1. read the case carefully and do a SWOT analysis. You need to explain why consi

ID: 423088 • Letter: 1

Question

1. read the case carefully and do a SWOT analysis. You need to explain why consider an internal characteristic a strength or a weakness. Similarly, discuss why you classified an external trend as an opportunity or a threat.

Sidney Naron has been hired to be the Director of Strategic Marketing for a new Major League Soccer (MLS)
expansion team in Atlanta, GA. Based on the information provided in the case, she will need to develop a
multifaceted marketing plan that will be best suited for the new team. The strengths and weaknesses, of the
new team are highlighted in the case, but Naron also must become acquainted with the club’s potential fan
base via an analysis of the external environment (i.e., opportunities and threats). She then must strategically
implement a marketing plan. The case is fictional; however, it is based on factual news and press conference
information regarding MLS expanding to Atlanta. Thus, instructors and students likely will find the case
relevant and timely.

Keywords: strategic marketing, social media, sport marketing, grassroots marketing

Sidney Naron was sitting in her New York City office on April 16, 2014, watching an ESPN live press conference
featuring the commissioner of Major League Soccer (MLS). Commissioner Garber had just announced that MLS was
expanding and allowing a new team to enter the league. The decision to expand the league granted MLS its 22nd franchise,
which would be in Atlanta, GA. With this announcement, Naron soon would be faced with the task of ensuring
that this new MLS team would be successful.
Background
Less than 6 months before this announcement, MLS had proclaimed that its 21st franchise team would be located
in Orlando, FL. The Orlando squad was scheduled to make its debut in 2015, and the Atlanta squad would follow in
2017. The announcements finally provided an answer to MLS fans, who have been speculating about when the league
would return to the Southeast region of the United States. The announcement also answered the call of the Terminus
Legion, a grassroots nonprofit organization “dedicated to the promotion and support of Atlanta soccer at the highest
level” (Furchau, 2014). This volunteer fan-driven organization emerged from the ATL Wants MLS campaign in 2011;
more information about this organization can be found at http://atlwantsmls.com.
Since the inception of MLS in 1996, only two clubs have been located in the Southeast (see Figure 1 for a timeline).
The first club, the Tampa Bay Mutiny, located in Tampa, FL, was a part of the league’s inaugural class. The second team
from the Southeast, the Miami Fusion, located in Fort Lauderdale, FL, joined MLS two years later in 1998. Unfortunately,
both the Tampa Bay Mutiny and Miami Fusion were defunct by 2002. Commissioner Garber addressed the issue
in 2002 by saying that there was no solution to keeping either of the Florida based teams operating (Wheelock, 2002).
As a marketing specialist for over 10 years, and a fan of MLS since the league started, Naron was well aware
that MLS had been planning its return to the Southeast region for some time. In fact, her prior work required her to
develop marketing strategies for retail franchises in the Southeast region, so she knew it was only a matter of time
before MLS expanded to this region. When Arthur Blank, the owner of the new Atlanta MLS team, approached Naron with a potential job offer that would put her in charge of the marketing of the new team, she worked to quickly gather important research on the potential for an MLS team in Atlanta. Naron discovered this information after stumbling across

the ATL Wants MLS campaign website. She was impressed with the overall fan-driven grassroots campaign to bring

soccer to Atlanta, but was especially impressed by the “Top Ten Reasons for Atlanta” list (see http://atlwantsmls.com/

