eventually shooting for in terms of an average crowd? MARLA MESSING: Sure. We are well beyond where we expected to be. The best benchmark that I can give you is, we had hoped to be at 100,000 tickets, or about 95,000 tickets as of December 1998, and I think at that point we were at about 200,000 tickets. We believe we will be somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 tickets for the tournament. Earlier projections were closer to 380,000. Q. I wanted to know what your sort of drop-dead date is to decide on when you will downsize a particular stadium or not? Just using Soldier Field as an example, I know from talking to organizers there that they have very high hopes for the doubleheader that includes the U.S. match. But, for example, for that Saturday doubleheader where there are four non-U.S. teams competing, when will you decide whether or not you are going to use the full Soldier Field or a downsized version? MARLA MESSING: Probably in late April we will have a much better sense of how we are going to do it. For example, on that second doubleheader that you have referred to, we have already sold approximately 20,000 tickets to that match; so, it is well in excess of what we expected to do. And if we had, you know, gone early with downsizing, we would be sort of disappointed in that. So, I think in the late April, early May period will be the time we will make those decisions in time to get the materials ready for the stadium. Q. In light of the low ratings the last few women’s games on ESPN have gotten, does that concern you for ratings for the tournament? Also I am curious why the big advertising push won’t begin until April; why not earlier? MARLA MESSING: The ratings do not concern us at this point. We believe that because it is a World Cup tournament that we will see very respectful ratings in that they will exceed what ratings for regular “friendly” matches, “friendly” women’s matches do. In terms of why we have waited to advertise, all the sort of researchers and experts tell us that once we start advertising and we are really reaching out to the general public and not the soccer aficionado, they have a very short time to what they will respond to. And so we are going to start advertising within the six to eight weeks period before the tournament begins so that the general public will respond to the advertising. Q. Could you repeat the teams that you said may be playing the U.S. in D.C. if the U.S. gets that round? MARLA MESSING: Sure. It is if the U.S. advances to the quarter finals, they could play any of Italy, Brazil, or Germany. They could play anybody in Group B. So I am missing — Mexico is also in Group B. Q. Do you have any idea of the ticket sales going in D.C. for the three doubleheaders, any ideas? MARLA MESSING: I don’t have the numbers in front of me. I think, you know, I would have to venture to say we are probably in the 25,000 or 30,000 ticket range. Q. My question is: I am wondering if you have had any — if there is any way to gauge the legacy of this tournament on the two previous hosts, China and Sweden in a cultural sense, what it meant to the people, how it was absorbed into the general population, and do you see any similarities on what could happen here? MARLA MESSING: You know, it is always a little bit difficult to get specific on what the legacy of the tournament will be. I can tell you, though, that given the reception of the tournament in the United States that that has had a significant impact around the world on these women’s teams, and that they are putting the national association — the national associations are putting a lot more resources behind their teams, getting them ready for the 1999 tournament; and, you know, obviously for the Olympics tournament to follow. Here in the United States, I think what we see is when there is a big event on television like this that it really encourages young women and young men to get involved in the sport. Those are the kinds of things we believe that we will accomplish at the conclusion of this tournament. Q. I suppose with the national associations, you know, of the countries getting behind the women’s team in ways that probably weren’t possible, or maybe even socially viable in the last 20 or 30 years, do you expect that this tournament will be in a competitive sense, you know, much better than the previous two? MARLA MESSING: Yeah, we believe that this will be certainly the most competitive women’s soccer tournament in history. We see a lot of improvement in the teams. Teams like Brazil, even if you look at the “friendly” matches that were played between Ghana and China. In China recently, Ghana lost 2-1 twice, but that is a pretty close match for two teams that you would think would be significantly apart in terms of experience and training. There are those signs out there that tell us this is going to be a very competitive tournament, and certainly more competitive than any we have seen in the past. Q. So the teams from the developing nations are bridging the gap somewhat? MARLA MESSING: Yeah, I think that is definitely the case. Even the World All-Star Game, we saw, — we hear and see a lot of that where these national teams are telling us that because the resources we are putting behind the tournament. And, again, because of the reception in the United States, it is giving them some ammunition to go back to their federations, their associations and really get them to get behind their women’s programs. Q. I guess you don’t have a list of how many tickets are being sold at each of the venues. Do you know where the most — what venue is leading the way right now? MARLA MESSING: I would say that it is one of New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. Q. Any idea of how many tickets might have been sold in those venues or an estimation? MARLA MESSING: In New York we are over 50,000 tickets sold. In Chicago we are probably right near that. And then in Los Angeles, we have the final is nearing 30,000 tickets and we have a first round doubleheader there