whatworks; Action in the Community

American Demographics, Nov, 1999 by Kendra Parker

The Memo

In November 1996, the Dallas Burn, one of Major League Soccer's 12 professional teams, was coming off a banner freshman year. Fan enthusiasm was high: Average attendance during the inaugural season hit 16,000 for the Burn; overall, league attendance averaged about 17,000 per game.

But the Burn's biggest draw for Hispanic fans, Mexican soccer star Hugo Sanchez, was about to retire.

Sanchez's departure would mean losing a significant portion of fans among the 750,000 Hispanics living in North Texas, about 70 percent to 80 percent of whom are Mexican. Then there was the curse of the sophomore slump: Once the excitement of the MLS's initial year wore off, even more fans would disappear. "In 1997, we knew we would have to start a grassroots effort to tap into [the Hispanic] market," says Dallas Burn vice president of marketing Andy Swift.

The Discovery

In 1997, the Burn became the first professional sports team in Dallas to create a separate marketing department devoted exclusively to Hispanics. Everything from sales and advertising to media and public relations used both grassroots and conventional marketing strategies, says Swift. The team directed its efforts toward the immigrant population, who were closer to the sport and had ties to teams back home. First- and second-generation immigrants would also appeal to corporate sponsors, like Budweiser and Western Union, since their brand loyalties in America were not yet set.

The Burn commissioned Dallas-based Hispanic advertising agency Ornelas and Associates, which handles the national Hispanic accounts for Budweiser and Taco Bell, to conduct market research and develop a tagline that would appeal to the growing market. "Vive La Pasion" - Live the Passion - reflected the enthusiasm that first- and second-generation Hispanic immigrants felt for soccer in their home countries, and which the Burn hoped they'd feel for a team in their new home.

To find out how they could best meet the needs of Hispanic fans, the team went out into the community and just listened. Radio - the Latin market's public forum of choice - enabled the players (and Swift) to appear on local Spanish-language radio stations and take calls from fans. "We would listen to what fans were saying about the team, and what was bothering them," says Swift. He says he listened diligently to other sports shows on Spanish radio stations, where the number-one topic was always soccer. In addition, player appearances in the community and at local schools provided ample opportunities to talk with fans one to one. Hispanic fans weren't at all shy about expressing their opinions at neighborhood player appearances, says Swift, as well as visiting the Burn's office, calling, or even e-mailing their suggestions to the team.

After a few years of this one-to-one interaction, the Burn has learned how to tap into some of the market's unique characteristics. First, they discovered that ticket prices and promotions were important. Mexican callers to radio shows, for instance, said they were used to being offered special price promotions back home, such as free admission for kids or their moms on certain nights. Hispanics were also more apt to decide on game day if they'd attend, rather than to purchase season tickets. "The way the team plays matters a lot. If the team plays well, they will go [to the game]. If the team doesn't do well, they'll stay away," Swift points out.

The Burn also discovered that a large pocket of some 90,000 Salvadorans lived in Dallas. Unlike the high-performing Mexican soccer league, to which fans unfavorably compared the start-up MLS, the Salvadoran professional soccer league is closer to MLS's level of play, Swift notes. "So it was easier for us to win their fans over, and become more established with that community quicker," he says.

The Tactics

Acting upon what it has learned, the Burn implemented fans' suggestions for change in some areas. Last year, for instance, in response to radio callers, the team began offering two-for-one and half-price admission on weeknight games, which helped draw more of the Hispanic crowd, says Swift. The nights are tied in with corporate sponsors like the area's flagship Hispanic radio station, KESS. Printed coupons in Spanish-language weekly newspapers offered $4 off a $14 general admission ticket, says Swift. "About 3 percent of the walk-up crowd used the coupons," he notes. The promotion was discontinued this year, he adds, since the lowest-priced general admission ticket is now only $9.

The Burn also runs ads on Telemundo and Univision, as well as local Spanish-language radio stations, in the days before each home game in order to appeal to the walk-up Hispanic crowd, as well as two-color ads in local Spanish-language newspapers.

However, although Hispanics make up 40 percent of the Burn's fan base (half of fans in the team's first year were Hispanic, but that number fell to less than 30 percent in 1997), only 25 percent of the ad budget is spent on Hispanic-targeted efforts, says Swift. "Unlike our relationship with the general market, where PR-wise and advertising-wise we have to spend a lot of money to get name recognition, in the Hispanic market - because we're soccer - becoming a household name came quicker," he notes. In the general market, he says, the team competes with more well-known pro teams in the area, like football's Dallas Cowboys. But since soccer is the sport of choice for Hispanics, rather than spending money trying to build the brand, game-day-specific ads are combined with heavy public relations efforts on local radio stations on days preceding home games. All the Burn's home games are broadcast on local Spanish radio stations, and away games are shown on Telemundo. In fact, the Bu! rn is the first professional spo rts team in Dallas to have all its regular season games broadcast on TV and radio in both English and Spanish, Swift adds.