Revolution president Brian Bilello talks World Cup and capitalizing on increased enthusiasm for soccer in New England
Brian Bilello might have been the least surprised person in New England by all the love Boston showed for the World Cup.
Whether it was the near-capacity attendance at Gillette Stadium, boffo local TV ratings or falling under the spell of Scotland’s Tartan Army, the president of the New England Revolution always felt that once the games began, the region’s “underserved” soccer fan base would turn out in force.
Now, the trick for Bilello is to extend that enthusiasm in a way that helps the local men’s professional soccer team while growing the sport.
That effort is already underway with Major League Soccer’s “Thanks World, We’ll Take It From Here” campaign, which includes a two-game “First Match on Us” ticket promotion for new fans.
Bilello expects to see immediate rewards with a “massive” crowd of more than 30,000 for Saturday’s match against Atlanta United at Gillette Stadium, which will be followed by a fireworks show.
Bilello elaborated on this and other topics in a recent wide-ranging interview with the Globe:
On how media gate-keepers overlook strong local and national TV ratings for the World Cup, and MLS attendance figures:
“We constantly struggle to get the coverage for soccer, MLS, and the Revolution that we feel like is warranted given the size of the fan base and the size of the soccer community in this community and this country. We think we try to collectively across our league be fair about that, but I think we feel pretty strongly when you look around the country that we probably get underserved relative to the amount of fans and the potential interest that’s there.
“I think it’s a good thing just to remind people that this sport is massive, and I do think there’s certainly people in various media positions that have never been involved in the sport and don’t see it and sort of try to choose — for one reason or another, it always confuses me — a narrative that this doesn’t exist or people don’t like it. And then you see more people watching the US men’s national team than the NBA Finals, and it really shows you the level of fandom that exists for this sport across the country.”
On a “very soft” correlation of how bidding for the World Cup would result in a payoff for the Revolution:
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“We all believed at a very high level that it would certainly be good for the game to have another World Cup in the United States and certainly from our perspective to have one here, but it’s pretty difficult with something like this to set a hard goal like, we’re going to sell 5,000 more season tickets or we’re going to do this or do that. It’s really more about the growing and maturation and evolution of the game in the United States.
“It was more of a soft hope and dream than it was a really driving factor for why to do all this.”
On partnering with World Cup broadcaster Fox’s local affiliate:
“If you watched Fox throughout the tournament, you would have seen myself, coaches, players in a variety of different ways used by them to talk about the sport. There was a component where we had advertising that ran during the matches, which is great, and there’s an ongoing partnership with content that we’ll be doing with them.”
On localizing MLS’s “Thanks World” advertising campaign:
“We have our own version of that ad that features [US and Revolution goalkeeper] Matt Turner, it’s a little bit of a blend of the MLS ad with more of an emphasis on Matt.”
On the “First Match on Us” ticket offer:
“It’s pretty simple. We’re basically saying to fans, ‘Hey, if you’re a soccer fan and you’ve never been to a Revolution match, we’d like to invite you to enjoy your first match on us.’ There’s a whole onboarding process to make sure that you’ve never been to a match before.
“You get a welcome pack when you show up to the game to sort of welcome you to becoming a Revolution fan and then, obviously, ways to get you to come back to more games. We expect a massive crowd just in part due to that. We’re going to have over 30,000 people, potentially over 35,000 people at our game on the 25th.”
On any potential payoff of the “First Match on Us” promotion:
“Speak to me in a couple of years for what that turns into in terms of ticket holders and all that other fun stuff. But we feel strongly that when people come and experience our match and our game day, that’s really our strength. We’re pretty excited about this program in terms of longer-term fan growth by, again, just getting people excited about coming to their first Revolution game.”
On whether to expect a bump in season-ticket sales for next season:
“By next offseason we’ll have a pretty good idea of how much we were able to drive into that from both a season-ticket and how-the-rest-of-the-season-went (perspective).
“Right now we’re seeing some buzz and we’re seeing some pop, so right now we’re fairly happy with it.”
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