Football vs. Football…Parity Not Always Needed To Grow The Brand

With the Premier League now going in the UK and the NFL just a few weeks from kicking off in the United States, it is interesting to look at the two monster branding organizations and see how they run in parallel tracks in some ways and are apart in others still. Both have global aspirations, with soccer's foothold as the world's largest and most popular sport helping buoy the marketing, digita. and branding rights for the top EPL clubs like Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea for years. Tours to North America for clubs like Tottenham and Manchester City this past summer also help raise awareness amongst casual fans looking for a bigger soccer jines than MLS can sometimes provide, especially in major markets, and the trical following for most EPL clubs keeps awareness attendance and local and regional value going. The aggressive push for additional outside ownership for clubs like Liverpool has been an issue as the global economy shrunk, but overall the global awareness of the Premier League, what it stands for and for many of its clubs has never been higher.

The NFL has tried to take a similar stance, although the acceptance and understanding of American football outside of North America has still been slow to grow. There is club interest in places like Germany and Japan, and there is certainly a better understanding of what the game is globally, but the growth of team awareness is not where the EPL is, largely becuase of the acceptance of the sport. That being said, the NFL's continued push into countries like the UK will continue, and its digital and television coverage for the casual fan will grow, especially for mega-events like the Super Bowl, which capture the audience because of its spectacle.

One element that the NFL has over the EPL is parity. The nature of contracts and player movement has given teams the ability to ascend to playoff status in the NFL much quicker than possibly any other professional sport, and gives almost each team the unique ability to be in the playoff hunt during the shortest professional season at the outset. While it is true that a slow start dooms a team quicker than perhaps any other sport, the NFL's ability to market each game as an event has given its teams the ability to draw casual interest each and every week and keep most teams in the hunt and fans engaged longer, which is a huge positive for branding and selling. The Premier League, as pointed out in a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, is much more top-down in terms of haves and have nots. Even as this season kicked off, Manchester United and Chelsea were atop and were not expected to have the challenge that would come in an NFL season for the title. The difference in the two is that the tribal support of soccer clubs is largely sustained regardless of results. Clubs fan and sponsor base continues on even with the knowledge that there is no yearly chance at on pitch mega success, a concept that, if presented to an NFL team, could be disasterous from a brand standpoint. It is much more . cultural support system that keeps clubs afloat than a win at all cost mentality. now there are exceptions in the NFL. Teams like the New York Giants and the Green Bay Packers have continued to enjoy large followings even in lean years (although that has changed slightly in the recent economy), but overall the NFL success is much more tied in-market to a combination of team loyalty and experience as well as potential of onfield success than it is in the Premier League.

Now as the the EPL expands and looks for new revenue streams and faces more competition for dollars than is changing, but it is changing slowly. Manchester City's huge budget this year, as well as Arsenal's growth, point toward more of a win for dollars approach, and it remains to be seen how that will alter the branding landscape overall. Make no mistake that both leagues are phenominally successful, and are still the gold standard by which most other are measured.. The difference still lies in the culture, and as both begin anew, those differences, positively and negatively are both worth following.