"Whoever is thinking that Chivas USA is going to be a representative of Hispanics in America is wrong," Cantor said. "If they have the same colors, the same tradition, if there is going to be a strong association to the (Guadalajara) team, then this is not appealing to Mexicans who don't support Chivas. If there was a club in the U.S. called Manchester United USA, then you would not support it if you followed Man City. No one is going to say 'finally we get a Mexican team.' Only a Chivas fan will say that."
very interesting perspective. If "Chivas USA" associate themselves with the real Chivas, they will not only piss off the real Chivas fans, they will also receive antipathy from Hispanic fans who don't like Chivas.
i must say... i have been rather interested in hearing what this man has to say about mls... and i'm glad someone went after it well done
yeah, a good article by sean wheelock also, maybe some advice before it's too late: I don't live in an MLS city, so i see absolutely no marketing the Crew does, if any, but I imagine all teams make this mistake?
Good catch. That was one of the major problems that the WUSA had reaching out to local fans. They played up each match as a 1 v 1 featuring the local "founder" and whatever "big name" was coming to town. The local squad might as well have been the Washington Generals waiting for the the Harlem Globetrotters to show up. After a while, who wants to see the Generals?
I think Andres Cantor himself has been missing from the MLS picture for far too long. Telemundo has him shunted off doing these god-awful Jaguares de Chiapas matches on Saturday afternoons. It's like they only have rights to them and Atlante or something. I say: ANDRES for Fox Sports World en Español. He could do MLS in Spanish, Futbol Argentino, Copa Libertadores matches, tons of top quality work with great exposure. I hope he can get out of his Telemundo contract soon and get back to broadcasting something better than the dregs of the Mexican League matches. He's too valuable a marketing asset to be rotting away on Telemundo.
Indeed, when the Galaxy came to GS the first time around, MetroStars were practically playing an away match, as the match was hyped strongly in the Korean-American community. Each touch by Hong Myung Bo was followed by a chorus of thunder sticks and high pitched screams. And we thought this was a problem only for the UMSNT... But hey they sold the tickets, right?
Cantor definitely hit it on the head. Chivas USA will not generate as much success as people will make it out to be. When you have a rich investor such as Vergara, who obviously has a business interests in other areas having it exposed to soccer, it is the MLS best interest to let him in to hype how the league is doing very well with investors. Of course, it does not help as much as people think in the end.
Chivas=All Mexico Players Saprissa=All Costa Rican Players San Diego=An American City This is getting old.
Good article, but i think the last part has some innacuracies....I believe there is a significant percentage among members of all communities living here who come from abroad who do want to see a player from his/her country, and find it hard to follow an MLS team if this is not the case...Obviously, i disagree with this attitude, but i think it happens more often than Cantor thinks
What's also getting old is pointing to the map: San Diego Santa Ana Los Angeles Santa Monica Santa Barbara San Luis Obispo Monterey San Jose San Francisco Sacramento Fresno Modesto See a pattern? All cities in Alta California, which lies just north of Baja California. The state is about 35% Latino. Chivas San Diego will reflect the hybrid-Latino-ness of the state, an emphasis on Mexican but peppered w/ a melange of everything else. "Despite strong and continual denials from MLS, a rumor persists that the MLS Chivas club would try to add additional foreign players to the squad, in an effort to make it an all or primarily Mexican side." Notice how he didn't source his rumor. Because he took it off a poor translation. Great reporting... Cantor: "I live in Miami," Cantor continued, "and when the Fusion was there, I would see ads in the paper that promoted the other team; Valderrama is coming. Etcheverry will be here. John Harkes. They were selling the other team, the rival, not Leo Cullen or Diego Serna or the Miami Fusion. This alienates the home fans, and does not get the attention of the loyal home fans." I've lived and traveled in a ton of different markets. It's quite common for teams to advertise a star player coming to town, especially when the local team is not a leader. But the Lakers promote opposing teams in order to generate interest (t.v. ratings).
Telemundo has the rights to the Mexico national team. That is huge right there. They also have the rights to the US team in spanish and the only ones with the right for Mexico´s WC qualifiers. Plus the Olympics. They also had the best team that used to be in Univision (hidalgo,Losada and Longo before he died) and have been partners with Cantor for a while. I don´t think he is a hurry to leave especially when he can also call the world cup for the radio.
What I find interesting is the selective quoting of this article. Sure, he says Chivas won't be all things to all latinos. That's almost neither here nor there as to whether we should do it or not. The idea has always been that Chivas has the biggest following in Mexico, among a handful of big clubs. Just becuase Chivas can't capture the whole pie (which certainly no one club has managed to do anyway...) says nothing about whether we should do it. In general, though, Cantor says a number of things that support more "catering to" latinos than the status quo. Cantor says latinos have been ignored by MLS, that US soccer hasn't done a good job scouting them and that latinos don't just support latino players. TO attempt to use the article as a reason not to do Chivas seems a stretch.
It looks to me as though Cantor is pretty much restating what Don Garber said recently: "This is a very storied and famous Mexican club that has millions of fans here in the United States," Garber said by telephone. "To expand their brand into an American soccer league will give us the ability to tap into their current fan base and give us a very credible and meaningful team." http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/20031027-1141-soc-mexico-mlsexpansion.html My understanding is that Chivas are a bit like the New York Yankees or Dallas Cowboys of Mexican soccer -- fans either love or hate them, and there're few with neutral feelings toward them. Presumably, Vergara's aim is draw 2 new sets of fans to Chivas USA games in addition to the fanbase MLS teams draw now: 1) Longtime fans of Chivas who will come out to root for Chivas USA, and 2) Fans of who've grown up hating Chivas, and will show up to root for any team playing Chivas USA that week.
Exactly, except throw in the international factor absent in baseball (World Cup) and Chivas becomes the MFL incarnation/representation of the national team. This is how Chivas surpasses the aforementioned. 3.) Central American fans who will automatically hate Chivas.
The brings Sean Wheelock's good articles on soccer to a grand total of 1. Interesting thoughts from Cantor, and Wheelock, for once, had the good sense to get out of the way.
Which could prove interesting because the early word out of the MLB offseason is that "due to the success/popularity" of the FIFA World Cup, Major League Baseball is apparently on the verge of putting it's stamp of approval (and releasing players) for a March 2005 FIBA World Cup. I for one would find that quite exciting (assuming it doesn't interfere too badly with the Hexagonal!)
I think Cantor is dead wrong on one point. The Latino fans are slowly coming back to MLS. If you walk around RFK, you will see a lot of Latino families and Latino yuppies at the games. I'm pretty sure this is true in other markets, especially LA. Everyone seems to have this image of Latino Soccer Fans as young men with working-class jobs that hardly speak English, etc. But that's not the real Latino market. The middle class families (and there are LOADS of them) are the sweet spot for MLS and the sponsors. And those people, ever so slowly, are turning out, buying season tickets, etc. Sachin