As the new Major League Soccer season kicks off, the League rolls out a new campaign called ’20 & Counting’ to celebrate both its 20th season and the debut of two new teams bringing the number of clubs up to 20.
The creative looks at how the MLS has evolved through two decades beginning with the very first game in April 1996 – building from the ground up through passion to leave behind its image as a kids game and become not just an American success story but a global one.
The campaign promotes the league’s new broadcast partners with games shown every week across Fox Sports 1, ESPN2, and UniMás.
Indeed, the 2015 season features the most comprehensive US media rights partnership in the history of the MLS in the form of long-term, eight-year agreements with the three broadcasters.
Another strand of the 2015 season league activation is a new Star Player Snapchat Takeover (of the MLS microblog account).
This season sees a set of big name players take over the MLS Snapchat account (‘MLS’) offering an insider, player-perspective on the MLS both on- and off-field.
Comment
Soccer is no longer a minority sport in the US with attendances and TV viewers exceeding those of the National Hockey League.
The NYC-headquartered MLS, the top-flight professional soccer league in the United States and Canada, saw two new clubs join for the 2015 season: the New York City FC (with David Villa as the star overseas player) and Orlando City (who will feature Brazilian great Kaka in their squad).
Furthermore, the MLS has already announced further plans to add four more teams by 2020.
The league, the new franchises and several new sponsors such as Audi and Heineken will all be looking to ride the recent rise in US soccer interest after a successful World Cup.
They will be particularly focused on growing and engaging with the league’s key millennials fanbase.
The MLS boasts the highest proportion of millennials of any US major sports league.
Indeed, according to Orlando City’s founder Phil Rawlin 40% of his team’s fans are millennials.
‘Our fan base is really the 18 to 35-year-olds – it’s young Americans.’
Links:
MLS YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/subscription_c…
MLS Website:
MLS Twitter:
https://twitter.com/MLS
MLS Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/MLS
MLS Google +:
