HispanicTrending

U.S. soccer 'needs Hispanic talent' to succeed

July 1, 2009
By Timothy Abraham

The United States almost provided one of football's biggest upsets when they were narrowly beaten by Brazil in the final of the Confederations Cup in South Africa.

 Goals from Clint Dempsey and captain Landon Donovan had given the U.S. a 2-0 lead at half-time, before Luis Fabiano struck twice after the break and Lucio headed home the winner six minutes before the final whistle to give Brazil the title.

While the presence of the U.S. in the final reflects the significant progress made since the country hosted the World Cup in 1994, it will undoubtedly raise expectation levels for the 2010 World Cup.

Central to this is whether the current crop of players in coach Bob Bradley's squad possess the credentials to make the next step and become serious challengers to the European and South American elite.

World Soccer magazine columnist and U.S. Soccer expert Paul Gardner felt that while the exploits of the national team were impressive, the country is still some way short of fulfilling their potential on the world stage.

 "The way the tournament went it really opened up for the U.S. and certainly the progress made is there for all to see, particularly in the victory over Spain who had been on an good run up until that point," Gardner told CNN.

"Undoubtedly things have moved on a great deal since the World Cup was staged here in 1994, but if you look at the bigger picture there is perhaps a slight sense of underachievement because of the huge resources available.

"In terms of organization, facilities and sheer participation numbers the U.S. has massive potential which has not quite yet been matched by what has happened at national level."

Does the Hispanic community hold the key for the future of U.S. football? Sound Off here.

Crucially Gardner believes that for the U.S. to shake the tag of nearly men there must be a stronger emphasis placed on tapping into the abundance of talent provided within the country's Hispanic population.

"The experience that players have gained from playing in Europe has improved the players and Bob Bradley has molded a side which can hold it's own against some of the bigger nations," Gardner explained.

"But for the U.S. to become a real force then it must begin to tap into the quality of talent available in the Hispanic community which can be nurtured to take the game to the next level.

"The Major Soccer League has yet to really embrace this idea and I think that needs to change in the first instance to enable the development of players capable of winning matches at the very top.

 "MLS side Houston Dynamo is a case in point. Something like 50 percent of their support is Hispanic, 90 percent of their youth talent is Hispanic but have only have a few Hispanic players in the team.

"And that extends to the national team. The composition of the side at the moment is very much the team that Bob Bradley and Bruce Arena built and they -- like a number of MLS coaches -- have gone for players they can trust and rely on.

"The Hispanic players have the game in their blood and their skill and technical levels need to be embraced rather than maybe having a dependence on players who fit a specific system."

For Gardner, at least, it seems that development of the Hispanic talent must therefore become a keystone policy for the U.S. Soccer Federation to put them into the bracket of serious World Cup contenders in years to come.

But what of their chances at next year's World Cup in South Africa?

He added: "The U.S. should not get carried way with their performance at the Confederations Cup and the players should not look beyond getting past the group stages in South Africa.

"A good run in Japan and South Korea in 2002 was followed by elimination before the knockout phase in Germany 2006 so they need to be cautious.

"Winning the World Cup will probably be beyond the U.S. next year. Bradley will make them a difficult team to beat, and I don't think anyone will get an easy game against them so it will be interesting to see how they do."

Source: CNN

Soccer's groundswell is already here in the U.S.

June 30, 2009
By Kurt Streeter

Let's keep our heads here.

Let's not fool ourselves into thinking Sunday's pulse-pounding soccer -- the long-suffering U.S. nationals only one hard header from winning the Confederations Cup in South Africa -- will dramatically change the game's fortunes on U.S. soil.

For most American sports fans, come next week it'll be back to the old standbys: fireworks and baseball, NASCAR and apple pie. Those fans I heard at Dodger Stadium on Sunday -- the ones gushing about American goalkeeper Tim Howard as the Dodgers played the Mariners -- will pay scant attention to the world's most popular game until next year's World Cup.

But fans of futbol, have no fear. Your game is going to be just fine on these shores. All the frenzied speculation over whether this latest run will finally vault soccer to big league status? Wasted frenzy.

Big league, I mean consistently big league in performance, hoopla and status? It's not going to happen. Not for a while. And that's absolutely OK. For one thing, at the grass-roots level of youth play, boosted and shaped by Latino immigration, the game continues its steady march.

While this has yet to translate into mammoth increases in TV ratings and gate receipts, or into deep and palpable sizzle, it's a groundswell that eventually will pervade.

The world is a different place than it was even four years back: flat and connected and biting at the status quo. Just as it blindsided political observers in the presidential election, grass-roots momentum will eventually have a big effect on what sports we love and why we love them.

There's more. To pit soccer against football, baseball and basketball is to lack perspective, to starve ourselves of nuance. Does a sport absolutely have to launch itself into the realm of the big three to be a success? Why? Who says? And what are we missing by thinking it does?

For years golf plugged along contentedly in the shadow of the "major" sports. There was little gnashing of teeth. Golf was still considered great. Then came one transcendent player and the game became transcendent in our minds. Change happens slowly. Then a Tiger Woods arrives, and change happens fast.

"The NBA doesn't shut down because it does not have the same TV ratings as the NFL does, the NHL isn't terrible because it does not draw as much as the NBA," said Sunil Gulati, the president of U.S. Soccer, speaking by phone from South Africa on Monday. "Is it around the corner or even a goal for us to surpass the NFL or the other major American sports? No, it isn't. But soccer shouldn't have an inferiority complex because we aren't those sports."