as well, that is close to 10,000. That one, because it was moved once tickets went on sale, is, you know, sort of catching up to the rest of the first round doubleheaders. Q. Do you have venue or venues that are the most surprisin g and most disappointing in terms of ticket sales right now? MARLA MESSING: No, we are — we are very pleased with where we are. As I said at the top of the call, we have 260,000 tickets sold to date, so we couldn’t be more pleased with where we are in terms of, you know, selling tickets and putting fans in the stadiums. Q. One more question concerning the advertising that starts in April. Where will that be focused toward? Will it be on sporting events, women’s programs, other things? Has that been decided yet? MARLA MESSING: Well, it will be a combination of print, radio and television. Certainly sporting events and sports sections are primary targets for us because we are first and foremost a sporting event. Then we will be looking at some of the entertainment outlets as well, capturing some of the soccer mom’s out there; so — but, to begin with, we will be targeting the sports fan. Q. I don’t want to duplicate the question that was just asked, but I did want you to elaborate a little bit more on the goals of your advertising program once it cranks up in April. Do you have a feel for whether you should target women’s sports fans, or sports fans in general? How do you target what media you use and what are your goals for that campaign in terms of ticket sales? MARLA MESSING: Well, I guess in terms of who we are trying to reach, again, we are going to start primarily with the sports fans and then I think as we get closer to the tournament, reach out a little bit more to a female audience through entertainment outlets, and that female audience that — it may be women’s sports fans. It may be young mothers, or mothers with children that play soccer and dads as well. But, initially, we will be targeting the sports fan and the soccer fan. Q. Do you have a goal for how many tickets you hope that campaign produces? MARLA MESSING: As I have said earlier, our original projections were in the 380,000 ticket range. And I know it is a big spread, but we think we will sell somewhere between 400- and 500,000 tickets, which is, you know, a very significant amount. That would put us at an average event, and we call them events because they are doubleheader, of between 25- and 30,000 people per event. Q. First question on the Nike Tour: How much do you believe that would help the awareness of the tournament and also have the U.S. Team and I guess tangentially how much that will help with ticket sales? MARLA MESSING: Well, we have found that whenever the team plays, whenever they are on TV, it certainly helps our cause. So given that the Road to Pasadena Tour is going through some of our key markets, New York, Chicago and L.A., and given that, I believe all or most of the games are televised on ESPN, ESPN2, and the June 6 game on ABC, we think it will have a significant impact in terms of generating awareness for the tournament and additional demand for tickets and other things. Q. The other question would be on the television promotional push, when that comes, can we expect to see many of the athletes doing commercials similar to what, say, ESPN does with their hockey coverage? What kind of promotional campaign would you expect out of that? MARLA MESSING: We have got some great news from some of our partners. I can tell you ABC and ESPN are doing a stand-alone image campaign for the tournament that will start in late April, early May. Companies like Mattel, Coca-Cola, adidas, they all have promotions and advertising in addition to All State; so, there are a number of companies that will be getting behind the tournament. And then, you know, a number of the women on the team, if you know, like, Mia Hamm have their own endorsement deals, and I am sure we will be seeing them, on TV and in print, doing some of their own personal endorsements. And finally, I guess one of our media partners as well as you know is Lifetime Television, and Lifetime will be doing some promotional programming for us. So there is a nice cadre of companies that will be behind the event and promoting it on our behalf. Q. I know this has been brought up before, but I am curious about the professional league aspects of all of this. I know if the tournament goes successful, which it sounds like it might, and you pack the stadiums and get good crowds and good games, when you leave town or when the tournament leaves town, is there going to be anything left behind? That window is going to close pretty quickly, or the attention is going to turn to other things. So is there a league plan? Is somebody going to sort of try and capitalize on this attention to get something going at least on a smaller scale? I know in the past they have tried to put leagues together for Women’s soccer? MARLA MESSING: I think that the answer is yes. First of all, our job, our responsibility here at the organizing committee is to make sure that we put on the best possible women’s soccer tournament that we can. That really is our focus. Having said that, I know that U.S. Soccer has put together a committee of people – and I happen to be on the committee – to study the feasibility of a professional women’s soccer league. There is a lot of support for the idea. We think it would be terrific for our young players and for our veteran players to have a place to play on a full-time basis. But I think the conventional wisdom is that it would need to be done right. That they want to avoid some of the missed opportunities that are taken fairly often in terms of starting professional leagues, and just to make sure that it is done right; so they are starting off with the feasibility studies and looking at our successes with the Women’s World Cup in trying to figure out what is the best way to put together a league. Q. You are anticipating some announcements maybe somewhere down the road? MARLA MESSING: Again, that would