An Army of Immigrants

The U.S. military revives an old strategy to address recruiting shortfalls

Tomorrow begins a new season for the English Premier League, arguably the elite competition in the world’s most popular sport. My son and I have become pretty passionate supporters of our favorite clubs,¹ but ours is the enthusiasm of recent converts: we didn’t watch soccer at all until the COVID pandemic. But when we shifted to Xfinity to get a better internet connection for the kids’ online schooling in fall 2020, we also got a free subscription to NBC’s Peacock streaming service, which carries several Premier League matches every weekend.

Towards the end of the season last spring, I noticed that American broadcasts² of Premier League soccer had a new sponsor: the U.S. Army, whose ads were not necessarily what you might expect. I can’t find a YouTube version to embed, but you can see one such ad here.

Setting the language difference to the side for a moment… while this particular advertiser is ubiquitous in American football, it’s jarring to see patriotic advertising from the U.S. military show up in coverage of a foreign sports league where every team has players from around the world and games almost never start with a national anthem.³

In fact, seeing those ads made me think of a scene early in the run of the popular soccer series Ted Lasso, set at a fictional Premier League club. The titular American coach gives a young Nigerian player, Sam Obisanya, one of the plastic miniature soldiers that Ted’s son gave him to “keep me safe while I'm away.”

“Coach, is it okay if I don't keep this?”, Sam cautiously replies. “I don't really have the same fondness for the American military that you do.”

“Oh sure,” Ted realizes, “imperialism.”

So why would the U.S. Army be trying to reaching Premier League fans who speak Spanish?