Gulati reminded that his sport continues its rise in popularity. TV ratings aren't the be-all, end-all, but they're an important yardstick. While it's true Major League Soccer's TV ratings are treading stormy waters, overall soccer ratings rise dramatically when cable viewers on Spanish-language networks are considered.

During broadcasts of crème-de-la-crème games from Europe, TV viewership rivals the big brothers.

Example: English- and Spanish-language broadcasts of the 2006 World Cup final had 16.9 million viewers in the U.S. That is comparable to the U.S. audience for the 2005 World Series, a four-game sweep by the Chicago White Sox that averaged 17.2 million viewers, though that was a new low for the World Series.

"The goal is growth," said Gulati, voice vigorous the day after his team's hard-luck 3-2 loss to Brazil. "I don't expect that overnight a tournament like this will make us way more popular, but it's another plug along the way. Now it's true that we might have gotten there a little earlier if I'd been putting gold medals around the players heads on Sunday instead of silver medals, but this tournament gave us great momentum."

Since they now have our attention, momentum must be sustained. A big test looms in August: the U.S. in Mexico City to play the Mexican nationals. Will the Americans fight as hard as they did last week?

Another key test is a long-term one: how to take advantage of the deep and continuous boom in youth soccer.

"We have to create a link for the kids between going to the games on weekends . . . and what happened on the field in South Africa on Sunday," Gulati said. "All the kids playing Little League baseball, they feel that link, that connection, with a guy like A-Rod. . . . We must do the same."

This shouldn't be hard. In the Southern California-based Coast Soccer League, one of the largest competitive youth leagues in America, participation was swelling long before the Confederations Cup. The league this year will have about 2,600 teams, 300 more than last year, meaning 40,000 boys and girls play high-level soccer in this league alone.

Think 40,000 kids are playing football in Southern California? Think again. Think soccer's Tiger Woods is among them? He or she could well be.

Tellingly, going deeper inside the numbers, Coast Soccer League official Michelle Romero estimated at least 60% of the teams are predominantly Latino, largely the urban sons and daughters of immigrants, or immigrants themselves.

Here lies the future, the match that can start a fire.

As is happening in many other areas in American life, it will be these kids who shape the way the game is viewed, kids who live in homes in which futbol has been revered for generations, kids overlooked by skeptics who say the world's game will never truly be one of "our" games.

Soccer skeptics, sorry, you're wrong. Times are changing; the nation and world are changing. Slowly, then at breakneck speed, our favorite sports will change too.

Soccer fans, keep your heads, and have no fear. The foundation for your sport is strong, and growing. It might never bethe mythical national pastime. It doesn't need to be.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Can baseball avoid an error on Latino players?

June 24, 2009
By Zev Chafets

This summer, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., is marking its 70th anniversary with, among other highlights, "Viva Baseball," its first permanent exhibit on Latin American baseball. At the exhibit's opening, former first baseman Orlando Cepeda spoke for the nine Latinos already inducted into the Hall. "To be here today," he said, "we went through some obstacles."

Cepeda was referring to the racial prejudice and cultural incomprehension that Latinos have encountered since 1871, when Cuban third-baseman Estaban Bellan of the Troy Haymakers became the first Latino major leaguer. For more than seven decades after that, only "white" Latinos were allowed in the majors (and even they often felt uncomfortable) -- until Jackie Robinson integrated the game in 1947. Many took Anglo names or otherwise downplayed their roots. Even Ted Williams, one of the best-known players in baseball history, got through his entire career without publicly mentioning the fact that his mother was a Mexican American.

 After integration, dark-skinned Latino stars began playing in the U.S. The first Latino elected to the Hall of Fame, Roberto Clemente, was called "Bob" on his early baseball cards. He bitterly resented the way Anglo sportswriters quoted him in pidgin English and portrayed him as a "typically" temperamental Puerto Rican.

These days, writers no longer make fun of the accents and temperament of Latino players (at least not in print), but there are other, newer stereotypes to contend with. The most damaging is the notion that Latinos are responsible for introducing banned steroids into the pristine sanctuary of major league clubhouses.

This image owes a good deal to the fact that the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball was revealed to the public by the self-proclaimed "Godfather of Steroids," slugger Jose Canseco. It is also true that a disproportionate share of Latino players have been caught juicing. In 2005, according to Newsweek, almost two-thirds of the players who tested positive (and half the minor leaguers) were from Latin America.

"The data raise a troubling possibility that few in baseball would like to address head on," Newsweek concluded. "Are players from Latin America simply too driven to succeed?"

In many Latin American countries, the same steroids that are banned in major league baseball can be bought over the counter like aspirin or toothpaste. It is unlikely that players from those countries can be made to believe that using them is immoral. Is it cheating? Well, baseball cheating is as old as Babe Ruth's corked bat and as winked-at as Gaylord Perry's spitball. Ruth and Perry are in the Hall of Fame, part of a vast roster of immortals who used stimulants, downers and booze to help them perform, heal and get through the stress of major league competition.

A lot of the players on deck for the Hall of Fame fall into this category, and many are Latino. Just the other day, home-run slugger Sammy Sosa was revealed to have tested dirty in a 2003 drug test. Alex Rodriguez has admitted using. Manny Ramirez is under suspension for chemical enhancement. Rafael Palmeiro failed a test in 2005. Shortstop Miguel Tejada was named in the Mitchell Commission report.