why-atlanta/) the website provided. When the announcement was made about the new franchise entering the league,
Naron did not hesitate to accept the position to be the Director of Strategic Marketing for the new MLS Atlanta-based
club. Naron’s new position was to take effect immediately after the announcement on April 16, 2014.
Following the acceptance of the new position, Naron relocated to Atlanta to begin the development of a marketing
strategy for the new club. Before Naron could begin developing a strategy, she needed to understand the factors
that led to the failure of previous Southeastern teams (i.e., the Tampa Bay Mutiny and the Miami Fusion). The Tampa
Bay Mutiny was added to MLS following the 1994 World Cup. They joined MLS without an owner, which inevitably
contributed to their disbandment in 2001. News accounts at the time indicated that the potential Tampa Bay Mutiny
owner and investor specifically cited lack of community and corporate support which led to the Mutiny demise (Page,
2002). Before the disbandment, MLS had met with the owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with the hope of selling
the Mutiny to him. But according to reports, the MLS owners had increased the price and the owner of the Tampa Bay
Buccaneer eventually chose to purchase Manchester United instead (Rupinski, 2014).
Meanwhile reports indicated that the owner of the Miami Fusion was trying to operate on a bare minimum budget
and was even asking the league to pay for the team’s marketing and advertising. These attempts to subsidize the team’s
own expenses were a failure, and this eventually led to the disbandment of the Fusion (Bradley, 2002). While many
called into question the team owner’s commitment to the Fusion, Commissioner Garber at the time explained, “Last
year they had the league’s best record, but they also had the lowest revenue” (Fusion and Mutiny Fold, 2002). Both
the Fusion and Mutiny failed to generate season ticket sales and received little to no revenue from corporate sponsors.
MLS teams are particularly reliant on ticketing and sponsor revenue as soccer’s continuous action makes it difficult
to sell merchandise and concessions during games (C. Smith, 2013). Thus, for financial and marketing reasons, both
attempts at having an MLS team in the Southeast ultimately failed.
Naron was not involved in the developing of either of the defunct team’s marketing plans. Nonetheless, knowing
the history of past teams, Naron viewed her job as a challenge. The Southeast region proved to be a hostile environment
for the two now defunct MLS teams. However, the new expansion team would be in a different city and state, and the
external environment had changed since the 2002 MLS failures involving the Fusion and Mutiny.
Since 2007, attendance records for MLS matches have tripled, and the league ranked ninth in world for soccer
league attendance, nearly beating France and the Netherlands in match attendance (Nauright, 2014). Rivalries within
MLS have developed as well, leading to an influx of spectators on match days in which rival teams are battling on the
field. The Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders rivalry match held the fourth highest attendance of any soccer match
during the week of August 25, 2013, including both domestic and international matches (Nauright, 2014).
Naron’s New Role and Challenge
On Thursday, April 17, 2014, Naron met with the owner of the new club, Arthur Blank, and Commissioner Garber.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the expectations of Naron’s new role as Director of Strategic Marketing for
the new MLS team.
To begin the meeting, Blank disclosed his reasoning for purchasing the team by stating, “[Soccer is] important
for myself and my family. I have a lot of family members who are involved with the sport. It’s meaningful to them
and meaningful to me . . . Their involvement in soccer was an opportunity for me to share their passion and see their
enthusiasm.” Struggling to continue due to overwhelming emotion, Blank continued, “Sorry for the emotion, but I’m
not. Because that’s what soccer is. A lot of emotion” (Borg, 2014). It was evident that the purchase of the club was
very important to Blank (Major League Soccer, 2014). This passion told Naron that Blank was an owner who would
do anything in his power to help the club succeed.
Blank then shared two business objectives that Naron would need to ensure so that her strategic marketing plans
aligned with Blank’s objectives. First and foremost, he wanted to put a winning team on the field. The second objective was to establish a team in which the fans have a sense of ownership. Blank wanted fans to have the opportunity to create
a team name, a color scheme, and a team logo. He continued by asking a rhetorical question, “Why now?” Blank’s
explanation was simple—the time had come for Atlanta to have its own MLS team.
Given that one of Blank’s objectives was to incorporate the fan ideas into the branding of the team, Naron had the
task of researching the demographics of those who reside within Atlanta. Naron then would compare those demographics
to those who are considered typical fans of MLS (see Figures 2 and 3). Following the completion of this research
