C
commodore64
Guest
celtic tv,, free abroad?
Is there any interest from ethnic groups in the USA towards Scottish football and in particular Celtic. ..
like the irish ?
Hey Ben, I'm definitely open to persuasion and would gladly advocate that hypothesis.I respectfully disagree with your conclusion. It is true that a lot of the American support is very nominal in nature, the club isn’t doing anything in America to build its brand or engage its supporters here. The popularity of English clubs here can be traced right back to the TV deals - until 2-3 years ago, the EPL was the only league that had any sort of regular TV coverage in America. Even now, Italy has none, La Liga has none (although Barca & Real Madrid have coverage on a 3rd tier channel most people don’t get), France has none, and the Bundesliga coverage is both new and poor and virtually 100% dedicated to Bayern Munich. Honestly, the Mexican league has better TV coverage here - on Spanish speaking channels - than all the European leagues except the EPL.
Regardless, I do believe two things:
(1) with the size of the population, there is a very significant number of people willing to engage Celtic in a significant meaningful way that would be valuable both to the club and potential sponsors. Even if this is only 100k in a country of 300M+ people, that’s still a huge opportunity if each one could bring in $100+ each per year.
(2) if the club were to more aggressively market itself over here - getting matches shown in pubs, getting cross promotional sponsorships with other Irish/Scottish brands and events, and even permanently signing a couple USA national team players (*cough* Weah! *cough*) - the popularity of the club would explode. Of particular benefit IMO is the club’s roots being founded by priests to feed starving Irish-Catholic immigrants and the lineage with the Celtic Foundation’s current work. I think that mission would resonate with a lot of people over here, and there are a lot of perhaps ‘casual’ fans that might be willing to support the club in monetary terms if this story were more well known. As an aside, I didn’t even know the background myself until after I had already attended a match at Celtic Park, and nearly everyone I mention it to is equally ignorant.
The American audience, except for expats, aren’t ‘born’ into the Celtic family like you are in Scotland and Ireland. We need to be converted. But with the ties to both Irish and Scottish cultures (and the Irish culture is HUGE here) as well as the uniqueness of the charitable roots, Celtic as a club are very marketable here and have a ceiling much, much higher than what is commonly assumed.
North America is massive to celticHey Ben, I'm definitely open to persuasion and would gladly advocate that hypothesis.
I'll bend to your superior knowledge of the North American Market, I'm basing my own hypothesis on my family in Connecticut who "support" Celtic but only in the sense of heritage. They're not particularly interested in our brand of football and their support is of the tokenist variety.
I'm all for Celtic aggressively attacking that market, but there just seems to be too many alternatives to compete with at the moment.
I'll gladly nominate you as our North American spokesperson and I genuinely hope that the interest in "soccer" will provide us with future talent in the playing side, as well as the fanbase
Great idea c64!celtic tv,, free abroad?
James "Joe" Kennaway was a dual international (Canada and Scotland) football goalkeeper. He began his career in Canada, spent four years in the American Soccer League before finishing his career with Celtic F.C. in the Scottish Football League. ... John Thomson was killed later that year, Kennaway was signed by Celtic.North America is massive to celtic
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North America is massive to celtic
And of course the bunnet our wee gift from the North America Gods.John Thomson , one of our saddest songs
Follow these interviews some are funny and are defo good for your introduction to scottish football and their characters.You kind of have to be nuts to go outside in Las Vegas in June, yet here we are. I am going to try to make this, but you can bet I'm staying indoors the entire time
See there ya go. Even as an American I wasn’t even aware of this. I’ve known about American CSC’s for a long time, but I haven’t given them a lot of thought as there aren’t any within several hundred miles of me.North America is massive to celtic
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From what I can see, the SFA has actually been pretty reasonable at accommodating teams (mostly Celtic due to the number of our Euro matches) in rescheduling our fixtures before/after European dates. When we’ve got to play twice a week, which is most weeks, it’s ideal that we have 72 hrs between kick-offs. It’s rare that we don’t have that, and the clubs in EPL actually have it much worse in that regard as the TV companies hold much more power regarding scheduling there due to the money involved. I can distinctly remember both Chelsea and Man United having less than 48 hrs on occasion. Thu/Sat or Sun/Tue fixtures. Or the ever popular Mon/Wed combination, although I think that last one has been eliminated.The governing bodies also have a part to play in this. Hindering our clubs by making them play midweek league and Scottish cup ties the day after they get off the plane having just returned from a 2 thousand mile round trip after playing against sides like shakhtar karagandy takes it's toll. They are part of the problem. Another part is that there's no real old firm competition. When there was that competitive edge to our game it was possible for 2 clubs from Glasgow to appear in a European final within 5 seasons of each other. At that time I can remember the pundits saying no Scottish club would ever compete in a euro final again. This also leads on to the next point where Glasgow rangers destroyed that competitiveness that existed by cheating. Unless we have quality opposition domestically we will always struggle against clubs who do.
This is actually a brilliant marketing idea. Financially it makes zero sense (and there may be league issues with regards to this as well) unless it’s part of a broader strategy. But I think if it was free, viewership and following would go through the roof. The key, then, would be monetizing it via sponsorship opportunities and increasing commercial revenue streams.celtic tv,, free abroad?