really be U.S. Soccer’s job. I think they, U.S. Soccer, are not going to be putting together a league, but merely, you know, trying to provide some data for a private organization to fund a league. So I think in terms of any announcements, it would be coming from U.S. Soccer or from investors or sponsors or whoever might seed the league. Q. It is no secret that the immigrant communities in the U.S. have made up a large percentage of the people that go to men’s soccer matches. That was evident in the Olympic games and also in the World Cup. Do you expect the same people to turn out for the Women’s World Cup? I am specifically directing that to the Mexican woman’s national team which will be playing its matches away from cities that traditionally have large Mexican immigrant communities; so, what is your spin on this? MARLA MESSING: Well, you are right, the sport has been supported in this country tremendously by the ethnic — the various ethnic groups. We are very hopeful that the Mexican community will come out and support its team. Our data points are coming from the Hispanic media, mostly, as we don’t — we aren’t conversing with all the Mexicans in the country. But, you know, the Hispanic media, the Mexican and Spanish publications and media have been very, very supportive of the tournament. In fact, we have just completed a deal with La Opinion here in Los Angeles, and I know they are very excited about it. So we assume if they are excited about it that their readers and listeners are excited about it and that those people will support their teams. Q. What plans to marketing to ethnic markets in the U.S. are in place, and if there is a possibility, for example, to have a Spanish language audio possibility on ESPN; is that like a secondary channel? MARLA MESSING: On that question, I think you would have to talk to ESPN, but I do think that they are working on a Spanish language audio. Q. What plans to market to those ethnic communities are in place? MARLA MESSING: As I said before, we have been working very closely with La Pinon. I know that they are here in Los Angeles. Each of our venue offices have been focusing on the teams that will be coming to their cities and reaching out to consulates and embassies and trying to find the daily publications of those ethnic groups in their cities. So as you can imagine, that is much more of a venue marketing program, but I can tell you I get press clips from my media guys all the time of, you know, certainly Spanish language papers, Chinese papers, Norwegian, the whole bit – and I can’t read what it says – I hope it is good, but I know that we are definitely reaching out to those ethnic Americans. Q. The closest venue here in South Florida is going to be Washington D.C.. Does your advertising campaign including a focus primarily in the markets that you are going to be playing, or will the smaller markets be able to see the promotional and the advertising campaign that kicks off in April? MARLA MESSING: It is directed primarily to our venue cities. The best sort of advertising and promotion that we have outside of the venue cities will be the games that are on ABC and ESPN this spring will be what’s on Lifetime Television, as well as what you can see in the Time, Inc. publications that our sponsors of the tournament, in Sports Illustrated, Sports Illustrated for Kids and Teen People. Q. Do you have any reasons as to why ticket sales double your projections than it was at that point? MARLA MESSING: You know, we think the demand is just greater than we had projected. It is one of two things, either the people we thought would be are just buying a whole lot earlier, or there is just a whole lot more people out there that are interested to coming to the tournament. Q. It wasn’t anything specific like the national team doing something, you know, playing or anything of that sort? MARLA MESSING: You can’t really get that specific. I have — I certainly think that the success of the national team program is driving our ticket sales, but I also think that people experience the 1994 World Cup. They have a sense of what World Cup soccer is all about, and it is the kind of thing they want to be a part of; and so bringing a second World Cup here so close to the 1994 event has gotten people excited. Q. When will the Lifetime series programs begin and what kind of features will be included? MARLA MESSING: I think they begin between like four and five weeks before the tournament. There will be some vignettes on different teams appearing in the tournament. There will be half-hour to one-hour special on sort of the Road-To-The-Tournament, if you will. Those are the primary types of programming that they will be showing. Q. Regarding The Road to Pasadena, it seems as though the U.S.-China matches are probably going to be about as competitive as any because China is one of the top teams in the world. Yet the series — the two-game series is partly at Giants Stadium and partly in Hershey, Pa., where it seems like it might have made sense to come to Boston for the other game. Is that anything that you had any control over, or do you know why that game was not placed in a Women’s World Cup city? MARLA MESSING: That is not something that we control. Again, that is a U.S. Soccer property. I can only speculate because the U.S. Team played Mexico in Boston last September and that was a very — a marquis game that they were trying to distribute the games to some other cities. That is pure speculation. Q. How much ticket sales from overseas have you — are you going to get a large number of people coming from other countries? MARLA MESSING: I don’t know if we will get a large number of people coming from other countries. Now that the matchups have been set, I think we will have a much better sense, or they have, you know, people from other countries have a much better sense of where they would go to see the team they want to see. What people had told us is we won’t get a lot of people who will come here specifically to see the tournament, but there