In the past, the Hall of Fame has shown a lack of acuity in dealing with Latino baseball. It put the wrong name on Clemente's plaque, for example. And a few years ago, it invited Citgo -- a subsidiary of the Venezuelan national oil company controlled by dictator Hugo Chavez -- to sponsor the exhibit on Latin American baseball. That idea was dropped after Chavez appeared at the U.N., compared President George W. Bush to the devil and described the U.S. as an imperialist aggressor engaged in "domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world." Shortly thereafter, Chavez described major league baseball as being one of the leading yanqui exploiters. The invitation to Chavez, followed by the disinvitation, sent the message that the Hall of Fame couldn't tell one Spanish-speaker from another or simply didn't think it mattered. Eventually, the Hall of Fame's president, Dale Petrosky, lost his job over the fiasco, but board Chairwoman Jane Forbes Clark, the Hall's real decider, is still in place.

Hopefully Clark and her tame board of directors have learned something. The Baseball Hall of Fame is an iconic American institution, and what it does matters, especially on issues of race and ethnicity (and, coming soon, gender and sexual orientation).

The new Latino exhibit, which is not sponsored by a crazed anti-American dictator, is a good start. But the real test will come in the near future, when Latino greats of the 1980s and 1990s become eligible for induction. Latinos are probably the most passionate fans baseball has left, and Latino stars are their heroes. Cooperstown and its appointed electors, the baseball writers, need to think hard about what it would mean to put up new obstacles to their inclusion.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Exhibition tells story of Latinos in major league baseball

By Kevin Baxter
May 23, 2009

When Juan Marichal came to this country to play baseball more than half a century ago, he remembers being a lonely, frightened teenager.

"It was a very difficult time," he said Friday. "When you come [to] a country where you didn't know the language, you didn't know the culture . . . it's tough, especially at that age."

At the time, only one Dominican player had reached the major leagues -- and he was discovered on a playground in New York City. But while Marichal was trying to find his way, he also was cracking open the door to what has become one of the greatest influxes of foreign-born talent in the history of U.S. sports.

Since 1980, four seasons after Marichal's Hall of Fame career ended, nearly 8% of all major leaguers have come from the Dominican Republic, a country with a population smaller than Los Angeles County's. And nearly one in every five players in the majors has come from Latin America.

"I never thought that some day we were going to be No. 1 [in] Latin players at the major league level," Marichal said.

What began as a trickle became a flood, changing everything about baseball, from the way players are scouted and signed to how the game is played.

That changing landscape is something the Hall of Fame has spent years exploring in preparation for today's opening of ¡Viva Baseball!, one of the largest and most ambitious exhibitions in the museum's history.

"There's no more relevant story in baseball in this era than the role of Latinos and the positive impact Latino baseball has had on Major League Baseball," said Jeff Idelson, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. "When you look at . . . the last 20 or 30 years, you could argue convincingly that there's been no greater impact on baseball than from the Caribbean-basin countries."

Certainly no area outside the U.S. has produced more talent. Since 1980, Mexico, for example, has sent more players (72) to the major leagues than Canada (65), while Cuba (40) has produced nearly as many as Japan (46), though the Dominican Republic still beats them all (417).

"This is not merely a Major League Baseball story. This is a cultural story," said John Odell, the lead curator on the exhibit."There are some things you can measure. But there's another element that Latin players bring to the game. And it's passion. They bring a certain style to the game."

It's a story the museum tells in a groundbreaking way, using videotaped interviews with Latino members of the Hall of Fame as well as current All-Stars, who tell their stories in their native language. English subtitles are used. In fact, every display in ¡Viva Baseball! features English and Spanish.

"It's not only the sights and the feel and the flavor, but it's the sounds as well," Idelson said of the overall exhibit.

That is especially true in one four-minute multimedia presentation narrated in both languages by Hall of Fame Dodgers broadcaster Jaime Jarrin that takes viewers into the grandstands at a game in Venezuela.

A part of the exhibition is devoted to former Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela; artifacts from Campo las Palmas, the developmental baseball academy founded in 1987 in the Dominican Republic by Dodgers scout Ralph Avila; an interview with Angels outfielder Vladimir Guerrero; and the sombrero that Angels owner Arte Moreno gave Manager Mike Scioscia on the day Moreno became the first -- and still only -- Latino owner in major league history.

But the exhibition -- which will have a permanent home in the museum, joining installations on women's baseball and African American ballplayers -- doesn't ignore some of the darker chapters in the Latin American baseball story, such as charges of exploitation, the banning of dark-skinned Cubans and Puerto Ricans in the days before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, problems of racism and acculturation and current controversies involving drugs, signing bonuses and fraudulent birth certificates.

"We don't spend a lot of time on it, but we recognize that all is not sweetness and light," Odell said. "There are abuses that take place. If we didn't bring those issues up and say we recognize -- and everybody recognizes -- that these are issues, it would undermine our ability to say 'but there are good things that are taking place.' "

Marichal, still the only Dominican in the Hall of Fame, said the recognition is flattering and overdue.

"I think that's wonderful," he said of the exhibit, but "the Latin players deserved that a long time ago."

