New Mexico United is New Mexico's professional soccer team, competing in the USL Championship, the second tier of men's professional soccer in the U.S.A.. United is a mission-driven organization working to create a lasting positive impact in the lives of New Mexicans present and future. Through the medium of the world's most popular sport, the team provides a unifying platform New Mexicans have long craved and lacked. In it's first four years, United became recognized as one of the strongest and most unique emerging brands in U.S. soccer through landmark partnerships and approaches rooted in a unique marriage of art & sport. Frequently sold-out games at "The Lab" in Albuquerque are known as one of the best gameday atmospheres in the U.S. thanks to a fiercely loyal and passionate fanbase. On field, the club has established itself as a fierce competitor, often outpunching more established teams in the MLS (the top tier of U.S. men's soccer) with deeper pockets. In a short time, United has become both reflection a of New Mexican pride and a cultivating factor of that pride in their identity as a people and a state, constantly overcoming the odds despite what the doubters and spreadsheets may say.
I joined New Mexico United before it had a name in September of 2018, contributing to the company's initial branding process and subsequent launch. In December of 2018, following my graduation from the University of New Mexico, I started full time as the Brand Manager. I was promoted to the role of Creative Director less than a year later in November of 2019, a role I occupied for three years until I opted to conclude my time with the organization in November of 2022. In my four years with United, I was responsible for overseeing all of the brands expressions across the organizations many verticals. This included all forms of marketing and communications, sales, merchandise, events, brand collaborations, physical spaces, and the on-field product. I collaborated across all areas of the business with leadership at every level as well as regular collaboration with outside partners, vendors, agencies, and a network of community members. I was responsible for a team of up to eight full time and part staff including marketing professionals, brand strategists, social media managers, designers, videographers, photographers, and interns. It was a start-up sports organization prioritizing impact measurements usually reserved for nonprofits, and in those four years I was proud to help build a brand that continues to push the bounds of what a soccer team can be for its community.
League-wide recognition during my time at the organization included: Best in Class for Marketing, ‘22. Peer Voted Best in Class Social Media, ‘20 & ’21. #1 selling Merchandise Line league-wide ’19, ‘20, ’21, & ‘22. Highest Average Attendance, ‘19 & ‘22.
a brand built by story & community
The keys to United’s success are storytelling and community building. The people turning those keys are a team of mission-driven individuals collaborating across a multitude of disciplines with a collective belief in creativity and the story we all chose to buy into.
We defined the story we wanted to tell the outside world in those early days of the branding process: New Mexico is a state of dreamers and doers, not doubters and failures. New Mexicans are proud of who they are, and rightfully so, and will have a team they are proud to call their own. Success is possible here, opportunity does exist here, we can be at the top of the good lists. This is the land of enchantment, not entrapment. We told that story internally with pride as the logo and brand took shape.
By the time the outside world began to hear it, we were already believers in the gospel that a professional soccer team has the power to unite a wildly diverse, widely dispersed community and create a lasting positive legacy of hope, shared identity, and real opportunity where there previously was none. In my role as Creative Director, that story was everything. Every partnership, tweet, goal, billboard, campaign, hire and above all conversation was motivated by the mission of proving that story to be true. Every team member bought in, as did the early adopting fans, and the community organizations, families, politicians, artists, tattoo shops, local businesses big and small, and so our work – now the work of staff and community alike – brought the story to life.
the logo, the shield, the crest
The logo itself was designed by Zak Rutledge of 3 Advertising in collaboration with the myself and the 4 other members of United's early staff in September through October of 2018. With 3 helping us launch the state's first professional soccer team, we refined a logo rooted in the state flag's iconic Zia symbol after consulting with and attaining permission for the referential use of the symbol by the Zia Pueblo. The shape is a flex on the classic football club crest determined the shield's shape, the 18 in the diamond anchoring the club in it's establishing year. The choice of the club's primary color scheme of yellow and black was another nod to the yellow of the state flag, adopting a bolder shade that, when contrasted with the strength of the black, took on a boldness quick to catch the eye. The final logo is designed to convey inclusiveness, strength and forward motion.
the words we used & actions that followed
Somos Unidos. We Are United.
