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Chivas USA Scores Big With Sports Marketers
The U.S. offshoot of the Mexican soccer club has secured $3.5 million from 13 sponsors
October 01, 2005
By Luis Clemens
Club Deportivo Chivas USA has won only three out of 28 matches during its first year in Major League Soccer (MLS). Yet, the northern offshoot of Club Deportivo de Guadalajara has dominated the competition where it matters most: at the cash register. In only its first season of play, which ends Oct. 16 with a home game in Los Angeles, Chivas USA has the best-selling team jersey and more sponsorship dollars than any other squad in the league. "The [losing] record is a sidebar [and] not what the sponsorship is about," says Barbara Ponce, manager of emerging markets at Honda, the team's largest sponsor.
Overall, Chivas USA hauled in approximately $3.5 million from 13 sponsors, according to MLS. The reason Honda and a dozen other marketers such as Bank of America and Chivas Regal pay to sponsor a losing team is its connection to Club Deportivo Guadalajara, one of the most successful soccer clubs in Mexico.
Chivas is the property of the self-made Mexican millionaire Jorge Vergara, who made his fortune selling nutritional supplements. Together, Vergara and real-estate investor Antonio Cue own the Chivas USA franchise.
Clearly, Vergara's idea is to leverage the appeal of the Guadalajara brand among Mexican immigrants in the United States. While most other MLS clubs have some variation of Hispanic Heritage week, "[Here] every day is Hispanic Heritage day," says Whit Haskel, general manager of Chivas USA. "People who are less acculturated are more drawn to Chivas USA because it reminds them of home." Haskel's assertion is borne out by preliminary research that indicates "88 percent of people in the stands list Spanish as their primary language. I guess we didn't ask if they were Hispanic."
While the team is based in Los Angeles, it enjoys nationwide appeal among fans and advertisers thanks to the Guadalajara connection. "When we travel it is amazing to see the amount of people with Chivas jerseys," says Ray De La Garza, COO of Radiovisa, the Los Angeles-based radio network that won the contract to air live coverage of Chivas USA matches. Jeffrey Bliss, a sports-marketing consultant and former World Cup '94 CMO, says the team's presence in the MLS "has added a tremendous amount of energy and passion to the fan base."
Few people are in a better position to gauge the energy level than John Laguna, the team's official announcer, even while acknowledging some limitations. "I believe passion will come when the squad begins to win. ... The truth is that the level of play at the beginning was a bit low. This is not Guadalajara of Mexico." And there's the rub. Chivas USA is and is not Guadalajara. Or as Laguna puts it, "It is Chivas USA but Mexican."
Management is attempting to both leverage the nostalgic pull of the Guadalajara brand and build the Chivas USA brand on its own. For instance, the sideline presence of the ChivaGirls cheerleaders to root on Chivas USA is a distinctly American addition to Mexican soccer. However, the ChivaGirls features women by the name of Julieta, Lupita and Rocío.
But nothing better embodies the cross-border essence of Chivas USA than the team's wearing a specially designed uniform to commemorate Mexico's Independence Day on Sep. 16.
Notwithstanding the special uniform, the team still lost. Laguna, who focuses exclusively on the team's performance on the field, believes the "future is promising because things can't get any worse."
Laguna's boss, De La Garza, who focuses more on Chivas USA as a business, sees a bright present and an even brighter future. The Radiovisa network currently airs the Chivas games in 14 markets. Next year he is confident that number will more than double to 30 markets.
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