task, Naron would compile the statistics into a formal report.Naron quickly discovered some key demographic statistics of MLS fans by analyzing television viewership, event
attendance, and social media involvement for the 2013 season (Opendorse, 2013). Shortly after she pinpointed the
key demographic statistics of MLS fans, she found demographic information on Atlanta during 2010, the most recent
information available due to a 10 year span between U.S. census collections (United States Census Bureau, 2008–2012).
During her research, she discovered that Georgia had nearly 81,000 youth soccer players, the 11th highest in the United
States (Wheatley & Gay, 2014). Atlanta also was following the soccer trends on spectatorship seen worldwide and in
the U.S. Between the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, the number of adults who attended a major soccer match practically
doubled with an 87% increase; in addition, the number of Americans who watched, attended, or listened to a major
soccer match increased by 32% (Nielsen, 2014).
These statistics would allow Naron to become acquainted with the target market of the new MLS team, which is
vital to strategic marketing. Once Naron becomes familiar with the target market, she could begin to understand their
ideas, interests, and culture. By understanding these factors tied to the target market, Naron could incorporate them
into the branding of the club. For example, once she had completed her research, she could integrate the statistical
information into the formal report for Blank’s consideration. While drafting the report, it was noted that there were
some similarities between the demographics of Atlanta and the typical MLS fan. However, Naron perceived the youth
soccer population to be the most valuable aspect to the success of the new club. She also knew that, in 2011, more
than 20% of the U.S. population included “tweens.” Tweens are citizens typically defined as being between the ages
of 9–14 (Mesa, 2005). She also was aware that tweens’ purchases, whether by themselves or their parents, account for
nearly $230 billion each year (G. Smith, 2013). Naron knew that if the new team could capture Georgia’s youth soccer
population, they could attract a strong fan base of young players and their families.
Beyond market demographic statistics, Naron realized that the integration of a social media network would be
essential for the team’s presence. MLS had been extremely successful with the implementation of social media campaigns
for the league as whole. In fact, MLS was already active on Google+ (2.5 million followers), Foursquare (31,500
followers), Twitter (628,200 followers), YouTube (176,600 followers), Instagram (154,000 followers), and many other
social media networks (Enge, 2014). The increase of consumer following within the networks that are listed above has
grown exponentially. MLS’s Instagram account, implemented in 2013, is currently growing by a rate of about 1,000
followers per week (Enge, 2014). Not only are the MLS social networks rapidly growing, but they are already competing
with other professional sports leagues. For instance, MLS’s Google+ has more participation than that of the NFL,
NHL, and MLB; only the NBA surpasses MLS by about 70,000 users (Enge, 2014). See Figure 4 for Wysocki’s (2012)
research results on the NBA’s Best Practices for Social Media.
Lastly, Naron needed to consider the relationship between the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and the new team. Blank
already owned the Atlanta Falcons and previously had announced his plans to use the same stadium for both the new
MLS team and the Atlanta Falcons football team. This was a strategic decision that Naron would need to analyze to
determine how it could be an advantage to the new MLS team. One reference that Naron could review for this analysis
was the Seattle Sounders, as they share a stadium with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks; the owner of the Seahawks is also a
minority owner of the Sounders. Sharing a stadium has not been an issue for the MLS Sounders thus far. In fact, they have
proven to be the most successful expansion team in terms of attendance. The Sounders lead the league with an average
attendance of approximately 47,000 fans (Schultz, 2014). Forbes reported that their value increased 483% from their
inaugural season to 2013, making the Sounders the league’s most valuable franchise at $175 million (C. Smith, 2013).
Given the history of failed MLS teams in the Southeast region, it was clear that the strategic marketing of a new
MLS team in Atlanta would prove to be a challenge. But, with the right strategy, planning, and marketing, Naron knew
that Atlanta could be a soccer city.

Explanation / Answer

The below table highlights the SWOT analysis of strategic marketing of a new MLS team in Atlanta.

Strengths

Weaknesses

Potential fan base

Absence of marketing effort in Atlanta

Club had an owner

Strong marketing tactics

Presence on social networking

Opportunities

Threats

Expansion to Southeast region

Sharing a stadium

The internal factors to the new MLS team are considered as strength or weakness because:

The external factors to the new MLS team are considered as opportunity or threat because: