Retail Red Card
July 14, 2011 • 6:14 pm • POSTED BY David Burden
As of 2008, there were 1,457,000 registered female youth soccer players in the country. Estimates put the number at over 1.6 million this year. I am a father to one and a coach to eleven. I’ve been to tournaments where 9-year-old girls are playing in $200 footwear and $150 Dri-Fit embroidered uniforms and with $120 World Cup replica ball (plucked from the trunk of a Range Rover Sport). They love and live soccer and it dominates their active wardrobe. And its hard to believe that at least half of these girls wouldn’t be running around in an Abby Wambach or Hope Solo t-shirt by now. If they could buy one.
I’m simply stunned by the complete lack of merchandise supporting the US Women’s National Soccer Team, now heading (literally) to their third World Cup final on Sunday. After visiting Dicks, Modells and Sports Authority in the futile hope of finding something “of the moment” for my 9-year old daughter to wear to support the team after they safely advanced past the bracket stage, I then went online to sites like Eurosport (soccer.com) and soccerpost.com and sportsauthority.com and found no special sections or collections, no homepage Flash homages, no special make-up merchandise…nothing but adult replica shirts priced at $110 that I could have bought 3 months ago. For $110.
During my tenure at ecommerce startup GSI Commerce back in 1999-2000, some of our biggest business days hedged on our sites being the first to post celebratory product for major events. Back in 2000 we had “St. Louis Rams Super Bowl XXXIV Champions” T-shirts and hats online alongside Marshall Faulk replica jerseys within seconds of Kevin Dyson being tackled on the one yard line.
This team is a marketers dream. There is “The Hopeful”: Abby Wambach, America’s most recognized and prolific striker since the iconic Mia Hamm, who has never won a World Cup despite two previous appearances. “The Comeback Kid”: Ali Krieger, who netted the final penalty kick in our win against archrival Brazil after recovering from bloodclots that led to multiple heart attacks in 2005. “The Ultimate Team Player”: Megan Rapinhoe, who was shocked to be benched in the first game yet emerged butterfly-like as virtual super sub… she passes like Mr. Beckham and her platinum pixie cut will likely inspire a summer fad a la Mrs. Beckham. And then there is “The Lighting Rod”: Hope Solo. Controversial. Beautiful. Serendipitously named. Led the 2007 team to the World Cup Final against Brazil and was unceremoniously benched, only to watch her replacement (in goal in the 1999 Cup Final against China) get demolished. Needless to say she did not remain quiet on this matter. Some called her a traiter. Others called her spirited. Her two penalty kick saves versus Brazil this past Sunday were the purest redemption. Granted none of the above were really household names three weeks ago, but based on our FIFA number one world ranking, the experience, looks, skill and charisma of the stars and supporting cast, and the television coverage it was worth taking a shot to move some hot product, right?
Nike developed a really nice campaign zooming in on Solo, Wambach and Raphinoe called “Pressure Makes Us”, which has proven prophetic given the team’s gut wrenching last minute wins of late. But where is the product?
Maybe our friends at the Swoosh are a bit gun shy after the 2010 Men’s World Cup left them rooting from the stands alongside Rooney, Drogba and Ronaldo for the beautiful but tragically flawed Dutch team, with boxes of beautiful but poorly prognosticated World Cup product headed to Forman Mills and third world countries (I think its safe to assume that when Nike proclaimed “Write the Future” they really didn’t think it would be written in Dutch). But you’d think they would have learned a lesson in 1999, after Brandi Chastain tore off he jersey to celebrate her Cup winning penalty kick revealing a Nike sports bra; a half a million sports bras were sold within days along with a handful of Mia Hamm jerseys. Nike was caught flatfooted – Chastain’s bra was a prototype and they had delivery problems with their existing stock. It looks like they are scrambling now with a female sportswear campaign entitled “Make Yourself” that includes Solo. But I’m not quite ready to put my 9-year-old in a sports bra, even if its the one Hope Solo endorses.
So if they had asked me as a marketer and a soccer dad if they should have hedged on this event and this team, I would have decisively stated three words.