NEW YORK: Despite its worldwide popularity Michael Forte calls soccer “the invisible sport” in America.
“Look what happened to the North American soccer league” Forte said. “It was doomed to failure when you had to depend on foreign nationals for tickets and for players. It was a decade ahead of its time.”
Forte is president of soccer USA Parmners a marketing company which has television negotiating and other rights to the U.S. national team that will play in the World Cup in 1994 in the United States.
Sports channel America a television cable channel already is more than halfway through its schedule of 12 games in the world series of soccer pitting the U.S. team against the best national and club teams in the world. Over the next four years Sports channel America which now reaches about 16 million homes will televise 300 hours of soccer.
“Sports channel has been willing to commit a huge block of time to soccer. Don’t I wish that sports channel was bigger? Sure” Forte said. “But what I tell people is that the big networks don’t live up to our standards. They don “I know yet how to broadcast soccer to Americans.”
The next scheduled telecast will sachussets on June 1 The U.S. team also will play Juventus of Turin and AC Milan of Italy and Sheffield Wednesday of the English league Last Sunday Argentina’s 1-0 victory over the United States at Stanford Stadium drew 35772 spectators.
Working with sports channel America and the U.S. soccer federation Forte keeps busy figuring out ways to fill the rest of those seats and get Americans interested in competitive professional soccer.
“Am I going to get my dad to go out and see a soccer game? Not in a million years” Forte said. “But my son? Sure. You don’t become an avid buyer of tickets to a sport you’re not exposed to as a kid.”
Forte said studies show about 27 million ‘Americans play or have played soccer with the peak playing age 16. It’s the biggest organized sport in the United States at the 16-and-under age level he said “and it’s the fastest-growing high school sport in America.”
“In five years those 16-year-olds will be 21” Forte said. “That’s when 1 would start the next pro league in 1995 when all those 27 million kids are 21. I’d put a limit on can have I’d make it a spring league. No way would I complete with the NFL (National Football League). I would announce a pro league just before the World Cup and I’d announce the players the day after.
“If it fails one more time you can kiss it goodbye forever”
Forte’s marketing includes celebrity sponsorships Sheffield Wednesday T-Shirts soccer ball giveaways at fast-food stores and televised co-ed beach soccer tournaments.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 14, 1991
