Liverpool have placed much focus in expanding their strategy in the US in recent years.
Through the American ownership of Fenway Sports Group the Reds have been able to use that insight into the market stateside to strengthen their brand across the Atlantic, its growth coming at a time when interest in football in the US is growing exponentially.
A World Cup on the way in 2026 aided the growth of a sport in a market that has historically been dominated by traditional US sports, where 'soccer' was very much on the fringes.
Liverpool tasted defeat at Manchester United on Monday, Jurgen Klopp's men out of sorts and spluttering their way to a bitterly disappointing 2-1 reverse at Old Trafford.
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As ever with a game of such magnitude it drew an international audience of millions through it being screened at home and abroad, providing the global exposure that brands that associate themselves with the clubs have become used to, and that they pay good money for.
But proof of the growth of the game in the US, and the interest that is held in Liverpool, along with Manchester United the most popular team with American fans, can be seen in the streaming figures for the game.
For the next Premier League TV cycle in the US the Premier League managed to extract £2bn from the US market, 40 per cent of the value of the UK market and 20 per cent of the total £10bn TV rights package from next season. The reason for that is that US broadcasters were betting on the rise of interest and wanting premium content to launch streaming services such as NBC' Univeral's Peacock.
On Monday the Liverpool clash with Manchester United set a new benchmark for viewership as 796,000 US fans tuned in to Peacock, a figure that surpassed the previous record set in October 2021 when 792,000 watched the clash on the streaming platform. The game was broadcast exclusively on Peacock and not simulcasted on NBC or USA Network.
"For NBC it has been the basis of them launching their subscription streaming service Peacock and driving subscribers towards that," explained Scott Rosner, Professor of Sports Management at Columbia University in New York, speaking to the ECHO earlier this summer.
"For NBC, having something that drives subscribers to a new platform is important. Also for NBC you want what is going to give you instant programming and viewership at a time of day across channels, given the magnitude of the games, is considerably higher than what you would get here in the US on a Saturday morning or Sunday morning."
The US has been a market of growing importance for the club commercially, something that will likely prompt them to head across the Atlantic for next summer's pre-season tour.
Liverpool commercial director Ben Latty told the ECHO recently : "Our audience in the US is what I would say is unrivalled really to any other football club and even some of the domestic sports out there.
"We've got a number of US partners now which are helping us in the US market. You look at the stats that we've got and the data that we've got around our market and our sort of exposure in the US we're helping them as well.
"We've got this unique window in the US sporting calendar every week where we don't have competition and we've got this real opportunity to capitalise on that. The broadcast partners at the Premier League, they're doing a great job of taking the Premier League to that market and as a result we are doing our own activity, whether it's through our social channels, whether it's through on ground events or actually pre-season tours/ We're doing our own bit to try and grow our own fan base out there.
"Every the datasets we get through in terms of TV audiences, digital reach etc, the US is a market that's growing immensely. The other part of it is that we have partnered with a number of US brands over the last last few years as well, and I think US brands are seeing the power of Liverpool Football Club both domestically in the US because they think the stats do marry up with anything else that's out there in terms of US sport at the moment.
"But the great thing about Liverpool is it's not just US, it has global reach and so these brands are sort of seeing the benefit of partnering with Liverpool that can actually do a job for them in the US but also promote them into Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, and you know that's I think the the sweet spot that we're finding with that market at the moment."
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