Source: Los Angeles Times

Latinos hit A-Basin slopes as first timers

May 8, 2009
By Robert Allen

Celia Martinez, 31, of Silverthorne never had a chance to try snow skiing until a local program opened the door for a group of Latinos to Summit County’s most popular sport.

The beginners on Thursday concluded a set of weekly lessons to get them carving turns and cracking smiles at Arapahoe Basin Ski Area.

“The first time it’s scary,” Martinez said. “But other times it’s easy, exciting — nice.”

She said she was glad her husband kept an eye on their four kids while she and the other group of mostly women skied the springtime snow.

“I wanted and I needed time free for myself,” she said.

Summit Prevention Alliance covered the four-week program — including rentals, lift tickets and lessons — through a grant from the Colorado Office of Health Disparities, and A-Basin offered a “steep” discount to boot.

Ski instructor Kirsten Isakson said it’s been fun to work with the group, which has ranged from four to seven or eight.

“It has been great to see them become empowered,” Isakson said. “They started out never putting skis on to cruising around and choosing where they want to go on the mountain.”

Jannine Walldan, the OHD project coordinator with Summit Prevention Alliance, said many of the women had been asking about learning to ski, but the expense and experience were a bit overwhelming.

A-Basin’s smaller size and family atmosphere fit the profile for the program. Leslie Walker, with A-Basin, said this is the first such program to be hosted at the ski area.

“It’s a great time,” she said. “It’s not as busy as the rest of the season, (so it’s) less intimidating.”

Walldan said many of the participants are from the Latinas en Movimiento, a local women’s exercise group.

Many are also the parents of kids who’ve participated in the SOS Outreach program, which uses winter and outdoor sports to help build character in underserved youths. She said parents had been watching the kids ski and wanted to give it a try.

A couple of men have participated, and she said more of them had expressed an interest in taking the lessons if snowboarding was offered.

“We’re trying to get them involved in our culture,” Walldan said. “We’re trying to teach ‘em how to be ski bums a little bit, too.”

Delia Perez, 35, gave a thumbs-up when asked whether she’s enjoyed the program.

“I always wanted to learn and am really happy that I’m learning,” she said, adding that she intends to continue with the sport in the future.

Gloria Higueira, 46, said she’s learned to turn and was planning to ride the lift to the top of the mountain Thursday.

“I like it,” she said. “The classes (are) good.”

Walldan said the program — which is expected to be offered again next year — wrapped up with a grill-out party on the snow-covered A-Basin beach.

“I wanted them to get the experience of the beach,” she said. “They were like, ‘La playa — la playa aqui?’"

OHD contributes millions of dollars to combat heart disease and obesity in Colorado, she said, so the beach party included healthy food such as veggie burgers and chicken-and-apple sausage.

Summit Prevention Alliance is a nonprofit promoting healthy lifestyles in Summit County. Walldan said hiking, soccer, volleyball and perhaps even kayaking are to be offered this summer.

Martinez said that after learning the moves of skiing, she’s ready to take on another, more extreme alternative sport.

“My next sport: I want to motocross,” she said, grinning.

Source: Summit Daily News

New York Jets' Mark Sanchez an inspiration to Hispanics

April 30, 2009
by M.A. Mehta

A few days after the Jets' blockbuster draft-day trade, Gerry Salme hoped a man he had never heard of would help him.

Salme can't recite Mark Sanchez's career statistics or gauge his arm strength. He's not certain whether the Jets fleeced the Cleveland Browns or gave up too much to get the University of Southern California quarterback in last Saturday's NFL draft.

For the director of operations at the FOCUS Hispanic Center for Community Development in Newark, Sanchez's greatest impact will involve forging a connection with the nearly 1.4 million Hispanics in New Jersey.

Sanchez -- a 22-year-old third-generation Mexican-American -- became a fabric of the Latino community in Los Angeles during his college career. He was a role model to countless underprivileged Hispanic children, working with youth centers across the city.

"It would help our children if he could have that direct involvement," Salme said. "It would motivate them, raise their self-esteem and give them hope that they also can become professional athletes if they set their minds to it."

Sanchez's charisma could also fuel the National Football League's efforts to boost its Hispanic fan base, estimated at 25 million people. The league's diversity initiatives to attract Latino followers have included promoting stars like Pro Bowl tight end Tony Gonzalez and playing a regular-season game in Mexico City.

Sanchez, who will practice with the Jets for the first time Friday in Florham Park, already has a solid foundation playing for a team that was one of the first in the NFL to broadcast its games in Spanish. His No. 6 jersey is the top seller coming out of the draft and the hottest piece of team merchandise this week, said Matt Higgins, executive vice president of business operations for the Jets.

"The dynamic is already in place for Mark," Higgins said. "It doesn't have to be contrived on our part. He's already got a deep following in the Hispanic community. Now that he's on the national stage in the capital of the world, that's only to grow."

Sanchez's bi-coastal appeal also could turn him into a mega-star if he lives up to the Hollywood hype.

"The guy's got an unbelievable opportunity to do some damage," said Ryan Schinman, president of Platinum Rye Entertainment, a Manhattan advertising consultant. "He's the player on the Jets now. He can be a terrific inspiration for other Hispanics. He knows he can make a difference."

He knows the dangers, too.

OVERNIGHT SENSATION

Kids in Los Angeles were sticking out their bellies and looking to the heavens, mimicking that funky windup.

