Reflecting on my Past in Soccer….Copa America 1993 from Ecuador

Right now, the CONMEBOL Copa America 2024 , is being played on U.S. soil for only the second time in its 100+ year history.? Copa America is the world’s oldest-running, men’s international soccer tournament, and it decides the South American champion team.? In 1993, I had the life-changing opportunity to help introduce U.S. cable TV households to the full series of Copa America matches for the first time.? Previously, Univision audiences could only see the semifinals, and the final. ?In 1992, I was wrapping up a marketing project with the NBC/Cablevision presentation of the Olympics TripleCast, and I was seeking my next gig for my young marketing company, Team Services. ?An Olympics colleague, Starett Berry, introduced me to his father-in law, Jorge Saralegui, who in turn introduced me to Traffic Sports, a sports rights holding firm founded by soccer legend, Jose Hawilla . They owned the rights to CONMEBOL’s Copa America and my life, and career, took off in a new direction!?

The pay-per-view format used by the Olympics TripleCast, and master minded by Cablevision’s Charles Dolan, ?served as our model for distributing Copa America.? The matches were telecast live and with Spanish language commentators.? With the help of media planning icon, Gloria Constanza (then at Bravo group and now at d’exposito partners), and AT&T’s Hispanic marketing executive, Rafael Eli, I was able to secure AT&T as our exclusive sponsor.? AT&T’s funds allowed us to effectively advertise and promote the pay-per-view telecast, and ultimately over 600,000 Spanish speaking cable TV households subscribed to one or more of the matches, live from Ecuador.?

Since, 1993, the matches of every Copa America have been telecast to U.S. TV households.? Today, we enjoy the matches in both Spanish (on Televisa/Univision networks) and English (on Fox) and giant telecom? companies still seek top sponsors - - this time it’s Verizon !? ??