NBA Jam, now slightly forgotten by the new generation of gamers, was a massive, massive hit back in the 90s. It was an arcade gem that was easy to learn, easy to play, easy to get addicted to. It would make its way into the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo, while at the same time catapulted the NBA into new popularity heights nationwide. NBA Jam turned most of these players into household names and the league experienced a nice growth of youngsters that started getting involved with the NBA season. Even teams like the Charlotte Hornets, whom was rarely ever a threat in the playoffs, were extremely popular with kids and teenagers as their logo colors became a fashion statement.
Now I bring up NBA Jam because there is a league that could benefit from such a popularity spike through the power of video games. Major League Soccer has been attempting to inch its way into the territory of the Big Four (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL) for the past several years, with its popularity remaining a bit stagnant and still not quite getting the required love of ESPN and Fox Sports. With the superior European leagues suddenly getting a boost because of the World Cup, MLS’ growth amongst soccer enthusiasts has improved but only slightly. But if there’s a way to entice a new generation of fans, the gaming industry can definitely be a starting point:
EA and MLS needs to make an exclusive game together.
Yes, MLS is on the wildly-popular FIFA franchise that has quietly emerged into the new Madden. But it has to sit on the shadows of an entourage of superior leagues with superior teams and superior players. It needs to separate itself from the pack and become its own entity. It needs to develop a brand all on its own. It needs to become an accessible, easy-to-play, arcade-gaming soccer franchise with all the big names from MLS. Not saying this will save the league, but any type of positive exposure would definitely help.
Soccer games believe it or not have always been wildly successful, even if few companies actually bother to make them. From FIFA (100 million sold) to Pro Evolution Soccer (81 million sold) to the Mario Strikers franchise (4 million sold between two games and minimal marketing---wait, where is the 3DS version!!?!??) soccer does well considering it’s the most popular sport in the world and the one that has the attention of the most countries. Now how many of these countries know a lot about Major League Soccer? I assure you the answer is very, very little. But the NBA also used to suffer from this before the 90s when the Dream Team/NBA Jam tag team made the league an international brand. Now in the global scale, the NBA is bigger than even the NFL.
In order for MLS to grow, it needs to slowly but surely distance itself from Europe and become a more confident brand. This means less connections to the more popular leagues, from television exposure to the game industry. EA would win by becoming the exclusive shareholder of the MLS brand garnishing it the extra sales from a March soccer video game release (Before the MLS season starts) and then later in September with the FIFA annual release.
The sports gaming industry has seen better days, as even Madden has taken a few steps back in its success scale. But I firmly believe that if MLS finds a way to remove itself from the FIFA lineup and become its own gaming franchise we can see plenty of success coming from EA and the league itself. Think about it, there is very little competition in March in terms of video games; coming out with an arcade-like soccer game in the middle of spring break would be perfect to collect a new young crowd.
MLS 15 won't solve all the league's problems, but with some effort it could open the door to new opportunities.
No comments:
Post a Comment