Nick Sanchez Jr. vividly remembers the summer of 1981 when Fernando Mania swept the city. Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, the pudgy son of a poor Mexican farmer, had become an overnight sensation in Hispanic neighborhoods. Stickball games were sprinkled with children filled with hope.

When Sanchez's kid brother started his first game for USC in 2007, it was Fernando Mania all over again. Fans gravitated to Mark Sanchez, wearing serapes and homemade T-shirts with ¡Viva Sanchez! stretched across their chests. The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, USC's home field, became one big Latino festival complete with well-wishers chanting for their newest hero.

"The fans were just wild for him," said Nick Sanchez, a former quarterback at Yale. "The Hispanic community had somebody to root for in a position where they rarely have. He embraced it. He was playing for everybody ... the whole city. It wasn't just one community. But he was really grateful for that and tried to honor them in return."

Sanchez's simple gesture of thanks caused an uproar.

Midway through the 2007 season, the USC dentist gave the quarterback a custom-made mouthpiece emblazoned with the Mexican flag.

Sanchez's four-touchdown performance against Notre Dame in his second career start was quickly overshadowed by the firestorm over the mouthguard. Detractors questioned Sanchez's patriotism, calling his decision to wear the protective gear a sign of radical activism.

Sanchez, stunned at the backlash, received threatening letters.

"In his eyes, it was a fun thing to do," Nick Sanchez said. "He called it a high-five or thanks to them for being so supportive of him. It wasn't some sort of planned political stance. He really didn't know how folks would respond to it. He didn't think it would be negative in any way. So, it surprised him."

Sanchez's popularity within the Latino community continued to soar after he ditched the mouthpiece.

Before long, he found support in the strangest places.

SOURCE OF PRIDE

Fabian Ruiz is ready to root for a man on a team he despises.

The Rutgers tight end won't pull a No. 6 Sanchez jersey over his head anytime soon, but the life-long Miami Dolphins fan wants the rookie quarterback to succeed.

"There definitely is a source of pride," said Ruiz, who left Cuba at age 6 and settled in Miami. "We've come a long way. Especially now when there's a lot of talk of immigration, it's nice to know that a Mexican-American is highly thought of somewhere."

Said Paterson Mayor Jose Torres: "He's clean-cut and very humble. He's going to be an asset on and off the field as a role model for young Latino men to emulate."

Rutgers linebacker Manny Abreu, a Union City native, hopes Sanchez will make a trip there to steer Hispanic kids toward the game. He hopes having a Mexican-American at the most important position in the biggest market can pave the way for limitless opportunities for Latinos in football.

"He can show that baseball is not the only Hispanic sport," Abreu said. "And that football is obviously out there. We just need to push our young kids in that direction."

For long-suffering Jets fans, Sanchez could be the one who finally delivers a Super Bowl.

For Hispanics everywhere, he could be so much more.

Source: The Star Ledger

Did Marketing Play a Role in the Jets’ Drafting of Mark Sanchez?

April 30, 2009
By Toni Monkovic

Why did the Jets trade picks and players for Mark Sanchez?

Answer No. 1: Because they believed it gave them the best chance to win a Super Bowl.

Answer No. 2: Because they believed it gave them the best chance to win a Super Bowl and, at the same time, gave them a marketable star who could win new fans, energize existing ones and help sell personal seat licenses in tough economic times.

You might think that, in terms of football, there’s not much difference between Answers No. 1 and No. 2. As long as the first criterion is met, no problem.

And you might be right. But consider: If a team truly wants to win a Super Bowl, should it let marketing even enter the discussion? Because if you allow it into the conversation, can you really be unbiased in evaluating a player? And if your focus is diverted by even a sliver, how are you going to succeed in the ultra-competitive caldron that is the N.F.L.? (Can you picture, in your wildest imaginings, that Bill Belichick, the guy who wears tattered hoodies, is distracted by image and marketing?)

The Jets have plenty of reasons to see dollar signs. Coach Rex Ryan joked that Sanchez was so good-looking that he’d try not to sit too close to him for the team picture. Then there’s his appeal to an untapped market.

According to Hispanic Market Weekly:

    Where Sánchez ends up could be a game-changer for a team in need of wins. At the same time, the team that signs Sánchez could end up with a bonus asset. Sánchez is viewed as highly admired Latino athlete with a huge Hispanic fan base. This could spur a team to launch a marketing plan specifically designed to convert Sánchez fans into aficionados of his forthcoming team.

Let’s be realistic: Who’s going to sell more seats, Mark Sanchez or Kellen Clemens?

Woody Johnson has already stated that the organization was preoccupied last year because of building a new stadium and a new practice facility. Acquiring Brett Favre and shedding Chad Pennington had the feel of an unholy intermingling of football and commerce (and we all know how that turned out).

The Sanchez move seems to have a greater chance of success, but Jets fans who want to be skeptical have earned that right. One of our commenting regulars, Walt Bennett, a longtime Jets fans, said not long after the draft:

    The Jets will have committed a lot of money by the time this contract is secured, and will have anointed the “Face of The Franchise” tag on an untested rookie.

    It really is quite fair to ask, was this move made to make a splash on the back page? To sell PSLs? (ESPN made that exact suggestion within seconds of the pick.)

Source: New York Times

Jets’ Sanchez May Have Namath Endorsement Potential in New York

April 27, 2009
By Erik Matuszewski and Nancy Kercheval

Mark Sanchez’s Hispanic heritage may boost his sponsorship opportunities should he succeed as quarterback of the New York Jets.