In a bilingual state whose history is linked as much with Spanish and Mexican identity as with the United States, the club's message has to be spoken about in both languages. Entirely aware of the characteristic vs. state differentiation Spanish makes between its two verbs ser & estar for "to be", we knew that We Are United should be translated as Estamos Unidos following the logic of the language that United is a state of being, not a characteristic. Estamos Unidos, the correct literal translation, implies a state of being that is temporary, transient, one that will be true in this moment and false in the next. The mission of the club was to forever alter the divisions at fractured New Mexican identity, and to show the state and it's people that Unity around a common belief, goal, and passion could exist beyond the ebb and flow of life. Unity was not a state of being before or after New Mexico had a team to call its own. Unity is a characteristic of all New Mexicans and New Mexico itself. We only needed to find the words to express it, and a reason to believe it.
The tagline has become the anchor of United's identity in the public eye, Somos Unidos being chanted at the games and said when passing someone wearing the jersey in public. Its taken on a communal meaning through years of use, coming to be associated with acts of overcoming hardship by banding together in solidarity, acts of selflessness, and efforts of communal uplifting around the state, hence it's adoption as the name of the 501c3 Foundation launched at the height of the 2020 pandemic.
Pictured below, the Somos Unidos Mural, including a photo-collage I composed using images of supporters made in the first season by our photo staff. The mural was painted on the corner of Coal and 2nd Street by local artist Noe Barnett and completed with the help of supporters pictured, players and coaches in 2020 ahead of the return to play following the pandemic's interruption of the season.
New Mexico's Team, for Every New Mexican.
Sports in New Mexico prior to United was limited to collegiate level competition with the Lobos and Aggies of the two major universities pulling the largest crowds for football and basketball games. The only professional sports team is the Albuquerque Isotopes, a triple A baseball affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. There was a legacy for professional men's soccer teams in New Mexico, but the Chiles, Geckos, Outlaws, Roadrunners, and even the UNM Men's Soccer program all came and went before United kicked a ball. All of those had been Albuquerque's teams. United is New Mexico's team.
The aspiration of being the team representing such a wildly diverse and widely dispersed population means acknowledging and honoring a massive spectrum of backgrounds. Indigenous Americans whose lineage is intertwined with New Mexican landscape as far back as human footprints in the area go, descendants of Mexican farming families the border crossed when lines were redrawn following the Spanish American War, descendants of those same Spaniards, artists pulled to the southwest in the way O'Keeffe was, families who followed Oppenheimer and the employment at the labs and military bases, etcetera etcetera. To be their team in their hearts and minds, to see the Club Flag as synonymous with the State Flag, it means earning and re-earning that trust every day.
This led to some of the first merchandise I designed, the Club Flag (pictured below) which bore the names of every pueblo, town, village, and city in the state. At the first Black & Yellow Bash where the brand, merchandise, coaches and players were made accessible to the public for the first time, New Mexicans from every corner of the state traced their family histories through the names of their hometowns.
This also led to the pursuit of partnerships that would help establish United as New Mexico's team. From my first day at the organization I had my eyes set on New Mexico True, the state tourism department's hyper successful brand which had made massive strides in fostering statewide pride and opening outsiders' eyes to the magic of New Mexico. After years of pursuit we unveiled a partnership that continues to this day, seeing New Mexico True and the iconic zia symbol sit in the center of United's striking yellow away jerseys (pictured below is my photograph from that announcement campaign). To say New Mexico United is New Mexico True was a massive step in demonstrating the team's statewide status and commitment.
