Saturday night’s match between the Red Bulls and Lionel Messi-led Inter Miami might be greater than just your run-of-the-mill soccer match.
For the Red Bulls, it’s a likelihood to compete in front of a worldwide audience and help construct the brand of the club going forward.
The showdown opens up the door to try to grow their footprint beyond only one game.
“The match is very important, but additionally leveraging it so we will maximize the interest and hopefully bring people back to Red Bull Arena for future matches that most probably never been to Red Bull Arena for considered one of our games,” Red Bulls general manager Marc de Grandpre told The Post.
It’s a prospect the six lucky teams that host Inter Miami within the second half of the MLS season are strategizing for.
It’s a conversation that is probably going being had amongst MLS teams that aren’t facing Messi as well.
Though MLS commissioner Don Garber told ESPN recently that it was as much as the person clubs to determine tips on how to utilize Messi’s presence, de Grandpre said he has spoken to his counterparts at other teams.
The Red Bulls general manager explained that the league hosted a series of calls between all of the teams that might host Messi.
“We shared our greatest practices. … And we’ve just form of come together and worked together to be certain that we leverage this not just for the one match, but each to drive future momentum,” de Grandpre said. “Looking forward, I believe it behooves your complete league to work together to be certain that each club who’s hosting [Messi] is doing the most effective possible job and implementing the most effective practices from across other clubs.”
Pushing past the abundance of noise within the crowded Recent York sports scene has been a tricky task for the Red Bulls and NYCFC, despite the favored nature of the game in the realm.
But Messi’s arrival could prove to be a game-changer and a possibility to reexamine the way in which MLS clubs view themselves, GMR Marketing chief experience officer Max Lenderman said.
GMR Marketing is an experience marketing agency that recently launched a soccer-specific arm GMR FC.
“It’s a possibility to actually take a take a look at your complete football experience for the team, not only what’s happening on the sphere and what number of tickets are being sold, but how is my football team’s brand participating now in a much larger game, in a worldwide game,” Lenderman said.
“That includes lots greater than just statistics and fan attendance. But street culture, celebrity culture. Huge brands, like multi-million dollar deals being made on this stage, and that’s what Lionel Messi is opening the door for MLS football teams.”
Lenderman noted several different strategies teams could utilize to profit from Messi’s presence. From an instantaneous standpoint, he pointed to bundling tickets to the Messi game and making fans need to purchase three or 4 other games as a part of the plan.
The Red Bulls were already implementing that strategy for Saturday’s match after they saw success with it last 12 months once they hosted La Liga club FC Barcelona.
However the larger a part of what could help retain the brand new fans is making a culture that transcends the play on the sphere.
“It’s a worldwide brand game and you’ve got to treat your fans like a multinational corporation treats its most significant customers,” Lenderman explained. “Meaning you’ve got to create experiences way beyond what happens on the pitch and what happens on the stadium.
“You will have to do your brand partnerships, celebrity partnerships, influencers. You will have to do interesting campaigns of content.”
He added: “Taking a take a look at the way in which that you just take a look at football as an experience relatively than a game can be the way in which that you just would get people to start out coming back.”
