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Celtic’s Next Tour Might Be Japan, But We Should Be Thinking About North America.

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Yesterday, Ange talked about how Celtic’s next “world tour” might be to Japan. I see the attraction, and I understand why that would be a good move in terms of growing the club’s international appeal and planting the flag. It’s pretty smart.

But in terms of crowd-pleasing, in terms of tapping into a market that already exists and making it feel valued and welcomed, the club has to consider North America, the US and Canada both.

Starting with New York and Boston, and then heading to Toronto, that would be an excellent trip and I know many of us would make the journey to see friends and family during it.

The pre-existing support base exists in those places, and Boston, of course, has additional opportunities if we’re willing to push for them.

The Celtics are a natural hook-up, and although I’m certain there are people who’ve explored that possibility before now I wonder how hard they really pushed for it.

I wonder if having us go there and putting on a show would be more effective than anything else that we could do.

Seeing us taking on MLS teams would be excellent.

I am a big fan of the football over there and the quick aggressive style they play would present us with a real challenge, and the US fans, who love to see that kind of intent, would certainly enjoy us.

I think we could leave a major impression behind, and really do well. Publicise it beforehand, make sure the games are against good sides and push it like crazy. Japan will still be there. The Far East is an area we should definitely be focussed on, but in terms of pure marketing and making a big push North America has been grossly overlooked.

Which considering the huge support we have over there makes it an ideal location for our next big trip abroad.

Celtic must know that’s just good sense.

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  • Benjamin says:

    Porque no dos?

    Now that Champions get automatic group stage participation, and even 2nd place goes straight to the 3rd round qualifiers rather than starting in the 1st round like we were just a few years ago, there’s plenty of time in the calendar to do two of these trips a year.

    The first is the preseason. Instead of playing in cow pastures in front of 500 people in Austria, we should be playing in North America every summer for 2-3 weeks. Most of the major European clubs are over there making a ton of money and expanding their fan base. And with future seasons not starting until mid-August, there’s no reason why a preseason tour can’t take place the last two weeks of July.

    Second, there’s an obvious window during the annual winter break. Instead of going to Dubai for two weeks and having no matches and no fan interaction, go elsewhere like Japan, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, etc for two weeks.

  • James Hendricks says:

    Most Europeans think touring the USA in very eastern-centric terms: New York, Boston, Washington DC. Celtic used to tour the USA as part of the Champions World Series and appeared twice in Seattle at (now) Lumen Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks (American Football) and Seattle Sounders (MLS). They had the record for largest attendance for a sporting event for 10 years for a friendly against Man U–66,772 fans. There is strong Celtic support in the area–one of the local youth football clubs is Seattle Celtic, which our youth club plays twice every season–and they could easily pull in more fans while acknowledging the ones they have. Soccer is incredibly popular in the area (there are four thriving clubs with hundreds of players within 30 minutes of my home) and they could really tap into this receptive market.

  • Clachnacuddin and the Hoops says:

    A good idea is America and Canada – you should email it and if you can get access to the power people at Parkhead then it’d be worth a shout…

    Hopefully a smart modern thinking chairman incoming would approve and take this excellent idea forward !

  • Joseph Smiddy says:

    Please come to Boston

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