Name: I'm the director of Bagua Dortmund's activities in the
Uploaded: 2025-02-03T15:31:17.929266+00:00
Duration: 2700 s
Channel: Adrian Hargrave

Start with a Y. I love it. Um, so my name is Mark Linenhoff. I oversee Bagua Dortmund's activities in the Americas region. Uh, we just opened an office in, in February in, uh, midtown Manhattan.


Um, doesn't mean that we haven't done anything before in the region. Um, it's really just the next step in our, um, activities in, in, in the US and South America. Why are we here? Because, um, we've been here for 67 years already, um, ever since Christian Pulsic joined us. There was a bit of a pull effect we got, uh, more interest into our club, our brand, and we started our activities and.


And we started to build um a youth academy system we started to get fan clubs registered we started to have commercial partners, so all this built um over the last 6-7 years and we just follow the fan. It's a fan calling really, um, and that's why, that's why we're here

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Start with a Y. I love it. Um, so my name is Mark Linenhoff. I oversee Bagua Dortmund's activities in the Americas region. Uh, we just opened an office in, in February in, uh, midtown Manhattan.Um, doesn't mean that we haven't done anything before in the region. Um, it's really just the next step in our, um, activities in, in, in the US and South America. Why are we here? Because, um, we've been here for 67 years already, um, ever since Christian Pulsic joined us. There was a bit of a pull effect we got, uh, more interest into our club, our brand, and we started our activities and.And we started to build um a youth academy system we started to get fan clubs registered we started to have commercial partners, so all this built um over the last 6-7 years and we just follow the fan. It's a fan calling really, um, and that's why, that's why we're here

https://d3ev5earl6dvd0.cloudfront.net/public-media/videos/009/346/009346/video_Ir93ac6.mp4#t=83

Adrian Hargrave

I'm the director of Bagua Dortmund's activities in the

We are from the Ruege beat in Germany. We are consistently on

Barcelona was here in the 1930s. Real Madrid had been playing

I think there's a huge opportunity for football to grow in

European Leagues are starting to invest in the leagues and

I think we have a responsibility to help grow the game in the

We are here to build something sustainable for La Liga and for

Club World Cup is an amazing opportunity to tell our story,

60 million US Hispanics in the US, a lot of them are Mexicans,

How do you focus on the micro level as well as a global level

I think football gives the opportunity for a long term

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Breaking into the Americas/Miami/East coast. 

Panellists include: 
🗣️ Marc Lingenhoff, Borussia Dortmund
🗣️ Andy Mitchell, Serie A
🗣️ Adam Holt, SPIQE
🗣️ Nicolás García, LALIGA

🎙️ Moderated by Trevor Watkins, Pinsent Masons

Breaking into the Americas/Miami/East coast. Panellists include: 🗣️ Marc Lingenhoff, Borussia Dortmund 🗣️ Andy Mitchell, Serie A 🗣️ Adam Holt, SPIQE 🗣️ Nicolás García, LALIGA🎙️ Moderated by Trevor Watkins, Pinsent Masons

https://d3ev5earl6dvd0.cloudfront.net/public-media/videos/009/346/009346/video_Ir93ac6.mp4

So we are from the Ruege beat in Germany which is in the northwest of uh of Germany. Uh, we're based in Dortmund. it's a working class town, small town. We're not Munich. We're not the shiny Dusseldorf or Hamburgs of the world. We appreciate hard work, uh, former steel industry, um, so our, our fan base uh appreciates the hard work.


Um, we are consistently on the international stage in Champions League 9 years in a row. I think we take some pride in that, almost won it last season, um, but we are a strong number 2 in Germany after the other team in the south, um, and,


uh, the team that should not be named,


no, it's, you know, we're talking about those with the red colour.


Um, so yeah, a strong number 2, and uh we hope to, to change that over time,


and a huge reputation for producing talent.


Absolutely, thank you for that prompt. Yes, we are famous for selling our best players. Uh, it's part of our business model, um, but we nurture talent, uh, we have a very strong, um, academy system, um, you know, the Bellinghams, the Harlands, the sunchos there, they all went through the system, uh, Marco Royce, um, who's now in, in LA.


So yeah it's it's a it's a tough business model to uphold but uh we keep trying and keep doing and um you know sometimes it's not the individual that's the star, it's the team and I think that's that's what we're seeing right now um and in Dortmund that there's not one player that really stands out or not yet at least so right now the team is the


star and Andy for you different considerations being here representing a league, um, what is it that's driving you to be here?


Uh, so I mean it's, it's just a really great time for football in Italy for soccer. Um, over the last few years, we, we like to say Calcho. So Calcho is um soccer and Italian. Calcho was back. So in the 80s and 90s, Serie A was the number one league in the world, uh and there was a little bit of a dip, but over the last few years there's been a real resurgence uh in soccer, um, or in Serie A around.


