- TikTok is deepening its ties to skilled soccer through a recent tie-up with Major League Soccer (MLS), a blog post from the social media platform announced.
- The multi-year partnership, which covers 29 clubs across the U.S. and Canada, includes plans for in-app programming, exclusive content and in-stadium activations. TikTok will introduce a Club Creator Network to pair content creators with various teams.
- As an official partner of MLS, the ByteDance-owned app can be integrated into every game throughout the season and serve as co-sponsor of the league’s esports tournament, the eMLS Cup. TikTok constructing a more in-depth association to MLS comes as the app is again threatened by an outright ban within the U.S.
As skilled soccer gains more traction within the U.S., TikTok desires to play a bigger role in its growth. The app has seen engagement with the subject skyrocket lately: Views on posts using a #soccer hashtag have jumped 500% since 2021 to succeed in 267 billion, per the announcement. Major cyclical events, like the boys’s World Cup last yr, have stoked further excitement amongst U.S. consumers who historically have expressed more tepid interest in the game, which is otherwise massively popular at the worldwide level.
MLS first joined TikTok in 2020 and now wields over 1.2 million followers on the video-sharing app, while many individual clubs, including the LA Galaxy and Inter Miami CF, operate their very own official accounts. In Galaxy’s case, it has more followers than MLS. Meanwhile, TikTok is now estimated to have over 150 million lively users within the U.S., in response to a CNBC report.
TikTok last yr named influencer Noah Beck as its first Social Playmaker to assist to grow the MLS’s profile on the platform. The latest deal expands that idea, with creators acting as a key bridge to fans. The recent Club Creator Network will partner different social media personalities with teams to generate content throughout the regular and off seasons. The creators will receive behind-the-scenes access, including with MLS athletes.
MLS will leverage an in-app tool called Library that helps integrate existing clips into creator content more seamlessly. Users that seek for “MLS” on the platform can be delivered to a dedicated MLS Hub that centralizes soccer-related content, together with linking out to MLS’s website for more information on game schedules and scores.
Apps like TikTok have gotten more necessary to sports leagues which are contending with cord-cutting on linear TV. That trend is felt especially sharply amongst young, digitally native groups who’ve gotten hooked on TikTok because of its algorithmically curated feed of short-form videos. The NFL in 2019 struck an identical take care of the app and has seen success in using the platform to advertise major events just like the draft and Super Bowl.
The MLS is strengthening its ties to TikTok during a time when the Chinese-owned app is threatened with a ban within the U.S. over national security, an idea previously floated under the Trump administration. Lawmakers and regulators have again pressured ByteDance to divest the app, but company leadership has argued that that move wouldn’t address their concerns.
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