Nashville’s first game at Nissan Stadium, on Feb. 29, drew a Tennessee-state record 59,069 fans.getty images
Ian Ayre’s daily 9 a.m. online quizzes aren’t mandatory for Nashville SC’s 100 employees, but the participation has been consistently high. For example, Ayre, the team’s CEO, recently presented 20 images from famous television shows featuring their most obscure characters, and employees had until 5 p.m. to name the shows and submit their answers. It’s one way Ayre is trying to inject some creativity into his staff’s work-from-home schedule as the club confronts a debut season in MLS that is going very differently than planned.
“I’ve realized my picture quizzes get a higher response rate than the more intellectually challenging quizzes and riddles,” said Ayre.
The real riddle right now for Nashville and the rest of the sports world is when games will return. MLS has paused all action until at least May 10, a particularly tough blow for a league that had high hopes as it celebrated its 25th season.
Yet of all the league’s 26 teams, it is the two expansion teams in Nashville and Miami that are feeling particular strain as they try to launch franchises in a challenging environment. Nashville played its first MLS game on Feb. 29 before a Tennessee-state record soccer crowd of 59,069, but has been unable to build momentum after that. Similarly, Inter Miami CF came into its first season with plenty of buzz thanks in part to co-owner David Beckham, but like all MLS teams played just two games before the league suspended the season in mid-March.
The buzz for Inter Miami, co-owned by David Beckham, has been tempered.getty images
With the postponement of regular-season matches, both teams have lost well into the low seven figures per contest when combining gate revenue, merchandise and food and beverage, according to one soccer insider. Miami kept a recent April payment date for season-ticket holders, but according to Paul McDonough, the club’s sporting director and chief operating officer, it is still an ongoing discussion around determining how future payments might look like and if there will be any scheduling modifications.
“It’s more prudent for us to evaluate on a weekly basis on where things are, how things are progressing,” said McDonough. “We’re taking it week-by-week, every 10 days or so, to see how things are evolving. We can’t have any iron-clad policies right now because there are so many unknowns.”
Miami and Nashville have continued to remain in touch with season-ticket holders and sponsors throughout the stop in action, team executives said, as they explore if and when they’ll need to reallocate sponsorship assets away from game day to other platforms, like digital media. McDonough explained that his staff has contacted all season-ticket holders to date in order to keep them abreast of the latest league news and answer fans’ questions.
Nashville CEO Ian Ayre (bottom) has connected with club supporters on Instagram Live. Courtesy of Nashville SC
In Nashville, Ayre said his team has also used the down time to keep a high level of engagement online with fans and supporters.
“Our digital team is the busiest right now during this phase,” he said. “It’s your only window into your fans right now. It’s your social channels and your website. It’s important to keep that active, current and engaging. You’ve got to be more creative now because you don’t have access to players and games.”
The time normally spent creating out-of-home advertising and executing street-based marketing initiatives is now being directed inward, led by Teresa Tatlonghari, head of marketing, and Brandon Barca, senior director of digital strategy. For social media in particular, the volume and frequency of posts for Nashville hasn’t increased compared to a normal in-season schedule despite the concerted digital focus; on match week, there’s still a sizable amount of content to distribute, the club said.
Still, what has changed is developing a new content plan altogether without the customary media availabilities, training sessions and player access. About 10 staffers devoted to content have worked in tandem with the organization’s marketing staff to develop the ongoing creative and digital road map, Ayre said.
Last month, the club launched a new livestreaming show with eMLS gamer Cormac “Doolsta” Dooley, where fans competed in FIFA 20 live on Twitch. Dooley has also played other teams’ eMLS representatives, like Columbus Crew SC’s Graham Ellix, in a best-of-three match-up on March 21. On Wednesdays, Ayre and host Jamie Watson have continued to interact with supporters via Instagram Live as part of a Virtual Happy Hour with team sponsor Fat Bottom Brewing.
“Everyone’s starving for content and live games,” Ayre said. “All of your supporters need their soccer fix in some form. [Digital] is the most important piece of the business right now.”
Ayre added that the team is also currently developing its app, which is slated to launch closer to when matches resume. Inter Miami CF — together with Texas-based technology company Pumpjack Dataworks — is using the stop in play to build out additional content for its app that launched on March 10, with over 11,500 downloads to date. Comparatively, LAFC — a recent expansion team that launched in 2018 — has 25,000 downloads since debuting its app in March of that year, a Miami spokeswoman said.
