A Cautionary Tale About the US Spanish Market

by

The Wall Street Journal features an excellent article on one man’s attempt to capitalize on the booming Hispanic market in the US. He purchased Spanish broadcast rights to the Boston (this is the year) Red Sox and has found it a lot harder to make ends meet than he expected. His company is the Spanish Beisbol Network and here’s an article excerpt:

    “It looks so easy from the outside, but it’s not,” says Amaury Pi-Gonzalez, the Cuban-born voice of the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics, two teams that have stumbled in their Spanish broadcasting ventures.

    A combination of factors contributes to baseball’s Spanish slump. Demographics play a role: Cities where Mexican immigrants dominate el barrio are more likely to listen to soccer than baseball.

There are countless outstanding Mexican restaurant here in San Diego and I have yet to enter one that has a San Diego Padres game (or any other baseball game) on the air. It’s always a soccer match.

Sports are intricately tied to culture, which means any major shift usually requires a generational shift as well.

Now if the Red Sox make it into the playoffs, Spanish Beisbol Network will make it into the black. Prediction: This will be a profitable year for the Spanish Beisbol Network.

(Visited 35 times, 1 visits today)
John Yunker

John Yunker

John is co-founder of Byte Level Research and author of Think Outside the Country as well as 19 editions of The Web Globalization Report Card.
Tweet
Share