US sales trail next goal for Man U

AMERICAN marketing executives believe Manchester United could be a mainstream brand in the US within a few years, making an £800m swoop for the club by Florida billionaire Malcolm Glazer a more attractive proposition.

They believe the club will have to ditch the men-only football culture of England towards more family-friendly fare for the US, but point out that it already has a substantial fan base in America from which growth could be explosive.

Allyson Stewart-Allen of International Marketing Partners says the unlikely success of some British brands in America is proof that America's resistance to soccer, which failed to take off commercially despite the US hosting the 1994 World Cup, could fade.

She cites the rise of Newcastle Brown in the US, where it has moved out of the expat arena into the beer-drinking mainstream.

There are also signs that European corporate money is starting to take the soccer scene in the US more seriously.

Adidas this week said it would become the 10-year sponsor of the professional Major League Soccer in North America, providing equipment for all 12 teams.

Shane O'Rourke, president of Setanta North America, which broadcasts sports events to expat communities in bars and via pay-per-view, says United has already moved beyond a niche market in the US and is almost ever-present on Rupert Murdoch's Fox sports channels.

Setanta shows United's football channel in bars and will expand into home television next year.

'United gets a lot more airtime than any other club out of England. From a business point of view, there are just more fans. For every Liverpool or Arsenal fan in America, there are three Man U fans,' says O'Rourke.

He reckons that 20m Americans will be football fans in the next few years. While that makes it only a fourth-tier sport in the country, the figure is equivalent to the number of people who support the game in the UK.

Surprisingly, it may be easier to make money from marketing the Man U brand in America than it is to cash in on the merchandising of the American football in which the National Football League takes a curiously socialist approach.

When Manchester United sells a ticket or a shirt, the money largely goes into the club's coffers. But when Glazer's Tampa Bay Buccaneers sell a ticket or a shirt, the money goes into the NFL pool, to be divided equally among all the teams.