Over the last few weeks, the passion for the World Cup has been palpable, even in this country, which is not as soccer mad as the rest of the world. People who normally crowd around the television in our company's break room for major golf tournaments or significant playoff games in other sports were glued to the set to watch many of the matches.
The incredible fervor of the international football fans in this country for the US Men's National Team's games during the World Cup make it very clear how much the world's most popular sport has to potential to take hold in the U.S., even if it will still be dwarfed by the interest in American football, basketball, and baseball. I've certainly seen this over the past 15 years as my family has supported our local Major League Soccer Team, the New England Revolution, which plays at Gillette Stadium (which most people will recognize as the home of the New England Patriots, not the New England Revolution.)
The same organization owns both franchises and clearly favors the more popular one, although the soccer management team has made more efforts lately to use social media to engage with its fans. One of my colleagues and fellow Revolution season ticket holder, Andrew Karl, pointed out to me their new blog on the Revolution web site which attempts to have the head of player personnel (and former player) Mike Burns answer the questions fans have posed about the team's dismal record to date, the crazy number of injuries (including a nearly two year absence of star Taylor Twellman), and the seeming lack of investment in stronger players that can make us competitive in this league.
In his most recent post, Burns provides very carefully sanitized answers to the tough questions these passionate and frustrated fans have been asking. It's clear that these answers were parsed so carefully that they contain virtually no real information. Andrew pointed out to me that within two days of the post, there were 60 comments to date, most of which were negative due to the lack of real information. If anything, it seems this attempt to engage with the fans turned off more than it turned on. Here's an example of one of the more recent comments:
"Disappointed Revs Fan Says:July 8th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
The fans are speaking and demonstrating our passion for the club. Hopefully management is listening so positive change can happen. We all want this team to succeed so the ball is in your court. Show us you care as much as we do so we can move forward collectively and once again be proud to support this club.
Go Revs."
As Andrew Karl put so well when he sent this to me, "You need to do more than engage your audience. You need to engage them with good, compelling content. This is an example of how an engaged fan base will simply not accept this brand of bologna."
It's a good lesson for anyone who is trying to use more direct channels like blogs to engage with their customers. It's possible to build tremendous loyalty with your customers by connecting with them in the right way and truly giving them information and answers to their questions. If you're not ready or willing to do both of these, however, the direct connection isn't a help and may actually be a hindrance.
If the New England Revolution front office and Mike Burns are smart about this, they will recognize that this large outpouring of frustration from knowledgeable and passionate fans -- combined with the broader interest sparked by an exciting World Cup -- is something they need to tap into with real information and a firm commitment to improve the team and let the fans know this is in the works. Otherwise, they are confirming some of the commenters' assertions that the soccer team is only a way for Gillette Stadium -- and the surrounding Patriot Place shopping area -- to get more usage when the Patriots are not in season.
If you agree to be transparent, you need to say something.