Sanchez, 22, is the first quarterback selected by the Jets with a top-5 pick since Joe Namath in the 1965 American Football League draft. As a rookie, he will challenge for the most high- profile position on a team in the nation’s biggest media market.

Sports marketing analysts said that on top of that appeal for potential sponsors, Sanchez joins All-Pro tight end Tony Gonzalez as one of the most recognizable Hispanic players in the National Football League, which has sought to increase its fan base among the largest minority group in the U.S.

“The Hispanic market is such a desirable market for the major brands that are involved in the NFL,” said Jan Katzoff, executive vice president for sports and entertainment for the Radiate Group in San Francisco. “A young player with a Hispanic background would resonate very well with that marketplace.”

If Sanchez has a successful first year with the Jets, he might make between $5 million and $10 million in endorsements in 2010, said Katzoff, whose Radiate Group is a unit of Omnicom Group Inc., the world’s largest owner of advertising agencies.

“What makes you stand out from the crowd and make more money like stars such as Peyton Manning is having something beyond football to offer,” said Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon. “Everyone is searching for a source of differentiation.”

Quarterbacks

Manning, a three-time NFL Most Valuable Player with the Indianapolis Colts, is the league’s most marketable player and has done commercials for companies such as Sprint Nextel Corp., Sony Corp. and MasterCard Inc.

Among the NFL’s other top pitchmen are fellow quarterbacks Tom Brady of the New England Patriots and Eli Manning of the New York Giants, both of whom also won Super Bowl titles, and Sanchez’s predecessor with the Jets, three-time NFL MVP Brett Favre, who retired from football after last season.

“It’s all about what goes on on the field, as with the others in New York,” Steve Rosner, co-founder of 16W Marketing LLC, said in a telephone interview. “That started with Joe Namath, continued with Phil Simms (of the Giants) and now with Eli. These opportunities will present themselves naturally if he proves himself.”

Namath is the only quarterback to win a Super Bowl title with the Jets and “Broadway Joe” was a television pitchman for products ranging from shaving cream to pantyhose.

Experience

Sanchez, who started one full season at the University of Southern California, will compete with fourth-year quarterback Kellen Clemens for the Jets’ starting job. Jets General Manager Mike Tannenbaum said Sanchez’s experience at USC, which is 88-15 and won two national championships since 2001, has prepared him for the demands of playing in New York.

Sanchez said yesterday that he’s excited about making the transition from Los Angeles to New York.

“At USC, they put a lot of emphasis on the quarterback with Heisman trophy winners, All-Americans and national champions,” said Sanchez, whose 34 touchdowns for the Trojans last season ranked second in school history. “They want results, just like the fans here, just like the press here. That’s what I’m prepared to work for.”

Sanchez and Sprint

Leading up to the draft, Sanchez worked as a spokesman for Sprint, the NFL’s official wireless telecommunications service provider. Since 2005 the company has used two college players as part of its NFL draft promotions and this year chose Sanchez and University of Georgia quarterback Matt Stafford, the first overall pick of the Detroit Lions.

Sprint spokesman Dave Mellin said heritage factored in the decision to align with Sanchez, who follows fellow Trojan quarterbacks such as Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart and Matt Cassel in the NFL.

“He was going to be a top-10 pick, he was a quarterback at USC, he’s a good-looking kid, he’s very charismatic, he’s a leader, he’s got all those intangible things,” Mellin said by telephone. “But the fact that he’s a Mexican-American made a big difference for us. We’re always trying to find ways to reach out to the Latino community and we felt Mark would do a great job to help us accomplish that.”

Mellin said Sprint is considering an extended partnership with Sanchez, who also had a sponsorship agreement with PepsiCo Inc.’s Gatorade before the draft.

Football Family

Sanchez’s great-grandfather came to the U.S. from Mexico and was among those displaced from the Chavez Ravine area in Los Angeles when Dodger Stadium was built. His father played quarterback at East Los Angeles College and his older brother Nick was Yale University’s signal-caller from 1992-94.

The NFL, which has more than $7 billion in annual revenue, played a regular-season game in Mexico City in 2005 and has reached deals with Spanish-language broadcasters in an attempt to lure Hispanic viewers.

The Hispanic market has a projected buying power of $1.1 trillion this year, according to a study by the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia. That may benefit Sanchez during a recession where companies are looking more closely at their marketing spend.

“Being Hispanic, there’s a strong desire by the league to reach that market,” added Swangard of Warsaw Sports . “Mark may be able to benefit from that.”

Source: Bloomberg

Hispanic fighter aiming higher

Torres believes he can become first Mexican-born UFC champ

Mar 26, 2009
By Ashley Kringen

It’s pretty obvious that Javier Torres is representing more than just himself on fight nights.

If the 22-year-old mixed martial artist/boxer’s own Mariachi band accompanying him towards the ring doesn’t give away a Hispanic heritage he is most proud of — Torre’s signature clothing brand, “Mexican Fighter MMA,” certainly does.

“I love representing my people and culture to show everybody what Mexican power can do,” said Torres, who displayed some of his own strength last weekend by knocking out Josh McBride by in the second round of their bout at MMA Xplosion.

Mexican fight fans attending the event at Planet Hollywood responded with plenty of props for their man from Obson, Mexico.

