We started in the Premier League’s biggest market, New York City.

New York is a city of neighborhoods. Using this as the hook, we carved New York into districts and affiliated them with PL teams, The Upper East Side became Manchester United, the Bronx was Aston Villa and so on.

Then we focused team messaging within that district. Posters, taxis and subway trains in team colours implored residents to ‘Keep Calm and Pick a Side’, their side.

We ran local parties at pubs where fans could initiate their neighbors.

On television, we gave people more information on their team, because to know your team is to love them.

We reached out to the rest of America via an online Team Picker, suggesting teams based on people’s Facebook activity.

Finally we created a cultural tipping point, Jason Sudeikis’ spoof video ‘An American in London” imagined a US coach running Tottenham Hotspur.

Once people picked a side (and 400,000 did) they had a reason to follow the Premier League - and they knew NBCSN was the place to do it.

“An American in London” quickly went viral, generating 5.4 milllion views within one month to become YouTube’s 2nd most watched and 3rd most shared video of August 2013.

NBCSN viewership increased by 91% in the first two weeks of season overtaking the prior year’s viewership on ESPN, ESPN2 and Fox Soccer combined.

The season opener was the biggest in US history.