Most sports fans consider soccer an also-ran sport in the US. But world-wide, soccer
makes NFL football seem like a sandlot pick-up game. The World Cup Soccer Tournament begins next month, and advertisers consider this serious business. Adidas is spending almost $ 200 million in tournament advertising and promotion, and Nike will spend over $ 100 for the same audience. Most of these efforts are intended to boost branding and product sales of footwear, jerseys, soccer balls, and so on. But this year, the big news is online. We learned from
Business Week, that Nike partnered with Google in March to launch the first world-wide social networking site for soccer fans. The site is available in 140 countries and in 14 different languages.
Marketing Blurb is impressed.
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