This summer's tournament provides the perfect opportunity for some of Europe's biggest clubs to cultivate American support
John Shin couldn’t believe the crowd at Borussia Dortmund’s event. It was a pretty nondescript bar in Brooklyn, an outdoor space with a few drinks – a good spot for a beer outside.
But the German club turned it into a celebration of football. There were fans from all over the world, supporting all sorts of clubs, and representing a wide range of fan groups. There were Dortmund fans from Mexico. USMNT fans from New York, and a general gaggle of football enthusiasts from around the world.
And Shin, an influencer and Instagram personality with nearly 100,000 followers, couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening.
“There was a fan from Slovenia, a fan from Germany, a fan from everywhere, now just showing up to Brooklyn, celebrating, and I love that,” Shin told GOAL.
That incident – and the subsequent impact it had on the Korean-American Manchester United fan – was a microcosm of the way foreign clubs are catering to their European fans during the Club World Cup. Just 10 years ago, tours were all about outreach and brand building. Now, it’s a question of feeding communities and building them up, year after year. This tournament, this summer in the United States, is a seminal event on a calendar that was written a long time ago.
“We've been doing things for the last seven years now. It gives us a platform, a global platform, to showcase our our work here, and our presence here,” Marc Lingenhoff, managing director of Borussia Dortmund Americas, told GOAL.
AFP'The Club World Cup is incredibly important'
America has long been a frontier of expansion for European sides. Some of the biggest clubs have embarked on summer tours to the United States for more than 20 years. New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Philadelphia are all massive media markets – that means they are lucrative markets, as well, making them attractive to the world’s most recognizable teams.
But the next two years present the most unique of opportunities. Competitive soccer has come to the U.S., and with the Club World Cup underway and the World Cup a year away, the sport is penetrating the mainstream consciousness. Dortmund, Juventus, PSG, Manchester City and others have pulled out all the stops to cater to American fans.
“The Club World Cup is incredibly important, it's a global competition, but also a deeply local moment for us. It gives Juventus the unique chance to be visible, relevant, and emotionally present in the U.S.,” said Marco Castellaneta, Juventus marketing director.
AdvertisementGetty'There’s a strong appetite here for access, personality, and experiences'
PSG were the first to seriously invest in something long term in the U.S. There is nothing subtle about the Parisians’ marketing approach in this country. It started, perhaps, with a brand deal. PSG first announced a collaboration with Nike and the Michael Jordan brand in 2018. Since then, they have released at least one Jordan Brand kit every year, and even opened a flagship store on Fifth Avenue in the heart of New York City in 2022.
It helps, too, that the club invested big in stars. The U.S. sports landscape is a largely a star-driven economy. Having Neymar, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe on the pitch together may not have been conducive to good football – but it was invaluable for foreign markets (which perhaps helped justify the struggles on the pitch).
Want to spread the word about your team? Sign the players that everyone knows.
And now, it all seems to have come together nicely. The Parisians might not have been delighted to lose Mbappe last summer, but they reinvested shrewdly, pieced together a fun, likeable team, and retained the value of an eye-catching brand (and youngster Desire Doue may yet become a star.)
“There’s a strong appetite here for access, personality, and experiences,” Fabien Allegre, PSG chief brand officer, said via email. “Fans are interested in who we are as a brand, not just what happens on the pitch,”
It does help, you’d imagine, that they won the Champions League.
But they haven’t taken their foot off the gas, either. This summer, the Parisian club have been catering heavily to a West Coast audience in the U.S. It helps, of course, that they are set up in the commercial and deal-making hub of Los Angeles.
The PSG House is a futuristic thing that relates to a number of cultural touchpoints for American audiences. Fans can make use of augmented reality photobooths and interact with a content studio. There is a rooftop soccer pitch. A cafe offers coffee tastings. There is sponsored VR gaming. Stanley – yes, the water bottle people – have offered “custom hydration products.”
“The response has been very encouraging,” Allegre said, adding that the PSG House “has become a vibrant space to celebrate our identity – sporting, cultural, and creative – with fans, artists, and local communities. While it’s our first time creating this kind of activation in the U.S., it’s been a great opportunity to bring our brand to life in a different way.”