are a lot of people who come to the United States in the summer to vacation with their families; and given that the tournament is taking place, they will be trying to catch some matches here and there. So it is hard for us to give you any specific data on that. That is sort of our thinking. Q. Also just — in general, what kind of — has it been a difficult sell for you, the Women’s World Cup or has it been easier than you expected or how has it been compared to the men — obviously, the men’s had much more tradition and the years behind them — what kind of — how have you found selling this World Cup to be? MARLA MESSING: Again, given the numbers, given where we are, we are very pleased with how ticket sales have gone, and it has gone much better than we expected; so, on the one hand, I would say it has been easier than we expected. At the same time, putting on a World Cup event, whether it is a men’s event or a women’s event is a lot of work and we still have a lot of work to go. Q. I wanted to ask you about — back to the question about the legacy of the tournament – one of the stated things when the tournament was announced was to leave a legacy for the United States to have, you know, would be the forerunner for setting up a professional league. What is being done in the local communities to build a relationship? After the Women’s World Cup leaves, is there a basis to start a team in a particular communities that are having — that are hosting these games? MARLA MESSING: First of all, I don’t know if it was specifically stated that the legacy or a legacy would be a professional league. I think that the more we expose the sport to the public, the better the chances are of a professional league, you know, being the result of that. If we do well on television and the sponsors are happy and we put the fans in the stadiums, those are the kinds of things that a potential investor in a league would be looking for. So, again, U.S. Soccer has put together a committee to study the feasibility of a league. I know that they are going to be looking at all of those things in summer in June and July, and we will see if the information is strong enough to attract the right people to start a league. Q. What is being done in the local communities to reach out, not just — to reach out to the local communities, soccer in this country is mostly a game played on the youth level, to reach out to the different youth groups and whatever? MARLA MESSING: We have tried to make this event as family-friendly and fan-friendly as possible, and I know all of our venue offices are working with groups like USYSA and AYSO to make sure that those young kids playing soccer on the weekends come to the stadiums; have a sense of who the role models are for the sport and develop a connection to the game and to the teams. So that is the most important thing we can do which is bring these kids into the stadiums so that they can see high level women soccer. That is what is being done. Q. Do you have anyone who works with the TV networks and getting them more familiar with say, the foreign teams and foreign players, some sort of liaison, and also do you have any control of this — does Women’s World Cup have any control of picking the announcers for the game? MARLA MESSING: The answer to your first question is Aaron Heifetz who we have described as the foremost authority on women’s soccer, spends a lot of time gathering and providing information on the foreign teams and their players. In terms of the selection of the announcers, that is ABC and ESPN’s baileywick, but they have assured us that we will have a very high-quality broadcaster at the tournament. I think I may have said this: They have selected the producers of the games Geoff Mason and Bill Graff who produced their ’98 broadcast; so they are putting very good resources behind the tournament, and we expect the broadcast to be excellent. Q. You had said one of the interviews that you expected to at least break-even or make a small profit. With the numbers that you are getting, are you now — not guaranteeing yourself, but almost assured that you will make a profit and of what size? MARLA MESSING: Our focus is on putting on a great event and not losing money and breaking even. If we see that our revenues will exceed in any meaningful way, what our planned expenses will be, we believe it is our job to continue to promote the tournament and to make it as big and as strong as we can make it. So it is definitely a balancing act, but we don’t see having a significant surplus from the tournament. If there was a surplus at all, I think it would be modest. Q. I just wanted to ask you the unthinkable question: What is going to be the effect on the tournament both from TV and gate revenues if the U.S. Team doesn’t make it out of its group or doesn’t make it to the semifinals? MARLA MESSING: Well, you know, certainly the interest in the tournament will be greater, I believe, if the U.S. Team advances through the tournament. We think it is very unlikely that it won’t make it out of its group. But in any case, we are talking about a World Cup Soccer event. For the final game, for example, and I do get asked this: What if the U.S. is not in the final game? You know, it is still going to be the Women’s World Cup final game, and fans will see great women’s soccer and people who enjoy the sport of soccer are going to be excited about that; so we think the tournament will be fine if the U.S. Team doesn’t advance. If the team does advance, it will certainly increase the interest. Q. Do you think given the television if the U.S. is not in the semis or the finals that there would — won’t be much rating at all? MARLA MESSING: You know, it is hard to say. I mean, I don’t know. If Norway becomes the darling of the tournament and they carry it through to the finals, if that will carry the ratings, it is too difficult to say. But we understand that we are playing this tournament in the U.S., and that is going to be the largest audience, and people are going to want to see