Liga MX and MLS Win Collectively in Leagues Cup Soccer Marketing campaign

Groups from Liga MX and Main League Soccer face one another within the Leagues Cup match to stoke rivalries and outline American soccer—the North American recreation, particularly.

Mexico, the US and Canada will welcome the FIFA World Cup in 2026, and their nationwide groups simply received a small regional preview of that occasion within the U.S.-hosted Copa América. Whereas La Liga and MLS golf equipment have been amongst people who confronted off within the CONCACAF Champions Cup earlier this 12 months—with La Liga’s Pachuca besting MLS’ Columbus Crew—Leagues Cup is the one match catered particularly to La Liga and MLS Golf equipment. Held 4 instances since 2019, the occasion options 47 golf equipment enjoying 77 matches all through the U.S. and Canada via August 25.

Oved Valadez is the co-founder and government artistic director of Portland, Oregon-based artistic consultancy Business, which was tasked with branding the Leagues Cup and giving it a visible identification. That’s tough to do when broader U.S. audiences have a far totally different view of soccer than league and group fanbases. 

“Whenever you consider the Americana of sports activities, like there’s these visions and behaviors which can be stamped into the American mindset: The massive barn with the basketball hoop and the child taking pictures, the alleyway with the crate and basketball in Chicago, enjoying stickball in Brooklyn, enjoying soccer at nighttime in Texas in an enormous stadium,” Valadez mentioned. “There’s these actually stunning symbols, however these don’t exist in soccer or individuals’s notion of soccer: It’s a suburban sport, you pay to play, orange slices.”

When planning the advertising for the Leagues Cup, Business’s mission was to point out U.S. followers that soccer is a a lot easier, multigenerational, accessible recreation—not solely globally however in lots of corners of the US. Final 12 months, that meant having LeBron James, Serena Williams and Kim Kardashian in seats by the sideline when Lionel Messi scored the game-winning objective in his debut for MLS’  Inter Miami in opposition to Liga MX’s Cruz Azul throughout the League Cup. Messi would rating 10 targets all through the match as Inter would safe MLS’ first Leagues Cup win.

This 12 months, Business took a multipronged method with its advertising, beginning with the anthem and music video, “Nuestros Colores,” produced by Grammy Award winner Emilio Estefan Jr. and that includes contributions from six-time Latin Grammy winner Christian Nodal, Black Eyed Peas member Taboo, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Emily Estefan, Latin Grammy nominee Gusi, Argentinian singer Abel Pintos and Rabanes’ frontman Emilio Regueira. Laden with plenty of on-pitch motion, the anthem video additionally lingers on fan jerseys, their group logos’ place in Leagues Cup jerseys and flags designed by Business, their repurposing by followers like San Diego-based artist Georgina Treviño and their motion throughout generations.

Within the follow-up advert, the one-minute manifesto “That is Rivalry. That is Leagues Cup,” Business presents a household of Liga MX Monterrey followers coping with a dissenter who’d moderately observe the MLS’ Houston Dynamo. It picks up throughout an ill-tempered pickup recreation between a neighborhood’s L.A. Galaxy and Chivas followers and has Mexican goaltending legend Jorge Campos sporting a jersey that includes all sides of the Leagues Cup showdown.

The push has labored, because the match’s first weekend on the finish of July averaged crowds of 21,415, up from 17,269 final 12 months and together with a file 50,765 at Levi’s Stadium on July 27 for the San Jose Earthquakes’ matchup with Chivas Guadalajara on Saturday. The match’s sponsor depend is up from 9 in 2023 to fifteen this 12 months, together with AT&T, Coors, Geico, Frito Lay, Lowe’s, Gran Centenario and Caliente.

“Leagues Cup is a robust testomony to how we’re uniting each leagues to develop soccer on the grassroots degree,” mentioned Marcela Garcia, advertising vp for Leagues Cup. “With our new marketing campaign, ‘Extra Than Soccer, This Is Leagues Cup,’ we’re embracing the cultural variety of soccer in our area.”