Getty Images Sport'We want to grow consistently and sustainably over time'
Borussia Dortmund have seen this coming for a while. In some ways, a U.S. audience was gifted to them when a then-teenage Christian Pulisic broke into the first team with the German club. Suddenly Dortmund, who had captured the European consciousness for their heavy metal football under Jurgen Klopp, were uniquely relevant in America.
A U.S. tour in the summer of 2018 revealed how impactful the attacking midfielder had become from a visibility and marketing standpoint.
“We saw that we have that increased demand and interest from the U.S., and that was our first summer tour,” Lingenhoff said. “That was the kick-start of our footprint in the U.S.”
But they soon realized that developing a meaningful American audience couldn’t be accomplished simply with one-off summer tours.
“We're not a club that's coming, that's in and out,” Lingenhoff said. “We're not coming in, take a check and disappear for a year or two and then come back. That's not us. We want to grow consistently and sustainably over time.”
How, exactly, they went about that was unique. The club realized that they might not ever have the star power of PSG or Manchester City – although Pulisic, Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham checked some boxes. Instead, they utilized social media. The “BlackYellow” twitter handle reached new audiences, latching onto Internet trends with a sharp sense of humor. That launched in 2019 after a U.S. tour, and now has 2.7 million followers.
“We're not first-movers, necessarily. But if we do something, we do it with the long term in mind,” Lingenhoff added.
In February 2024, it was all codified for good when the club opened a New York office. Lingenhoff, who had also worked for Liverpool and Adidas, moved across the country from Portland, Oregon.
"And then the next logical step was, we need permanent presence in the U.S.,” he said. “You cannot manage all of that from Dortmund, with time zones, language, culture – it's just not possible.”
For Dortmund, the CWC is merely a moment on a roadmap. A major moment, make no mistake, but it’s the next phase in their U.S. marketing continuum. And they have celebrated it in style, putting on numerous events and collaborating with fans of other clubs. Community is their hallmark – they have brought that to the Americas, Lingenhoff said.
Ironically, Dortmund prefer not to simply lean on American players. Pulisic is long gone – and now plays for AC Milan. But Gio Reyna, Cole Campbell and youngster Mathis Albert are all in the fray. Although they attract eyes, Linghenhoff prefers to look beyond them.
“I cannot manage my business or my work here based on players, because I have no control over it,” he said. "I'm not telling the sporting department ‘Sign the American players.’ “
They are entry points. The real challenge is to keep fans hooked, even when the hometown heroes move on. Dortmund believe they're succeeding on that front
Man City, Puma'We’ve been activating in the U.S.'
Jack Grealish isn’t great at basketball. He proved as such in an event in New York last year. The England and Man City winger stood on a court alongside the unlikely trio of Pep Guardiola, Haaland and Orlando Magic slam-dunk champion Mac McClung. Grealish tossed up shot after shot. Most of them didn’t even hit the rim. The hundred or so fans in attendance either laughed or groaned. There were a couple of shouts of “Stick to soccer!”
But the accuracy of Grealish’s jump shot wasn’t really the point. Rather, the event, held at Puma’s store in midtown Manhattan in July 2024, showed exactly what Man City hope to accomplish in the U.S. It wasn’t a three-point contest or dunk challenge. Instead, it was the occasion for Man City’s third kit release – a crucial part of their American tour and revealing of a jersey they hoped would resonate to streetwear enthusiasts in the States.
“We’ve been activating in the U.S. through content, events and much more for over a decade now. For us, it’s about appealing to different sectors of our audience with local and authentic activity and content,” said Nuria Tarre, the club’s chief marketing & fan experience officer.
That has continued this summer with a collaboration with designer Kid Super. They varied their portfolio with a cooking event, too.
“We kicked off our time in the U.S. with a KidSuper fashion show and our summer tournament kit launch with our partner PUMA in New York and a Flavors of Football event too with a crossover cultural event between football and cooking,” Tarre added.
Such events resonate with American fans, especially those that are perhaps less knowledgeable about the game. U.S. fans approach it differently, and City have found that different formats are effective.
Now, it’s just a question of timing.
“We’ve had a presence in the U.S. for a number of years, and we’ve seen our popularity within the market continue to grow,” Tarre said. “For Manchester City, the Club World Cup provides an additional opportunity for us to showcase our brand, our players and our club to new audiences.”