The chink in the armor of United's claim to represent the whole state was the fact that it played it's games in Albuquerque, and much of the population is scattered a long way from the 13,500 seats of Isotopes Park. In 2022 though, the pathway from the amateur youth level to the men's professional game was completed when the United u23s were announced, bridging the gap between the already nationally successful academy and the first team. This u23 side, competing in a condensed 3 month stretch in the USL League 2 (the 4th tier of U.S. Soccer), plays it's "home" matches at 6 different towns in various corners of the state. In it's first season, thousands of New Mexican's who hadn't yet been able to attend a United match due to distance had their team come to them.
Changing the game through the beautiful game.
When majority owner Peter Trevisani set out to launch New Mexico United, he did so against advice from his peers that pro sports in New Mexico was a financial failure in the making, and no matter what he or the team he would assemble did, they were up against odds they couldn't overcome. The spreadsheets and financial models mirrored those doubts. We often describe such lines of thinking as a poverty of imagination, it's an all too common mindset in places of institutionalized, multi-generational hardship, oppression, and very real poverty. I'd seen it in my adopted home of New Mexico, in my home country of South Africa, and around the world. Peter, perhaps stubbornly at first, believed in what he referred to as the Economics of Hope. That stubbornness, which he soon instilled in those of us sharing the mission and ambition of New Mexico United, has reshaped the landscape of imagination, hope, and opportunity in the Land of Enchantment.
Sport, especially football, as a tool for societal change, is an old story. The history of the sport is intermixed with the waves of change around the world (and curious readers would do well to spend time with Eduardo Galeano's El Fútbol a Sol y Sombra, both for the history lesson and the edifying experience of truly poetic prose). Wielding those tides of change intentionally as a young brand still earning its stripes and proving itself worthy of a passionate following meant being mission-driven from the jump, or even before that.
It began in July of 2018 out on the westside mesa in Albuquerque where a group of u12 boys and girls were practicing in front their usual spectators; coaches, parents, and on this occasion a third, unknown guest. Troy Lesesne, newly appointed Head Coach & Technical Director of USL New Mexico (no team name or logo would be known to these kids for another 3 months), had landed in Albuquerque the day prior, and was wasting no time in getting to know his new community the only way he knew how, by showing up, getting to know the people, and asking where he could help. That's been the model ever since.
Each season, every player and coach practices showing up, meeting people, and asking where they can help at least ten times at schools, community centers, hospitals, blood drives, supply drives for emergency relief efforts, and of course on soccer fields in every corner of the state. Out of season, a statewide holiday tour is conducted to ensure the staff get out to any corners of New Mexico that may have been missed in season. The exercise of simply helping inevitably spurs efforts for collecting essential goods needed by communities in remote areas like fire relief supplies during the 2021 wildfires or the need for remote learning supplies and clean water in remote towns and reservations during the 2020 pandemic.
At that point of mounting need statewide in 2020, when the season had been postponed for an unknown amount of time, the entire staff were eager to find new ways of advancing the mission despite the impossibility of in-person efforts. The result was forming an entirely new arm of the company's mission: we launched the non-profit 501c3, The Somos Unidos Foundation.
Within weeks of the Foundation's launch, the Black Lives Matter movement had become top of mind around the country following the murder of George Floyd. The resulting action (following more immediate contributions such as providing a action-oriented toolkit compiled by members of staff in conjunction with local activist organizations and the sharing on social media of perspectives shared by two of United's black players) from both the club and the newly formed foundation was the creation of a Diversity Fellowship. The fellowship provides leadership development opportunities for people of color, women, and LGBTQIA+ in the professional soccer industry where those populations are frequently underrepresented. Each fellow spends a 6 month period as a member of staff on either the coaching or front office side of the organization as it aligns with their aspired career path. Since it's inception the fellowship has since graduated 12 fellows, granting each a $5000 scholarship which is used toward continued education or obtaining licensure in their field. Two of those graduates are now full time employees at United, and others have gone on to launch their careers in sports.
