USArsenal

By: Martin | September 23rd, 2009

As you probably know, in recent years, Arsenal has dramatically strengthened its ties to the United States. Arsenal hired Ivan Gazidis, who was born in South Africa, grew up in England, but worked as an attorney in the United States before becoming deputy commissioner of MLS, as its chief executive in 2008. Colorado native Stan Kroenke is Arsenal’s largest shareholder, while still being well short of having the necessary shares to control the team’s actions. And Arsenal have hired several other Americans as behind the scenes executives over the past few seasons.

This continued today with the unveiling of a special “American” version of the club’s official website . At the moment it seems to be the same old official website with an American flag along the top of it, but apparently it will have exclusive content, although it’s hard for me to really see what would be of interest to an American fan that wouldn’t be of interest to English fan as well. It does look like at the bottom it has some “basics” (a guide to the competitions Arsenal competes in, the club’s history, etc.–it’s probably not useful to us, but getting into football as an American can be quite daunting, so it’s not a bad idea for the club to put what is basically a “football for dummies” section, although it could be viewed as a bit insulting in its insinuation that American fans don’t know anything about the game)

Still, though, I think this is a positive development. The fact is that Arsenal has lagged behind the other big clubs in terms of establishing a global presence. Especially in Asia and South America, my sense is that Arsenal lags badly behind the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Milan, Madrid, and Barcelona. Part of this, of course, is success–Arsenal hasn’t won a trophy in five years, and has never won the Champions League. But part of it is deficient marketing, and an unwillingness to play preseason friendlies outside of Europe.

Travis and I were both at the AC Milan-Chelsea match in Baltimore last summer, and remarked how nice it would be for Arsenal to participate in something like that. And it’s important to note what this is not–Arsenal still doesn’t have any American players or coaches, they’re not planning any preseason matches in the United States, they’re not trying to get Cesc Fabregas a role as Pepe, Zac Efron’s foreign exchange student, in “High School Musical 7: Shouldn’t These Damn Kids Have Graduated Several Years Ago?” But I think this website, while possibly clumsy and probably unnecessary, at least shows a recognition on the club’s part that being successful in this day and age requires a global fanbase, and it’s good to see them making strides in that direction.

It’s no substitute for all the outstanding wit and wisdom provided by this site (stop laughing!), of course, but I magnanimously urge you to at least check it out–if nothing else, your hits will ensure that Arsenal HQ realizes that there’s a sizeable American gunner fanbase supporting the club.

(UPDATE: If nothing else, it appears that Arsenal TV is now significantly cheaper for American fans than it was when we had to pay in pounds. Largely because our economy sucks and British people now view the dollar like we view the peso.)