The world last year we got a 5th Champions League spot. So the opportunity here in the US is just how do we get more people engaged with Serie A and our clubs and our players, um, and so we opened the office here. I'd like to think about our work across 5 key dimensions. So one is brand development. How do we get more people to understand that Serie A is the league that it is and it's competing at the level that it's competing.


To his audience development, how do we get more people connected to our social channels, subscribe to our email, watch our matches on CBS who's a great, um, broadcast partner. 3, we're here to build a commercial business, so we are talking to sponsors and, you know, looking to work with people to help bring Calcho to more people in the US. Um, we do a lot of work in the corporate and social responsibility area. We have partnerships with South Bronx United, Street Soccer USA, and lastly.


And maybe more most importantly is our job is to support the clubs here so our clubs, um, don't have offices today so as clubs want to activate here, AC Milan was here for the summer tour we'll have, um, Juventus and Inter here for the Club World Cup. So how can, and then day in and day out we're supporting the clubs on activations and content development. So those are 5 key dimensions and why this office exists.

And for you, Nicholas, from a Spanish perspective, it's fascinating to learn that Barcelona was here in the 1930s. Real Madrid had been playing here in the 1920s. He kept coming back. What, what is it you've been doing and trying to achieve over the last few years?

Yeah, I think it's again where there's opportunities, obviously challenges for them, but ultimately football is arguably probably the only global sport that really exists out there where everywhere is playing it. We obviously had the World Series of baseball a couple of weeks ago, which two American teams are playing against each other. So I think the the opportunity and the idea of fandom, there's a huge opportunity, a huge market here in North America and


I think the interesting thing and opportunity is that there's people out there want to be fans of a certain team, they may not have found who that team is yet or they may never land on a team, but whenever we we see watch parties or or matches here, it's a sea of colours of jerseys. People have got a Real Madrid jersey watching a Liverpool match. They've got a Juventus jersey watching a Barcelona match, and I think that's where ultimately kind of the the leagues and the team, they've got a big opportunity here to.


Again, frenemies is probably what we want to call it, but there's a huge opportunity to come together and help grow the game. Obviously the next couple of years in North America is big for football. Um, you've obviously got the club the club World Cup, and you've got the World Cup after that as well. So I think this is the moment now where they can really start to grow, um, not just the game, but obviously try and attract more and more people to the various different teams that exist in Serie A, La Liga, the Premiership, or individual teams like Borussia.

I think there's more to it because obviously there's significant competition for like eyeballs here you've got your traditional NFLs, the NBA, the MLB where you've got these diehard fans who might just be locked in on that or college sport as well, which is ultimately as big, but there's a

Yeah, so I think what we there are things that we can control and things that we cannot control. I cannot control who we sign, how we scout, how we do all that that's not my responsibility. So my, my task is to build a infrastructure, um, that we can build fandom, but we can also immerse ourselves into the, the US um sports landscape and soccer landscape and youth sports is a big part of that.


So our we're famous for developing players and I think we all of us have a responsibility to help grow the game in in this country and the youth academy is just something that came natural to us and we have now around 18 academies, around 5000 boys and girls, um, across spread out across the country.


And that's, that's, um, a growth model for us. It's working it's very, very authentic about it. We have German coaches from Dortmund fly in every quarter to make sure that the coaches, local coaches are upskilled, etc. um, so that's one of the centrepiece of our activities, including, you know, on top we have the fan clubs, we have commercial partners, uh, we have a very strong social media presence with black yellow, um, which is a very strong platform for us to connect with the fan.


And you know, you talked about dimensions and you know we have our, I call the playing field on on things and what we explore to connect with, with the local fans


and is, but is the academy a pathway to eventually playing for the first team?


We're not at that stage that we can call it a pathway because this market is so fragmented, as everybody knows in this room and there's so many entry points into the sport uh we give one of those access points, but we haven't been able to connect it yet to one of the many options um for for talent to develop further that was


certainly probably not for this panel but the multi club ownership, the way in which clubs relate to each other is fascinating, but Andy coming back to you and.


The way in which you're building your presence, you came up with the the Made in Italy campaign and you mentioning earlier some exciting new developments as well in how how you're building those those relationships. Yeah, so I


mean our big opportunity here to differentiate ourselves, uh, is Italian culture, right? So Americans, we did some research.


1 million Americans have an affinity for um Italian culture. 3 million Americans travel to Italy every year, so that's a really big opportunity. Um, fashion is a big part of Italian culture. So this morning we actually announced a partnership with classic football shirts. If people are aware of the, the jersey company that's done really well here is growing quickly.


So we're gonna activate with them on the ground. A lot of it I mentioned is, you know, celebrating the heritage of the 80s and 90s through vintage shirts, but also celebrating the games today. So next Saturday, everyone's invited who is in New York. Um, we're doing a watch party that actually features um Juventus and AC Milan and so actually those those teams both have two American players including Christian.


um, Timothy Wea, Weston McKenny, and Eunice Moussa, um, and so it's a real celebration of not only Italian culture and through fashion and football but also the Americans playing in it and after that match is Atalanta, um, plays Parma. So it'll be a really great opportunity for us to really celebrate the past and the present of Italian football in the US and.

