Essay Sample on LA Galaxy: From Awkward Start to Elite MLS Team?

Inroduction

Although the Los Angeles team has not had an awesome start to the current season, it can still become an elite team in Major League Soccer but in a more challenging way. Several positives have been reported in the first month of the season with LA Galaxy acquiring a new top midfield and a new manager by the name Guillermo Schelotto. Despite all these positives, the team has also had several negatives. If it can manage to overcome them and continue improving, LA Galaxy will become among the top rank in MLS.

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The biggest problem that lies with the team is its defense area, which has proven several times to be quite easy to penetrate through. The latest mishaps of the weak defense of the team are evident from goals from Portland Timbers and Minnesota United (Velardi, 2019). The backline has been inconsistent for a long time, so at times, mistakes are performed while at others, little to no mistakes are realized. The real problem with the team arises when different players are caught offside or out of the position they are supposed to be.

The element of the service publicizing mix that is most essential in the LA Galaxy period of marketing is advertising. Promoting the activities performed at the organization helps to make the industry known better to a larger audience (Boehmer, 2018). When the LA Galaxy began its activities, it experienced trouble attracting fans, especially when the league was beginning. The MLS came up with suggestions to change rules and switch to better methods of timing that counted down to zero instead of counting up to 90 so that they could easily attract more fans, especially those who watched and attended other sports (Poch, 2015).

The LA Galaxy, however, decided to restructure its approach of marketing through building a stadium that played a major role in creating more intimate experiences of the fans than what football stadiums provided. LA Galaxy also decided to stop focusing on people who were not soccer fans (Smith, 2013). They started focusing on people that supported soccer by creating ways to convince them to buy tickets and other merchandise that would improve their income. However, with ever-changing and flooded sports entertainment both in the region and the world at large, LA Galaxy needs to develop other marketing means that reach the standards of modern ways to get the attention of a more extensive fan base worldwide (Packer, 2012).

The first move to buy Ibrahimovic, a famous player admired and followed by many fans worldwide, increased the team's sales, especially after the two goals he scored in his first game under LA Galaxy. He made all Galaxy's home games become a must-watch increasing the revenue that MLS accumulated from the fans of the teams and the league who wanted to see the star score more goals (Tenorio, 2017). Marketing will become easier for LA Galaxy and MLS when the team increases the number of international players on their rosters. International players attract fans from their home countries and the world growing buying for tickets and attracting more people to the stadium advocating for more development.

The LA Galaxy organization has also taken part in several outreach programs where they give away prizes as a way to promote its brand and make more people anxious to follow their matches. LA Galaxy should develop plans to interact with the community more through collaborating with the supporter groups of the team (Miller, 2019). Galaxy has placed the three major supporter groups on its website as they create exciting atmospheres both in the field and the website. Supporting the groups and financing them in some of their activities helps to increase their loyalties and encourage the players more.

To increase the number of fans more, LA Galaxy should sign more local and homegrown players as the families of such players and the locals to automatically become fans of the team. They also sacrifice their money to buy tickets and support the team either financially or by promoting the brand (Shapiro, DeSchriver & Rascher, 2019). LA Galaxy should invest more in their teams of youths and expand its scouting staff to improve the talent of local youths so as to continuously grow its brand and make it easily accessible to anyone. The team should also incorporate social media in its marketing strategies due to the rise in the number of people using different platforms of social media worldwide.

When the organization uses social media to make its brand known, it most likely reaches a wide range of fans. The ability to do this is made more accessible by the possibilities of the information they post being shared by many other people is high; hence many people get the message and start following all activities of the team (Blankenbuehler & Kunz, 2014). LA Galaxy can evaluate the impacts of the marketing accomplishments they adopt through checking for an increase in market share, revenues, and profits as well as a decrease in operational costs.

Conclusion

The new manager has brought in a culture of attacking games, making the wing-backs be relied on the most to make several runs that create more opportunities against its rivals. The runs executed by the wing-backs have also been effective in leaving the wings full to the extent that the opposition can counter. These new players, such as Ibrahimovic and the team manager, have acted as a huge way to market the team. The team attracts fans that focus on entertainment, pinpoint the target audience, and are easily involved in the community.

References

Blankenbuehler, M., & Kunz, M. B. (2014). Professional sports compete to go green. American Journal of Management, 14(4), 75. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a8a9/c12160e378b3dac5a17cac52a2aa2aafa7e8.pdf

Boehmer, W. (2018, October 22). LA Galaxy Marketing Analysis. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@willboehmer/la-galaxy-marketing-analysis-9102e2a84311

Miller, J. R. (2019). Strategic Audit of MLS. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1150&context=honorstheses

Packer, G. J. (2012). Identifying Target Market Areas for Major League Soccer Using GIS. Retrieved from https://inspire.redlands.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1151&context=gis_gradproj

Poch, M. (2015). The Role of Social Media in Sports when Developing Long-Term Relationships with Fans: The Case of the St. Louis Rams and the LA Galaxy (Doctoral dissertation, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville). Retrieved from https://media.proquest.com/media/pq/classic/doc/3745923531/fmt/ai/rep/NPDF?_s=BQUyFnXz6iGmd2%2BhwSXAENI0uiw%3D

Shapiro, S. L., DeSchriver, T., & Rascher, D. A. (2019). The Beckham Effect: Examining the Longitudinal Impact of a Star Performer on League Marketing, Novelty, and Scarcity. Novelty and Scarcity (July 17, 2019). Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3421674

Smith, C. (2013). Major League Soccer's most valuable teams. Forbes. Com, posted November 20. Retrieved from http://t063.camel.ntupes.edu.tw/ezcatfiles/t063/download/attdown/0/Major%20League%20Soccer%20franchise%20value%20Forbes%202012.pdf

Tenorio, M. R. C. (2017). Marketing techniques of the elite football clubs in social media.

Velardi, N. (2019, April 8). LA Galaxy: How can they go from good to high? Retrieved from https://mlsmultiplex.com/2019/04/08/la-galaxy-good-great-zlatan-ibrahimovic-guillermo-barros-schelotto/