Chris Whalen’s Random Life

Recently I was talking wiht some friends about the differences between FIFA and the NFL when it comes to advertising. The general comment was that NFL fans do not want to see corporate logos on the team uniforms. They just feel at some level it is a sellout and do not understand why European and other soccer teams do it. NFL fans are even uncomfortable with logos on or around the field. Something corporations pay huge dollars for. The NFL maintains strict control over the uniforms, and actually has someone at each game to make sure each player adheres to the uniform code on the field and sideline. Fines are levied for not conforming.

I agree that watching a FIFA match has a different look and feel to it because of the corporate logos on the uniforms as well as in the names of some of the teams, but the reality is it is needed. The NFL enjoys large TV contracts supported by advertising. And there are plenty of advertising breaks, the quarter, 2 minute warning, change of possession, timeouts etc.   The reality is the soccer has none of these breaks. There really is no stoppage of play before the half etc. There are no timeouts, commercial breaks (the NBA has TV timeouts even). Therefore there really is no real estate or time to put commercials in. As a result to support the TV contract and the revenue of the team/player contracts, they have sold what they have, which is visible logos on hte uniform itself. In essence since the signage on the sideline and on the field is a similar deal to what an NFL team could get, the lack of TV Spot sales has to be made up for somewhere and that somewhere is on the uniform. Perhaps longterm this could become a revenue stream for the NFL, but I hope not, it really does give the league and actually all of our sports leagues, a unique look as opposed to overseas. The revenue model for soccer is just fundamentally different because of the structure of the game. And let’s not kid ourselves that their superstars make any less money than NFL superstars, it is just not true. With those payscales, teams need to maximize their revenue over and above ticket sales to pay competitive player salaries. The real challenge is that their is no salary cap in soccer in Europe, so the team that generates the most revenue can really afford better players. The stakes are higher as well since a team that finishes poorly in the league, can be sent down to a lower level league. Kind of like the Kansas City Royals being sent to AAA ball for poor performance. Now THAT would be really interesting to adopt in the US!!!