Football is the New Fútbol: NFL Seeks to Score with Hispanic Fans
As the NFL season moves into post-season play, here’s a Latino NFL highlight: October 12, 2009, Monday Nigh Football game between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Jets at Land Shark Stadium in that great Latin city of Miami. It’s Hispanic Heritage Month. Here’s how Poder magazine described it in the November 2009 article, “NFL Seeks to Score with Hispanic Fans”:
“That Monday Night Football game between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Jets ostensibly was just another football game. Yet by the time team investor Marc Anthony had finished the National Anthem and fellow team owner Gloria Estefan had sung her Spanish rendition of ’Are You Ready for Some Football’ with Hank Williams Jr., the Hispanic touch was undeniable. President Barack Obama rounded out the pre-game show with a videotaped proclamation in Spanish, ‘We are all Americans.’”
The article goes on to point out that what was especially meaningful was not just the marketing outreach to Latinos but Latino ownership of the team with high profile investors such as Marc Anthony, Gloria Estefan, and J-Lo along with other Latino business people.
The meaning? The article concludes:
“For his part, Marc Anthony believes reality has changed in the eyes of Hispanic youth. While at an Amigos For Kids meeting, a child who had just learned that Anthony was an owner of the Miami Dolphins commented, ‘So I can own a team too?’ ‘All of a sudden that’s not an issue anymore,’ he told PODER. ‘Yes, you can be President. Yes, you can own an NFL team. Yes, you can be a Supreme Court justice.’
“Adds Emilio Estefan: ‘It’s making history for a lot of Latinos. That’s what it’s all about. It’s definitely making a new era for Latinos in the United States.’”
Once the numbers are in on the 2010 Census, one of the biggest headlines will be on the surge in Latino demographics. Smart organizations are preparing for that now and need to integrate it into their various diversity programs including their diversity training.
Have you seen diversity books that explore this subject? One I highly recommend is Robert Rodriguez’s Latino Talent: Effective Strategies to Recruit, Retain, and Develop Hispanic Professionals. What other evidence do you see of companies reaching out to Latinos and better managing diversity with this group?
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