“Javier is the only true Mexican fighter, we love and support him full-heartedly,” said one energetic fan, after the victory that pushed Torres’ MMA career to a perfect 5-0.

Torres has caught the attention of fighting enthusiasts outside his ethnic circle as well.

“I think he’s got tremendous potential,” said Jason Wallace, the director of marketing for MMA Xplosion. “He’s the kind of fighter we want to feature.”

The 185-pounder — who is also undefeated as an amateur boxer at 9-0 — said if he can just figure out what sport he wants to concentrate on, he believes his future is limitless.

“What I want is to get more experience in everything and be one of the best in the world, I like to think in the future,” said Torres, whose intense training regiment for both combat activities takes him all across Las Vegas.

Torres — who began boxing as an 8-year-old in Mexico, but started MMA only three years ago — splits his nine hours-a-day, six days-a-week schedule between sparring at LV Boxing, Muay Thai training at Excel Studio, Judo with the Rising Sun Judo Club and Jiu-Jitsu at Team Mica.

“I know I don’t get enough sleep, but I have to sacrifice to do well,” Torres said.

Torres’ main MMA coach Carlos Fletes, who runs Fletes Fight Club, said more importantly than his pupil’s non-stop training motor, is his infectious personality.

“Definitely his charisma, he shines when he’s out there,” said Fletes, who says it is a trait that places him in a different class than the countless number of other amateurs hoping to turn pro.

“MMA is part business, part entertainment, and he has the personality and charisma that a lot of people are looking for.”

Torres says he is aiming all the way to the top of the fight game and becoming the UFC’s first Mexican-born champ. Of course he admits to taking great pride in representing himself for his ever-expanding Hispanic audience, but Torres says there is an ever bigger prize on the line.

“All I do is for my family, mom and dad,” Torres said. “I don’t want to see them working anymore.”

Source: Las Vegas Sun

'The fiesta of the people'

March 16, 2009
By Kevin Baxter

Blue Demon Jr. is in trouble.

His tag-team partner has been knocked into a stupor and the other men in the ring have pinned Demon in a corner, where one pounds at his midsection while the other pulls at the blue-and-silver Lycra hood that envelops his head down to his Adam's apple.

Big mistake.

You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind and you don't -- under any circumstances -- pull the mask off Blue Demon Jr.

In a flash, Demon vaults off the top of the turnbuckle, scissoring one foe with his powerful legs and flipping him to the mat with an acrobatic twist. The other wrestler, in a glistening gold mask, cowardly climbs between the ropes and dashes into the grandstands of the Pico Rivera Sports Arena.

But Demon quickly gives chase, catching him from behind and knocking him silly with a plastic garbage can as the crowd goes wild, with some joining in on the pummeling.

Welcome to lucha libre wrestling, where villains and superheroes, most in trademark masks, fight two-out-of-three-fall battles that are part gymnastics, part vaudeville.

In Mexico, the popularity of lucha libre, literally "free struggle" or "free fight," is rivaled only by soccer. Wrestlers star not only in the ring, but in movies, comic books, commercials and magazines. Now the sport's following in this country is beginning to swell, driven by the desire of many assimilated Mexicans to reacquaint themselves with a part of their heritage and by the nostalgia more-recent arrivals have for their homeland.

"This is part of the culture. It's the fiesta of the people," says Donovan Garcia, a Whittier warehouse worker several border crossings removed from a Mexico City neighborhood where lucha was among the few distractions from crushing poverty.

"Family, music, lucha libre and futbol. That's all there was," Garcia recalls in Spanish as he awaits the start of a two-hour wrestling card in a drafty community center in Cudahy.

The idea for the sport actually surfaced in the United States 76 years ago, when an enterprising businessman named Salvador Lutteroth happened upon a masked wrestler at a show in Texas.

He took that concept to Mexico City where he launched a movement that would grow from quirky exhibitions into a pop-culture phenomenon. In the ring and on the movie screen, masked luchadores, known as enmascarados, battle the forces of evil in nuanced morality plays. The fact that evil sometimes wins -- or can be put down only with the help of a plastic trash can and enthusiastic spectators -- is a big part of lucha's appeal.

Lucha shares several traits with U.S.-style professional wrestling. The choreographed matches, for example, are usually between good guys and bad guys -- known in lucha as technicos and rudos -- with well-known back stories.

The dissimilarities are numerous, however, with Mexican luchadores typically smaller, faster and more acrobatic then their American counterparts, producing a quicker, more athletic show with higher throws, more leaps and a lot more action.

The key difference, though, is the mask many luchadores wear -- skintight, often brightly colored Lycra hoods that cover the entire head and face, concealing the wrestler's true identity while revealing a larger-than-life persona.

"You put on a mask and you become an idol," says Juan Guerrero, a former bakery chef and lucha fan from Michoacán who became a self-taught mask-maker 10 years ago.

"For a lot of people, the mask is magic. In the ring, the fans aren't interested in the person. They're interested in the mask."

So much so that the three greatest luchadores in Mexican history are known not by their names -- Rodolfo Guzman, Alejandro Munoz and Aaron Rodriguez -- but by their masked personas, El Santo, Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras. Guzman and Munoz, who starred in more than 75 cult films with such titles as "Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and the Wolfman" were even buried in their masks -- Santo in the metallic silver hood he removed in public just once, on Mexican TV 10 days before his death, and Blue Demon in a dark blue mask with silver outlines circling his nose and mouth and silver wings around his eyes.