Yeah, so I think first it shows that we are not here just taking the hype of the World Cup, which I think is important. This is not the we come, we take what we can, we live. The idea is to stay here and to build something that is sustainable in the long term. And then I think the approach we've taken in the market is, no matter who you are, uh, from a soccer perspective fan and how you relate to soccer or to La Liga, we wanna have something for you. This explain very quick and I'm gonna try not to extend too much means.


Let's say you're a hardcore Real Madrid fan and you wanna watch all their games. Well, ESPN Plus, we think we have one of the best distribution strategy in the US, all 380 games there. You don't need to have 3 subscriptions. You need to have, uh, streaming and cable. You go there, you have everything you want.


On top of that we have a studio of content. Adrian here is our head of content distribution with 20 people in Guadalajara, Mexico just creating content for this region, not somebody in Madrid thinking that they know how they can connect with the fans here, people that know the market and the Hispanics special.


Second, let's say you are a casual, uh, sports fan that you don't necessarily like watch every game, but you have a favourite team and you enjoy having fun with your friends. We have a programme called El Partidao where we basically organise 40 watch parties across the US in 10 different cities to be there with our fans celebrating their passion.


Let's say you're a kid, you play FC 25, you watch highlights, but you don't necessarily watch La Liga games because you don't watch 90 minutes of a game where we have a tournament in gaming where playing gaming against celebrities you can win a trip to Spain and watch a live game so we tailor to all our different kind of fans and.


Last but not least, you are a kid. You don't know anything about Seria La Liga. You just care about the ball. We have grassroots initiatives to try to be next to you while you develop your soccer career, so it's understanding what the different personas or who the different personas could be and what can we offer them and be there for them for the long term.

I mean for me 25 is probably bigger than 26 because we can tell our story through, you know, authentically through the club we're participating in the club World Cup.


Um, World Cup is amazing for the overall interest in the sport, the eyeballs and probably more youth, uh, playing, uh, soccer, but for us it's, it's hard to tell a story. It's through the players, it's through their teams, so it's a bit of a stretch to be authentically telling our story. So next year is the big year for us, um, to, to, to show up here over 2 to 3 weeks really it's unprecedented to have that type of exposure in the market, so we will make sure to capitalise on that in many ways.


So in terms of planning, is there anything you can share that.


No, but your secret ingredient.


No, I, I, what I can say is that the, the club has done a tremendous job over the last last 6-7 years to build that infrastructure, and now we're just, you know, we have an investment and growth strategy to just accelerate those initiatives and put more resources behind it, but the clear intention is in, you know, 7 months from now we are ready and tap into that infrastructure, be it fan clubs, academies and activate all of that.


Regardless of where we're gonna play East Coast, West Coast, we, we are ready, we are prepared um to have strong partners in place to, to, to do everything the BVB way.

achieve here? It's massive. You need to understand that, uh, last poll that I saw in, uh, was 60 something millions of US Hispanics in the US. Like that's not something to treat like lightly. 60% of them are Mexicans, so a lot of the things that we do are not like this is for Mexico, this is for the US, no, this is in Spanish and we do it in in English and sorry, in the US.


US and in Mexico and this is in English and we tailor to the general market so our strategy is more focused on the different personas as I was mentioning before that not necessarily countries like understanding North America is just US or just Canada of course the difference, but the US is very diverse so you can have strategies that you can apply here and open in Colombia because if you are targeting Colombians in the US, why would you not take advantage of that for your Colombian fans in Colombia too, you know.

And this is something you're finding out in terms of your research and marketing and direction of travel for for clients that this honing of campaigns and focusing on the micro level as well as a global level,

yeah it kind of becomes that. Whereas again, like these are, these are new teams, new leagues that are coming here and people I think are trying to figure out where they ultimately align from an affinity perspective. Again, you probably got a lot of Christian Poli fans who.


They might have been buying Dortmund jerseys or whatever it is and then they swap as he moves around different clubs and stuff, so I think that's where again it's it's building that connection. I think it ultimately has to come beyond just the individual players cos they're gonna come and go ultimately, but I think when you look at the the history and the background, I mean, like you were saying before, Barcelona, Real Madrid have been coming in since 1920, that as clubs they're not gonna go anywhere if for all we know, I mean we see it in US sport all the time.


Oakland athletics baseball team are off to Vegas and overnight a hockey team went from Arizona to Utah. That's not gonna happen with these brands of these football clubs, so that's where I think that long term connection and that relationship between within families as well like like you said like.


My dad taught me, my, my granddad, etc. etc. if we become that family connection, I think football gives that opportunity, unlike some of the sports that exist currently in North America. I agree with