Hispanic Market Weekly

On the night of May 28, Major League Soccer's "game of the year" took place at the Home Depot Center in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, California.

Yet David Beckham and the L.A. Galaxy weren't on the field.

The marquee matchup for the MLS featured Chivas USA - founded in August 2004 as the league's second Los Angeles soccer club - and the Chicago Fire.

Promotion of the game, in both Spanish and English, played up Chivas USA's MLS-best record and its first-place ranking in the league's western conference. Chivas USA also heavily promoted the presence of the MLS's biggest star - midfielder Cuauhtemoc Blanco - and how the Fire are tops in the eastern conference.

Even with national coverage on English-language cable network ESPN2 and Spanish-language sibling ESPN Deportes, the game - won by the Fire, 3-2, on two late goals - was not sold out 12 hours before start time.

Yet Keegan Pierce, Chivas USA's director of communication, is hardly disappointed. "I expect to see a decent walk-up crowd," he said before the match.

Community involvement and a stepped-up Hispanic marketing effort are just some of the reasons Pierce exudes confidence in improved attendance for the team - even if it takes a while.

Then again, bringing in the fans hasn't always been easy for a squad some view as the "kid brother" of its parent - Fútbol Liga Mexicana's Chivas de Guadalajara.

"We've been steadily improving our marketing platforms, and we are louder now than ever before with both our English-language and Spanish-language outreach," Pierce says.

Current marketing by Chivas USA has focused on the team's desire to carve its own sense of self in Southern California.

"Our team has roots in Mexico, but were are here in the U.S. - establishing our own identity," Pierce says. "That is a message that resonates with the children of immigrants, as they are in many ways doing the same."

Having some of the most complete Spanish-language media coverage for Chivas USA's games has also helped build a fan base independent of the team's close ties to the highly popular Guadalajara club.

In addition to coast-to-coast coverage on ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes, which included last night's game, eight games per year air on KAZA-Channel 54, Azteca América's flagship station. KAZA also airs a 30-minute show, "Somos Chivas USA," each Saturday to provide Latino fans team news and special offers.

Additionally, every Chivas USA game is broadcast live en español on Grupo Latino de Radio's XEWW-AM "W Radio 690," a megawatt station based in Tijuana that covers San Diego, Los Angeles, Riverside-San Bernardino and much of the Central Coast of California.

"The Hispanic fan base and consumer of Spanish-language media has always been an important part of our outreach efforts," Pierce says. "It is improving those efforts and taking a more creative and aggressive approach with our marketing that has been our focus as of late."

Promotions partnerships with media outlets that don't enjoy a broadcast relationship with Chivas USA is one method that delivered positive results for the team. For the May 28 match, Univision's KMEX-Channel 34 aired spots for the game - and how a viewers-only ticket special was available to soccer fans.

"We do an ad buy with KMEX every year, and we include elements of added value," Pierce says. "Everytime one of those spots runs on Channel 34 we've seen the phones light up."

Six games into the 2009 season, Chivas USA reports a 20 percent attendance improvement over 2008. He notes, "In 2007 we were getting an average of 12,000 to 13,000 fans. It has risen to 14,000 to 15,000 fans this season."

Pierce looks to three community-level initiatives - a "Chivas at the Park" instructional program, a neighborhood team practice and the team's "Jerseys Off Our Backs" promotion - as key attendance drivers.

With Chivas at the Park, 20 weekend clinics are held at recreational facilities across Los Angeles. For $90, kids can get a 90-minute tutorial on soccer - and a buy-one, get-one free voucher for a Chivas USA home game.

A "Practice in the Community," held in some high-density Hispanic cities as Santa Ana and Montebello, puts an official Chivas USA team practice in their own backyard.

For Jerseys Off Our Backs, Chivas USA at every home game hands the jerseys worn by the  11 players on the field to lucky contest winners in the crowd; the cost of new jerseys for each home game is underwritten by Chivas USA's presenting sponsor - COMEX-owned Frazee Paint.

"This outreach provides direct contact with our fans," says Pierce. "This makes us accessible to all."

* Cuauhtemoc Blanco has been called up to the Mexican national soccer team and will play with his fellow countrymen in matches pitting "El Tri" against El Salvador and, later, at Trinidad & Tobago. He is expected to return to Major League Soccer's Chicago Fire by mid-June.

Behind The Dollars - Chivas USA

COMEX-owned Frazee Paint is the presenting sponsor of Major League Soccer club Chivas USA. The brand has had its logo appear on the front of team jerseys since May 2007, when the MLS authorized jersey sponsorships.

Chivas USA director of communication Keegan Pierce says the multi-year sponsorship with Frazee Paint has "brought millions of dollars in revenue" to the team.

While the sudden appearance of a brand's logo might be jarring to a fan of pro baseball or the NFL, Chivas USA fans approved of the move. According to Pierce, fans noted that the brand logos gave the MLS "legitimacy," since the top-flight soccer teams around the world feature brand logos of their top sponsors on the front of their jerseys.