KLYY scores with Mexican national team futbol deal.

Entravision Communications Corp.'s KLYY-FM (97.5) has signed a two-year agreement to air Mexican national soccer team games in the ran-up to the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

The deal, which includes Spanish-language broadcasts of the World Cup games in Germany, was struck earlier this month with Futbol de Primera, the Miami sports media company co-founded by broadcasting personality Andres Cantor, the Argentine-born announcer known for his long cry of "Gooooool!"

The broadcasts will mark a shift for Santa Monica-based Entravision's KLYY, whose programming has been limited to popular Mexican urban pop music known as cumbia.

Still, said Karl Meyer, general manager of the company's four-station Los Angeles cluster, the addition of the games and a daily one-hour show hosted by Cantor fits with Entravision's efforts to cultivate a younger, Spanish-speaking and bilingual audience.

"It should mean more ad sales," Meyer said. "It's a great way to grow the audience. It will attract a lot more listeners. It's a very strong signal, you can hear it from North San Diego County up to part of the San Fernando Valley."

George Nadel Rivin, a partner at Miller Kaplan Arase & Co. LLP, said KLYY's relatively immature track record allows Entravision the leeway to try new formats.

"Soccer advertising has a certain importance because of the fierce loyalty of Latino consumers to soccer, and not just among the more traditional Spanish-speaking consumer," said Rochelle Newman-Carrasco, president of Enlace Communications Inc., a Los Angeles Hispanic advertising firm. "The game itself ... broadens the value of the ad buy, including the hard-to-reach and desirable young bilingual viewers."

The 50,000-watt KLYY has already aired its first games under the agreement, qualifying matches pitting the Mexican team against St. Vincent and Trinidad and Tobago. The station will broadcast at least 50 games through the qualifying rounds up through the World Cup Game.

Entravision will start selling advertising packages at the end of October and launch a KLYY soccer Web site in December. Meyer said it was too soon to know who would be advertising during the Mexican team and World Cup games, but that Entravision would seek to expand the station's existing base.

"We won't necessarily be going to the largest advertisers we have," he said. "We want to find the right advertisers who have sports dollars reserved for this kind of event."

The 2002 World Cup games were a boon to local broadcasters, said Mary Beth Garber, president of the Southern California Broadcasters Association.

"Radio Unica (KBLA 1580 AM), which didn't have the world's biggest signal or the best ratings, got the World Cup soccer (rights) last time and it dramatically changed their measure in the community," Garber said. "It had a huge impact on their earnings from the year before."

But Radio Unica was unable to translate the benefits of broadcasting the World Cup games into larger listenership. Its parent, Miami-based Radio Unica Communications Corp., fed it programming geared primarily toward the tastes of Cubans, a tiny portion of a Los Angeles Spanish-language market dominated by Latinos of Mexican and Central American descent.

The station was purchased by New York-based MultiCultural Radio Broadcasting Inc., along with 14 other stations, for $150 million in 2000. It went off the air in Los Angeles in March.

"Had they put in more locally oriented programming originating in Los Angeles and geared the local audience, that would've been more successful for the listenership," Rivin said.

While only KLYY will air World Cup and Mexican national team soccer,

several Los Angeles Spanish-language stations, most of them AM stations, broadcast professional league soccer.

Radiovisa Corp.'s KMXE-AM (830) has the Spanish-language rights to Los Angeles Galaxy home games, and KWKW-AM (1030), an independent family owned station, has the Spanish-language broadcasting rights for the games of the Mexican pro team Club Deportivo Guadalajara.

Gooooool!

Station: KLYY-FM (97.5)

Owner: Entravision Communications Corp.

Location: Riverside

Power: 50,000 watts

Language: Spanish

Format: Cumbia (Mexican urban pop)

Audience demographic: Hispanic 18-25

Ducks Take Wing During Lockout 

THE Mighty Ducks of Anaheim are trying to keep he team's name in front of fans, even if the pucks aren't flying due to the lockout by the National Hockey League.

"The biggest goal we have set for us is retention," said Al Coates, the team's senior vice president of business operations and interim general manager. "It's an opportunity for us to have more communication because we have the time."

The team recently held a free dinner and movie for season ticket holders and partners on the beach at the Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort, a first for the franchise. Bill Chapin, director of ticket sales and customer service, said the event drew about 1,200 people.

Fans also got to hang out with Mighty Ducks Head Coach Mike Babcock. "We had an overwhelming response," Chapin said.

The team has retained more than 81 percent of its season ticket holders and signed up about 550 to 560 new accounts. Plus, the team's suites "are all sold out for the first time in three and a half years," Coates said.

The Ducks, meanwhile, keeps striking its own deals. It recently signed a two-year contract with San Diego-based The Mighty (1090 AM) to continue as its flagship radio station. The Mighty first signed with the Ducks last season.

The NHL season was set to start in early October, but last month the league locked out players. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, has told teams to release their arenas for other events through the end of October.

--Orange County Business Journal