Out of all the superstars to choose from.... NBC went with Bale

It appears Gareth Bale's fame knows no bounds. The Tottenham winger, already thought of as one of the best players in Europe, is now making a splash across the pond in New York.

NBC won the rights to show the Premier League in America and they have chosen Bale to be the face of their advertising campaign in Times Square.

The Spurs star appears in the new kit that was released on Monday with new sponsor Hewlett Packard.

In adverts across the US, NBC had English voices chanting: '‘Premier League on NBC,’ with people kitted out in shirts of Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Fulham.

Another promotion was: ‘Forget Downton Abbey. The real English drama is coming on August 17.’

And Bale, who is back in training for Spurs, could become even more famous worldwide if NBC continue to use him as their main player.

RED wrote:

Out of all the superstars to choose from.... NBC went with Bale

It appears Gareth Bale's fame knows no bounds. The Tottenham winger, already thought of as one of the best players in Europe, is now making a splash across the pond in New York.

NBC won the rights to show the Premier League in America and they have chosen Bale to be the face of their advertising campaign in Times Square.

The Spurs star appears in the new kit that was released on Monday with new sponsor Hewlett Packard.

In adverts across the US, NBC had English voices chanting: '‘Premier League on NBC,’ with people kitted out in shirts of Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Fulham.

Another promotion was: ‘Forget Downton Abbey. The real English drama is coming on August 17.’

And Bale, who is back in training for Spurs, could become even more famous worldwide if NBC continue to use him as their main player.

kind of random. are fulham more recognisable than Liverpool over there?

or maybe because Liverpool had that show over there on a different network

Should have chosen RVP.

LOL. Face indeed. The prem has no 'star' power. Bar Ronaldo and Messi football has no stars atm. Bale is being force fed to everyone, but let's be honest here. The EPL is in decline.

jibers wrote:LOL. Face indeed. The prem has no 'star' power. Bar Ronaldo and Messi football has no stars atm. Bale is being force fed to everyone, but let's be honest here. The EPL is in decline.

No it's not. If you're judging it in terms of the CL, then maybe....but I call it a bad year. For instance we were one bad call away from atleast reaching the semi's....maybe even the final. And Chelsea did win the EL.

As for the league itself, I think it's more of a level playing than it's ever been, and with the new TV income small clubs will get, it will be even more competitive.

RED wrote:

jibers wrote:LOL. Face indeed. The prem has no 'star' power. Bar Ronaldo and Messi football has no stars atm. Bale is being force fed to everyone, but let's be honest here. The EPL is in decline.

No it's not. If you're judging it in terms of the CL, then maybe....but I call it a bad year. For instance we were one bad call away from atleast reaching the semi's....maybe even the final. And Chelsea did win the EL.

As for the league itself, I think it's more of a level playing than it's ever been, and with the new TV income small clubs will get, it will be even more competitive.

So competitive that City needed a Sheikh to compete with United and Chelsea. So competitive that we ran away with the league last season. EL is a mickey mouse cup. EPL is behind BUndesliga and La LIga and is slightly ahead of Serie A, but not for long. The star power is waning.

jibers wrote:LOL. Face indeed. The prem has no 'star' power. Bar Ronaldo and Messi football has no stars atm. Bale is being force fed to everyone, but let's be honest here. The EPL is in decline.

That's clearly false. Balotelli and Neymar both have star power. Rooney isn't too far behind those four either.

But yeah, Bale seems forced. Hazard will soon be the poster boy though. Gotze will take over German football.

Do people in America even know who Bale is

RealGunner wrote:Do people in America even know who Bale is

Do they know anyone other than Beckham? i'm not convinced tbh.

Spoiler:

Gil wrote:

jibers wrote:LOL. Face indeed. The prem has no 'star' power. Bar Ronaldo and Messi football has no stars atm. Bale is being force fed to everyone, but let's be honest here. The EPL is in decline.

That's clearly false. Balotelli and Neymar both have star power. Rooney isn't too far behind those four either.

But yeah, Bale seems forced. Hazard will soon be the poster boy though.

Balotelli has no star power...Neymar has due to the massive Brazil NT followers.

But both of them are FAR FAR behind Ronaldo and Messi. Rooney is a star but not to the common peeps only to the football fans.

I would rank star rating like this

1,2.Ronaldo/Messi

3.Neymar

4,5.Iniesta/Rooney

Are you kidding me? Balotelli has no star power?

He's by far the most popular player in Italian football playing for the biggest Italian club.

Ever heard bad publicity is still good publicity? Well the controversy might have some tarnished his reputation among the rags and hacks but in turn it only boosted his popularity even further.

Even rappers are referencing him in their songs now.

And he's by far the most talented striker in football. He's the Ronaldo/Henry of his generation.

The only thing that could possibly hurt him is Serie A rapidly losing its prestige. But with the signings some of the clubs in Calcio have made this summer it looks like they've finally gotten their act together.