Later in 2020, we launched one of the only fully scholarshipped (completely free to the players and their families) Academies in North America. Those familiar with soccer in the U.S. will be familiar with the exclusionary pay-to-play model that is often and correctly cited as one of the biggest hurdles to the development of the sport for youth all over the United States. Club programs and academies that act as the development grounds for young athletes and the scouting arenas as they hope to progress to the professional game are often thousands of dollars per year. Funded by the already successful work of the Somos Unidos Foundation, the Academy is the first real opportunity for young New Mexicans from all over the state to have access to world class training and compete at a national level. Since it's founding, the United Academy has proven to be one of the strongest programs in the country, finishing 3rd in the USL Academy Cup in its first season.
All of this work is about opening doors of opportunity where there previously weren't any, and working to help wherever and whenever possible. Often times, the work of changing the game is a whole lot more subtle than all that. Representation, inclusion & advocacy happen in the small, every day moments, not just at the announcing of promising initiatives. That was the M.O. from the jump. In the annual programming schedule that pairs with the 17 regular season home games, United hosts an annual Indigenous Peoples Night, Hispanic Heritage Night, Pride Night (as part of larger Pride month celebrations), ASL Night, Juneteenth Celebration, Everyday Heroes, Salute to Service, Earth Day, in addition to Mental Health Awareness Month and the off season timing of Black History Month and AAPI History Month campaigns. While the form and functions of each initiative shift and evolve, many of them serving as opportunities to commit funds raised by the company during those campaigns to local organizations serving those populations, the message is clear: United is a platform for every New Mexican to see their best selves represented and celebrated.
The result of all that work across so many verticals comes down to an earned loyalty in the hearts of New Mexicans. The team may play on 34 to 40 days in a year, what is this organization doing with the other 300+ days of the year to further the mission? And if the results aren't going our way, well, it's always been about so much more than the results on the field.
Pictured below: The inaugural season United Academy squad and coaches after winning the 3rd place match in Tampa Florida as part of the USL Academy Cup. Below left: The farmworkers liberation movement hero Dolores Huerta in her New Mexico True jersey holding up a special edition Somos Unidos Foundation scarf, a gift given to outstanding members of the community past and present in recognition of the work they've done for fellow New Mexicans. Below right: the 2021 Pride Collection which raised $10,000 for the Envision Fund, empowering crucial work across New Mexico such as equal access to healthcare for LGBTQIA+ individuals, fostering safe spaces, combating institutional discrimination, and supporting educational and outreach efforts in our communities.
Art & Sport.
New Mexico's most precious asset, in my mind, is creativity. It's inspired by the landscape, it seeps through the culture at every turn, and every New Mexican (adopted or born) is endowed by nature or nurture with that pervasive spark of something special and sacred. The creative economy of New Mexico, known best to tourists and outsiders through the popularity of Santa Fe's Canyon Road, turquoise jewelry, the patterned shawls and blankets, O'Keefe's landscapes, is so much more than those most obvious examples. The celebration of that creative spirit, "a marriage of Art and Sport only possible in New Mexico," was the bait that hooked me into the start-up when Peter, C.E.O. and majority owner, told me that despite only having 6 months until the first competitive match and not yet having a brand identity, we'd be building a soccer team that would lead with artistry and creativity at every turn.
What followed was the first Immersive Art Company as a front of jersey sponsor in world football (the first edition of the Meow Wolf jersey pictured below in the House of Eternal Return, Santa Fe), substantial investment relative to teams in the same league in a robust creative team staff, and countless collaborations and projects with artists from all over New Mexico.
