U.S. Soccer-Only Channel Scores Big with Fans
Although it would be an exaggeration to claim that soccer is a religion, it is obviously much more than just a sport. Soccer has become an international language through which people of all races, nationalities and social classes can interact. The U.S. is not exempt. After the 1994 World Cup, the passion for this sport was ignited, reaching a climax during the 2002 Cup, when the U.S. - surprisingly - beat one of the favorites: Portugal.
Regardless of it’s relatively new popularity in the U.S., or that it’s not one of the top watched three sports in the country, the “King Sport”- as soccer has come to be known - has turned out to be such a social phenomenon that one of the most important demographic groups in the country, “soccer moms”, has been named in its honor.
There are various reasons for this. First, the U.S. is home to tens of millions of immigrants from all over the world - 40 million Hispanics among them - who like to follow their national teams. As if this were not enough, soccer continues to gain popularity among U.S. school and college age youth, especially females. Such is the case, that the U.S. has been the world champion in Women’s Soccer in two out of the four World Cups. This undoubtedly has turned the U.S. soccer consumers’ market into one of the most important in the world.
GolTV is the only bilingual 100% soccer channel devoted to the sport in the U.S. At a time where this audience is ripe for the taking, we at GolTV are offering programming that seeks to satisfy the needs of soccer fans. The channel broadcasts matches and summaries of the first division tournaments from Italy, Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, El Salvador, Uruguay, and Bolivia (among others). A total of about 1,000 matches are broadcasted a year.
We are keenly aware that we’re not dealing with a monolithic audience, especially in the Latino community. Our GolTV team is also multicultural and diverse, so we understand that the same approach and generic message will simply not do. Beyond straightforward media relations, and marketing efforts via our cable partners, we take our message directly to our audience via community events that reach diverse target groups such as Cinco de mayoMayo events, Colombian, Peruvian, Ecuadorian festivals among others, national/regional soccer association conferences and presence at international friendly games played in the U.S.
This personalized face-to-face approach, in addition to traditional public relations and advertising, is why, I believe, GolTV has reached penetration levels comparable to those of other sports channels that have been in the market for 7 years.
Such unparalleled growth is just the beginning, for us, in a sport that is expected to continue to grow in popularity. The growth potential is immense when you consider that there are 19.2 million soccer players in the U.S. alone. This makes GolTV a valuable advertising vehicle to reach this niche audience which is estimated to be 1.2 million.
Our signal launched via digital cable in key states such as Florida, California, Texas and New York (to name a few), is currently reaching around 5.1 million people, a number expected to climb to 8 million by the end of 2004.
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