GOOOOOOOOOAAAAA…….TOUCHDOWN!!!!

In Hispanic marketing the rule is pretty simple: you can participate in any sport you want as long as it’s soccer.

But would you believe that more Latinos watched the Super Bowl last year than watched the World Cup Final ? The NFL claims to have 28.5 million Latino fans, accounting for about 6.7% of their total audience.

After all, how’s this for a player roster: Romo, Sanchez, Garza, Ramirez, Castillo.  Think that’s Major League Baseball?  Nope–these are players in the NFL.

Let’s give this some perspective: During the 2009 season, the NFL had five games averaging more than 2 million Hispanic viewers; the most ever for one season . Today, on any given day of Spanish-language primetime, there are about 25 programs that deliver at that level or higher.

But before we get into a Spanish versus English media discussion, let’s think about what this means.

Soccer is still by far the game of Latino passion. The game, heritage, sport, and imagery is Latino. Increasingly, Latinos are just as connected to Manchester United as they are to las Chivas.

But it doesn’t stop there. The Latino sport bandwidth is much stronger, than the one dimensional soccer image that is so often portrayed.

“Los Doyers” are the heart of Latino LA. (unless of course “Los Lakers” are winning and then the flags go up on tinted windows all over the city). And then of course there are all the Latinos that go to L.A. Kings games.

The NFL in a way is actually more representative of the bicultural world we all believe to be emerging. Think about it this way: although the U.S. is making ground, soccer still imports most of its super-power (except for Landon– he’s awesome, but although he speaks Spanish he is not Latino). Baseball also imports a lot of its Latino stars (thank you la Republica Dominicana). But in the NFL from the aforementioned players, only Luis Castillo is of Dominican-heritage, while the rest are Mexican-American. These are the sons and grandsons of Mexican immigrants.

When Mark Sanchez left USC for the Jets, much was said of his Hispanic heritage. His story is widely repeated by many of our US born bicultural audience. His grandfather is from Zacatecas, Mexico. He grew up in Southern California and went to a university by the freeway — USC. And when he got to the NFL he took Spanish speaking lessons, not because he wasn’t already somewhat bilingual, but he wanted to do interviews without an interpreter. Take away the sport and fame, and you can really be telling the story of the “US born, bicultural, Mexican- Latino.” I wonder if he likes Hot Pockets.

And, just to help get Latinos into the game, the NFL on its Univison site does have an overview of the game and rules.

A whole new juego is emerging.

photo credit: gifts and free advice