purveyors of the brand
Billboards: Static, Driving, Walking
The success of any start-up hinges on its early performance. For United, in the context of a state without a pro sports team to call its own, we had to make it the biggest thing in the state overnight, ideally before the first game was played. From the moment the brand was launched, free United shield magnets were being handed out for free at every possible venue, youth soccer tournaments, christmas light parades, small businesses getting behind the team early on. Before long there were tweets comparing the ever-presence of United magnets on seemingly ever car in the state to other facts of the New Mexican identity like having a zia tattoo. In time, those United car magnets turned into full-on fan-made United cars, driving billboards made for pure enjoyment independent of any official asks (copyright infringement can be set aside when the fans are living into the art & sport ethos so hard they start making New Mexico United VW bugs, pictured below). Meanwhile that zia tattoo reference was more like foreshadowing as United shield tattoos began popping up on the bodies of New Mexicans statewide (one of the first, a Meow Wolf colorway of the shield, pictured below). We promptly established partnerships with local tattoo parlors and began competitions and incentives in which the club would cover half or the entire cost of United themed tattoos. Literal walking billboards. Early on, traditional billboards were just as crucial as the magnets. In Albuquerque alone, almost two dozen billboards announced United's inaugural season to would-be supporters. The first of them touted pro sports had finally arrived, but after the fist home game saw a massive 12,500 person crowd, billboard messaging evolved to include the depth of United's immediate adoption and inclusion in the New Mexican identity. This second wave of boards were deployed especially outside of Albuquerque, showing photographs of fans who'd come from various corners of the state to the metropolis on matchday. The result, besides the surprise and delight of fans seeing themselves celebrated at larger-than-life scale on the way to the next home game (The Romancito family of Zuni Pueblo pictured below), was a growing sense beyond the major metros that this team wasn't just another Albuquerque sports attempt, and was truly here to last. With every approach the goal was to make United seem like the biggest thing to happen to New Mexico this century, and in every effort we found success by transforming those we initially marketed to into passionate brand advocates themselves. Merchandise was the greatest tool of all in transforming the target audience into walking billboards. Repping United was suddenly a way to wear something representative of all of New Mexico, a surprisingly undersaturated market, and we leaned in with products, designs, and marketing at every turn that emphasized the pride that comes with putting on the United jersey and merch in general.
Social Media, Voice & Visuals
Brand Voice is everything, and in the multitude of mediums and messages through which it is communicated, consistency is almost impossible, but the core should always follow the brand's compass. The brand voice needs to be prepared for playful banter on twitter, celebrating the latest work of by a local artist, embodying the ecstasy of a last minute goal, and standing in solemn solidarity with marginalized community members. In short, it needed to be reflective of the best of the 2million plus New Mexican voices it hoped to represent. Overseeing the brand voice through the club's marketing channels, authenticity to those voices guided our efforts. Before any copy or content would go public, the responsible team member would be asked to think of the New Mexicans who were fast adopting United as a part of their identity, and if, when they encountered this expression of the brand's voice, it would inspire feels of pride, joy, excitement, belief, optimism, and above all authenticity. This guiding principle led us to multiple recognitions for excellence in social media and marketing, and while the content was always embodying the beauty worthy of New Mexico's creative excellence, visuals obtain so much of their meaning from the words they are paired with.
more Social workBringing New Mexicans together in ways they’ve never come together before
A component of the mission statement used when the brand was announced was the phrase that United would "Bring New Mexicans together in ways they’ve never come together before," which was a promise rooted in the ambition of building a phenomenal product on the field, in the gameday experience, and every other possible aspect. The most passionate atmosphere, the most exciting performances, the most loyal fanbase, the best parties and events, and the most communally-involved organization. It started in earnest with the first ever Black & Yellow Bash in 2018, a brand-launch event in downtown Albuquerque where the developmental projection mapping studio that would become Electric Playhouse was branded black & yellow head to toe in interactive content and the capacity limit was almost tripled to accommodate 800 attendees. The first home match a few months on continued to set that standard with hours of tailgating preceding 90 minutes of madness as 12,500 or so New Mexicans waved promotional black & yellow flags and cheered on their team for the first time. At every "first" the goal was to set the bar higher than ever before in the state. Throwing a party? It should feel like something you'd hope to experience at an exclusive NYC or LA club. Setting up soccer clinics for youth? It needs to set a new level of expectations compared to other camps that have been on offer previously. If United's name was attached, that meant it would be an excellent experience, regardless of the event. The result is some of the most unique gameday experiences in world sports, lines wrapping around the street at every merch drop, and viral word-of-mouth marketing that fuels FOMO in anyone yet to experience a United event.
