Football Meets Culture: An L.A. Rams Fan Package

Graphics and Illustrations by Isaac Villalpando

Here at CultureSpan Marketing, it’s pretty clear that we’re students of culture and beyond that, how the Hispanic market segment is helping to change the face of marketing and advertising as we know it. That being said, most of us are also fans of football, what we could consider the great American pastime. So, when the two topics dovetail, you can bet our attention is piqued. In that interest we’ve been closely watching the inaugural return of the Rams to their hometown of Los Angeles, California. Now that pre-season is over, we’re excited to see what the future holds for this team. The Rams were founded in 1936 and haven’t called L.A. home since 1994. Since then, the city and its demographics have evolved.

It’s not a secret that the NFL has been courting and actively engaging with the ever-growing Hispanic market. Beginning in 2002, the league began a concerted effort to learn more about the market-changing powerhouse that the Hispanic market represented. By 2012, 25 million Hispanic fans self-identified as avid football fans, and that’s no small feat, because as of 2016 the Hispanic population currently sits at 55.4 million. What’s even more interesting is that California and Los Angeles County now have the second largest Latino (read to include Hispanic) population of any US state! Fun fact: in regards to Latino/Hispanic population, California is preceded and followed by New Mexico and Texas respectively. We’ve readily documented what those kind of numbers translate to in terms of buying power and we won’t go into those details, but suffice it to say that it’s in the double digit billions. So now that we have our numbers straight, let us diverge back to the Rams, non-sequiturs be damned!

The Rams return to an L.A. with a thriving Hispanic population. Now, the prevailing and rapidly shrinking school of thought might presume that this audience might lean toward the other (albeit original) football. But that school is out and has been for quite some time. Since those days of Hispanic market outreach in the early aughts, fan appropriation has steadily climbed, with some reports claiming a 1.5 million fan jump from 2004 to 2014, and those numbers are expected to grow. Certainly acculturation and an increased outreach to the Hispanic market can be cited as reasons for this growth, but the fact remains that the Hispanic NFL fan certainly merits a dedicated attention from marketers and the teams themselves. That’s where Univision and ESPN Deportes are blazing a new trail with the L.A. Rams. 

Through a pair of dynamic and savvy media moves, the Rams have penned broadcasting deals with both Univision Los Angeles and ESPN Deportes Radio. The Univision deal is a three year contract to broadcast preseason games in Spanish through local L.A. affiliates. Additionally and throughout the regular season, Univision will also have a presence in the “fan activation” areas of L.A. Memorial Coliseum, adding to their connection points with Hispanic fans. ESPN Deportes Radio, for their part, have secured an exclusive rights agreement as the Ram’s flagship Spanish language station, broadcasting game day action and original content across a network of local stations throughout L.A. County. Securing a broadcast voice in English and Spanish not only opens the potential for an extended audience, it also brings new sponsorship opportunities, more access for fans and overall growth of the Hispanic NFL fan base.

We’re certainly excited to see how this increased attention and outreach to the Hispanic (in both English and Spanish) community works out for the Rams and we certainly feel like they’re on the right track. There are definitely a handful of solid test cases when it comes to this kind of specialized and researched-based strategy. For example, in 2012 the Chicago Bears launched ¡Vamos Bears!, an “organization wide initiative” aimed at Hispanic fan outreach through football education, youth clinics, community events and officially hosted fan parties. When you think about it, that covers a demographic that includes everything from kids to adults. It’s clear that the Bears want fans for life. The impetus for the move came after corporate noticed a 50% increase in Hispanic Bears fans since 2005 and it makes perfect sense when you consider that the Bears have the largest Hispanic fan base of all sports teams in Chicago. The Rams could certainly take a cue from the groundwork laid by the Bears and other NFL and NBA teams.

Working on this article definitely had an impact on us and that usually gets our wheels turning. We’re a visual group so we thought we’d cap off your read with our custom shot at a Ram’s fan package that features a CultureSpan twist! We started with our unofficial fan moniker of “L.A. Fam”. It easily works in Spanish when the L.A. is read as the definite article of “la”. The result is a seamless blend of two languages to one. We then took this phrase and popped it onto a game day shirt and laid it atop an English and Spanish word cloud. When you’re part of L.A. FAM, you’re proud of your cultural diversity. Next we created a soccer scarf updated for fans of football Americano. We’ve seen these scarves popping up at more and more football games so it was a natural crossover for us. This piece works in a dual language application with one side reading “LA PASIÓN” and the other “L.A. PASSION”. And what fan package would be complete without the all-important koozie. Customized for any proud Rams fan, it’s emblazoned with the L.A. FAM name. It looks cool and keeps your Ram ale even cooler!

Though these pieces were fun to create, what they can represent is what’s really inspiring to us. We’re stoked at the fact that the importance of the Hispanic market continues to steadily grow, not only in the eyes of the NFL, but the nation as well. Oh, and if I, your humble bloggist could share one final thought it would be... GO GIANTS!