Their memories live on, with Blue Demon's son assuming his father's mask and ring persona, sometimes wrestling, as he did in Pico Rivera, alongside El Hijo de Santo (Son of the Saint), who wears a replica of the glistening mask with teardrop eyeholes his father made famous.



A decade ago, luchalucha was available in Southern California only on Spanish-language TV or in grainy black-and-white Mexican movies. Today, more than two dozen promoters, many with their own stable of masked wrestlers, put on regular shows in American Legion halls, sports arenas and community centers in Ventura, Newhall, Compton and the Coachella Valley, drawing a few dozen to several thousand fans.

National circuits are attracting impressive crowds in El Paso, Chicago, Denver and Omaha. Coca-Cola named an energy drink and a Slurpee after Blue Demon. There's a lucha-themed restaurant, El Carmen, in Los Angeles, and lucha-inspired burlesque shows at the Mayan Theater downtown. Even Paris (the one in France) has a nightclub called La Lucha Libre that features wrestling matches.

The fact that lucha has cut such a wide swath through the cultural landscape comes as no surprise to Heather Levi, an anthropology lecturer at Temple University.

"It did several things at once," says Levi, who trained as a wrestler in Mexico while researching her book "The World of Lucha Libre: Secrets, Revelations, and Mexican National Identity." "It figured both as a display of these larger-than-life heroes but heroes that everybody . . . knew came from their social class or quite possibly [were] their neighbors."

It even parodied the political system, because it was an unspoken secret that the results of lucha matches were decided in a smoke-filled room long before they began -- just as many Mexicans suspected the outcome of most elections was predetermined.

Fittingly, the most popular and successful luchadores have come to represent political causes; some crusaded for animal and gay rights or for women's equality and the environment.

The most powerful of these, the red-and-gold-masked Superbarrio, rose from the rubble of a deadly earthquake to advocate for the homeless and working poor -- with surprising results.

"When Superbarrio addressed politicians, politicians who were very good at this very slick self-presentation, they would start to stammer," Levi says. "They wouldn't know where to look or how to look at [him]. And so the power dynamic shifted.

"There was no way to co-opt him because he didn't exist. He was incorruptible because he both existed but at the same time didn't exist."

For more than two decades, Sergio Gutierrez, a Mexican priest, concealed his identity and wrestled as Fray Tormenta (Friar Storm) to support the orphanage he founded outside Mexico City. That story was the basis for the film "Nacho Libre," which starred Jack Black.

The anonymity benefited these masked men (there are female luchadoras, but few wear masks): Nobody knew who they were, which meant they could be anyone.

"In America, you knew Bruce Wayne is Batman," says Dan Madigan, a Sherman Oaks screenwriter and author of "Mondo-Lucha a Go-Go: The Bizarre and Honorable World of Wild Mexican Wrestling." "You didn't know who Santo was. You didn't know who Blue Demon was. You didn't know Mil Mascaras. That was the thing."

And that's kept Guerrero, the self-taught mask maker, in business. The masks, he says, are more than a disguise. They can actually transform ordinary people into something superhuman.

"The personality is the mask," explains Guerrero, who says he's seen wrestlers limp into his Van Nuys workshop, try on a mask they've commissioned and then walk out cured.

Working on a weathered Japanese-made sewing machine in a spare bedroom of the tiny apartment he shares with his wife and two sons, Guerrero makes as many as 15 masks a week, most of which sell for between $50 and $100. Some were seen in "Nacho Libre," in commercials for Foster Farms and AT&T and on the heads of some of Mexico's most famous luchadores.

His work space is a shrine to lucha, crowded with dozens of masks, wrestling tights, boots, capes and hundreds of old lucha magazines and black-and-white movies starring El Santo and Blue Demon.

"Lucha comes from the time of Zorro, who covered his face and helped the poor," Guerrero says.

Like the legend of Zorro, lucha has become something that's passed down from generation to generation -- sometimes by happenstance.

Fabian Gonzalez, a paramedic and second-generation Mexican American, was raised on a Coachella ranch by grandparents who grew up as huge lucha fans. But they never talked about it with their grandson until Gonzalez discovered the sport on his own as a teenager, after which his grandfather sat him down and talked about lucha's long history in Mexico.

"The fascination with the masks and all the costumes. That's what got me into it. It's straight out of a comic book," says Gonzalez, 25, who has wrestled on local lucha circuits under the name Fabian Furia (Fabian Fury). "I felt like a sense of nationalism . . . It just made us closer."

As Gonzalez talks on a bright Saturday morning in the backyard of a Norwalk tract home, several wrestling hopefuls -- some Latin, some not -- are put through their paces by another veteran luchadore, Joey Munoz. His ring name, Kaos, matches the mayhem he's managing, with students leaping off the turnbuckles, tossing opponents into the ropes or pinning them hard to the canvas with a loud thwack.

Back in Cudahy, Garcia has brought his son Dylan to experience the passion of his homeland alongside 500 mostly Mexican fans. The 3-year-old is wearing the dark blue, ornately adorned mask of '50s lucha idol Hurcan Ramirez.

"Many people can't return to their country," Garcia says as Dylan teeters on a folding chair, straining to get a better look into the ring. "If they can go and see a little bit of the Mexican luchadores [here], even though it's just for an hour, two hours. . . . it's like a little visit home."

Source: Los Angeles Times