AND Neymar isn't far behind CR and Messi. He's already the most marketable player in football as it stands.

What publicity ? He has publicity among the football fans and thats it.

Star power to me is defined by how much common peeps know about and common peeps know absolutely fk all about Balotelli.Do you know most of the common peeps only watch World cups and NT competition? They care fk all about Club competitions...Brazil has the most NT followers in the world along with Argentina ..hence Neymar is famous.


Neymar is no where near as famous as Messi and Ronaldo.

Adit wrote:What publicity ? He has publicity among the football fans and thats it.
.

That's totally false to be honest.

Adit wrote:What publicity ? He has publicity among the football fans and thats it.

Star power to me is defined by how much common peeps know about and common peeps know absolutely fk all about Balotelli.Do you know most of the common peeps only watch World cups and NT competition? They care fk all about Club competitions...Brazil has the most NT followers in the world along with Argentina ..hence Neymar is famous.
Neymar is no where near as famous as Messi and Ronaldo.

give me a break... you are talking like you know every person on the face of the earth... Most of people where i live talk a lot more about balotelli than neymar .. Have you ever been to Serbia, Romania, Bulgary etc?? And to be honest, in the part of Europe where i live you can see everywhere people with Italy shirts and Man united shirts, Barca etc.. No one gives a s*** about neymars..

Europeans obviously will know about Balotelli just like most of them know Xavi...but the defining market is America and Asia...and frankly Balotelli is no where near close to being famous in Asia...not even as famous as Iniesta...while due to Brazilian NT followers all over the world Neymar is famous.

Looks like the BPL is already helping in bolstering Real Madrid's future T-shirt sales in the US.

You guys are making some off-base assumptions about the US... if by "common people" you mean people who don't really pay attention to footy, then I'd say that just about none of them would recognize bale, messi or ronaldo. out of those three only ronaldo would get a decent amount of name/face recognition, but even that wouldn't be above 50%.

but you're also underestimating how many people here at this point DO follow footy, and i really think that's who nbc is trying to advertise to with the tv spots and this billboard. they're not trying to make the 8 am on a sunday morning time slot a growth slot, that would be foolish. american fans are all going to be able to recognize bale, just as they would recognize any of the other "second-tier" celebrities like balo or rooney, because they ARE fans.

the only reason it seems like a strange choice to me is because of the strong possibility he won't be playing on their channel come september.

tbh almost everyone in America knows who Messi is at least.

Outside of footy fans nobody knows who Bale is because lets be honest he doesn't have that much star power at all

I bet Kaka still has more star power in Asia after Messi/Ronaldo than anyone else.

And also true is the fact that Serie A's star power seems to be back on the rise with some top names moving to the league.

Balotelli has star power because

A) he is the public face of an ethnic minority with an unusual story

And
B) He acts like a crazy fool

But there is ceiling to how much stardom he can have, because tbh he just isn't THAT good. He was not respected as a player in England, the general idea was was that he was not good enough to get away with his his behaviour. Only a REAL talent can act like a fool but still be a big asset to his team. Balotelli was just a fool. The fact that he is succeeding in serie a is just embarrassing for for the state of Italian football

Everyone knows who ronaldo is in the us... handegg fans and basketball fans, you name it. Messi, neymar.. not so much

People actually know balotelli here lol too

Giggity5313 wrote:Everyone knows who ronaldo is in the us... handegg fans and basketball fans, you name it. Messi, neymar.. not so much

People actually know balotelli here lol too

wat

Giggity wat

My experience in the US is that surprisingly, most people know who Messi is. After that, everybody that follows any sport at least a little will know who Ronaldo is. Bale is pretty much unknown, but is gaining popularity slowly but surely.

Balo and Neymar are both more well known than Bale, though none of them are really at all recognizable unless you follow footy.

Most people know who messi is = people who casually follow sports. Anyone who watches sportscenter will have heard his name and seen him on top 10, but if you think he has higher name recognition (and ESPECIALLY face recognition) than say... jimmie johnson, a freaking nascar driver, than you're definitely offbase.

by the same token, most of those same people are plugged enough into the sports world to have heard of bale as well, just from the madrid rumors and top 10 plays getting airtime on sportscenter - aka for the exact same reason.

my point was simply that nbc isn't advertising to people who need star power to get into the league. it's going to take quite some time for ANY soccer player to compete in face recognition with lebron/kobe/jeter, or even second tier stars below that, and it's definitely not going to happen through 8 am or noontime broadcasts (conflicting with nfl games, no less) on nbc sports. the move to pick up the epl in the us was driven by the growth of interest that has already occurred in the us, and will certainly help inspire more such growth in the future, but for their first season picking up these games? they're advertising to the people who already want to watch epl and might not have realized nbc sports is now airing the games, NOT to the super casual fans who will only recognize a player from sportscenter clips (at best). and that final part applies equally to bale, balo, neymar, messi and anyone else you want to name who plays the sport.