Niall Quinns Discopants wrote:Chinners wrote:Stating the obvious Bollox
Jeez, I wish I had a job at Liverpool University as professor of strategic development, anyalising two sets of figures, writting a report on it and getting paid shitloads to do so. Who'd have thought that basketball, baseball and American football would also be more popular in the US of A than a proper sport .... risible stuff
Manchester United More Popular in US than City?
A recent study has shown that English Premier League club Manchester United is more popular in the US than its city rivals Manchester City.
Manchester United Both United and City have started their long tour of the US and Canada as part of their pre-season tours.
The study has revealed that Sir Alex Ferguson’s team has managed to capture the attention of more than 120,000 fans when they turned up for the club’s opening two games against New England and Seattle Sounders.
Rivals Manchester City, in comparison, has only managed to get about 35,000 fans for the club’s games against Club America and the Canadian side Vancouver Whitecaps.
“United have undoubtedly made a bigger impact in America. They’ve been working there a lot longer as they have in most areas,” said Tom Cannon, professor of strategic development at Liverpool University.
“City are making a lot more effort now though. The influence of Beckham has made United a massive brand in America,” he added.
The professor further said that it’s a mounting battle for all football clubs to capitalize on the American market with others like basketball, baseball and American football in lead, the Menmedia reported.
I've said it million billion times before and I'll say it again. trying to crack into USA markets is absolutely the most dumbest way to spend time and effort. They've been trying to sell football to American markets for about 40 years now and different approaches has been taken. It's not like people don't know about existence of association football and Premier League and MLS and whatever. Those who are interested, we have plenty American Blues in this very site, are already into it and those, huge majority of Americans, who don't give a shit, will not give a shit regardless of how many free press packages we give away there (yes, I was pissed off that Canadians got some free shit to go with their picture taken with FA Cup for a fiver...... actually fucking gutted).
Far east and especially China is where it's at. A) Chinese LOVE football. There's no need to create interest as it's already there. B) do NOT underestimate how much money these people already have to spend and how much they got in the future. For some reason there has been tons of Chinese tourists in Helsinki (probably politically so neutral that they get permission to come here easily or something) and while these people are dressed like it's 50's and chain smoke, they spend big time apparently. Sooner or later their interest will divert towards UK and probably Premier League. We NEED to be there first. I think we are already front runners in middle east for natural reasons.
I repeat, North American markets are waste of time and money.
The most watched Premier League game ever was City vs. Everton in 2003. Sun played for us, Li Tie for Everton, and the game was broadcast on Chinese free view television.