Talking to tradition

Valadez famous that whereas the entire companions engaged on the Leagues Cup have the same mission—beginning North American soccer’s journey to the World Cup—its marketing campaign expanded upon “Extra Than Soccer” by revisiting the idea of “ni de aquí, ni de allá,” which means, “Not from right here, not from there.”

Used to explain the angst of first- or second-generation immigrants who no don’t really feel embraced by their new nation however now not really feel accepted by the nation they left, Valadez thought of “ni de aquí, ni de allá” a “very distinctive Latin American perspective.” Born in Mexico Metropolis, raised in Atotonilco el Alto within the highlands of Jalisco and moved to Chicago within the ‘90s, Valadez mentioned the Leagues Cup supplies a possibility to provide “ni de aquí, ni de allá” new which means based mostly on actual perception Business and MLS are receiving from soccer followers.

“It’s this newness that’s popping out of North America that I feel in the end will carry the joy for 2026,” Valadez mentioned. “We have to join with the Latin American, the place the facility of custom meets newness and innovation, and that’s very American in and of itself.”

Of the roughly 12.4 million viewers who watched the Copa América closing between Argentina and Colombia, 6.35 million favored the Spanish-language broadcast on TelevisaUnivision platforms. That follows a 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar the place an estimated 9 million viewers tuned in to the Spanish-language broadcasts on Telemundo and Peacock for the ultimate between Argentina and France. 

Although 65% of non-Hispanic followers favor to observe video games in Spanish, advertising company BODEN discovered nearer ties to soccer throughout the U.S. Hispanic neighborhood. Not solely do 73% of U.S. Latinos aged 16 and older determine as soccer followers, in accordance with BODEN, however they typically describe themselves as being “born into it.”

That’s an particularly vital distinction with the approaching North American World Cup. Amongst these followers, 64% view the World Cup as a vacation and rank it second solely to Christmas in significance.

“The marketer appears at it and says, ‘With Leagues Cup, it helps me as a result of it’s a novel summer season window, nevertheless it’s each single 12 months, and I can plan on having one thing that’s a tentpole on my advertising calendar each single summer season throughout greater than 30 markets in North America,’” mentioned Carter Ladd, chief income officer of Main League Soccer and Soccer United Advertising. “And I do know that I’m going to succeed in MLS followers. I do know that I’m going to learn acculturated and acculturated Hispanic soccer followers through Liga MX.’”

Leagues of classes

Leagues Cup realized from final 12 months’s installment because it tried to attach with North American audiences. This time round, it integrated listening to shopper analysis, model briefings and artistic opinions and even airing its anthem on Univision throughout the Supercopa de la Liga MX in June.

On July 4, the Leagues Cup aired the anthem throughout the El Tráfico MLS rivalry match between LA Galaxy and Los Angeles FC. Valadez credited Leagues Cup’s Garcia for the change, saying that she took a step again and regarded the aspect that might make individuals conscious of the match and distinguish it from different soccer occasions throughout the summer season’s busy calendar that additionally included Copa América, the European Championship and the Olympics.

Garcia and Business noticed designer Martine Rose creating soccer jerseys and hip-hop’s embrace of the soccer package and noticed a approach to colorfully characterize fandoms and rivalries reminiscent of Tijuana and LAFC or celebrity “Chicharito” Javier Hernández’s present and former groups Chivas and Galaxy.

In addition they noticed, after the success of the 2023 match, a willingness by the highest echelons of Liga MX and MLS to enhance the match. Valadez mentioned Liga MX president Mikel Arriola and head of operations Victor Guevara joined MLS commissioner Don Garber and his deputy Gary Stevenson in reviewing edits of the advertisements, whereas the groups supplied a unprecedented quantity of entry.

“All people from [Inter Miami owner David] Beckham giving entry to gamers and outdated footage to [Austin FC owner] Matthew McConaughey, who wished to be in it however couldn’t, giving us footage of him being hands-on within the stadium,” Valadez mentioned. “America gave us their actual La Monumental ultras followers, Pumas gave us their mascot, their stadium, Jorge Campos—everybody dedicated, and that exhibits, to me, that there’s momentum to go someplace.”