Chicago Bulls Spanish Insta Speaks Volumes to a World of Fans

Michael Jordan and his championship runs in the ‘90s introduced the world to the Chicago Bulls, but the team is still introducing itself to fans who know them as Los Bulls.

The Bulls just introduced their Spanish language Instagram account—@LosBulls—featuring Spanish-language content from team members past and present. Former 2000s Bull and Argentine Olympic gold medalist Andrés Nocioni opened the page with a message to the 12% of Bulls’ 45 million followers on social media who identify as Spanish-speaking.

According to Luka Dukich, the Bulls’ vp of content, the team has more than 170 million fans worldwide. That includes 22 million that YouGov has identified across Latin America alone. Roughly 70% of all of its social media followers come from outside of the United States, which presents a huge opportunity for the team’s social channels around the globe, but @LosBulls has tremendous potential at home as well.

Grabbing Los Bulls by the horns

The Los Bulls brand dates back to the earliest days of the National Basketball Association’s Noche Latina program—which launched in the 2006-07 season—and reflected how Hispanic fans referred to the team, according to the NBA’s market research. With roughly 30% of Chicago proper identifying as Hispanic in the 2020 Census and 22.7% speaking Spanish at home, the Bulls have embraced the Los Bulls brand year-round in the Chicagoland area. The team has helped install murals around the city by Hispanic and Latinx artists, build new basketball courts in community centers, and support Chicago’s massive annual Sueños music festival with co-branded jerseys.

“Chicago has a lot of Spanish-speaking neighborhoods that are very close to the United Center, so we want to show up in those neighborhoods and be a part of that,” Dukich said. “[@LosBulls] is an international play, but there’s a lot of Spanish-speaking Bulls fans in our backyard that should feel welcome, should feel talked to, and should feel represented.” 

Research from Bain & Company unveiled at the L’Attitude conference showed that Hispanic and Latinx fans continue to feel neglected in sports despite being incredibly engaged. Currently representing about 20% of the U.S. population, Hispanics and Latinos consume 64% more sports content via TV, radio, and streaming than other groups, with 40% considering themselves “avid sports fans”—the highest of any group in the U.S.

With Bain finding that only 4% of U.S. marketing spending is aimed at Hispanic and Latinx consumers, there’s a significant incentive for teams to follow the Bulls’ charge toward Spanish-language audiences. With 47% of Hispanics and Latinx fans saying they’re represented least in sports compared to other genres, there’s opportunity among the 61% who say they’d be more likely to watch a team or sport if they were more strongly featured in coverage.

Roughly 54% of Hispanic and Latino fans are more likely to purchase products from companies that sponsor their team, while 63% would buy from brands that represent them in ads. With Hispanics and Latinos poised to account for 55% of U.S. population growth by 2050 and contribute $1 out of every incremental $3 spent on sports, it will pay to adopt a strong Spanish-language strategy and run with the Bulls. 

“It is clear that sports leagues, teams, and sponsors are not yet tapping into the extraordinary economic power of the growing Latino fanbase in the U.S.,” said Stuart Campbell, a partner at Bain & Company and a leader within the firm’s sports practice. “Winning organizations in the future sports economy will need to bridge cultural gaps, beyond just offering programming in Spanish, to provide personalized, inclusive experiences that resonate with Latinos.”

From Chicago to the world

The Bulls unveiled the @LosBulls Instagram during Hispanic Heritage Month. The team also plans to debut three refurbished courts in Chicago’s Little Village community center in partnership with the nonprofit Beyond the Ball. It also hosts events for Bulls staffers through its employee resource group, SOMOS, and plays its  Los Bulls game on March 10 against the Indiana Pacers.

But Dukich saw an opportunity for @LosBulls to connect with even more fans. He pointed to Argentine, Barcelona, PSG, and Inter Miami soccer star Lionel Messi’s love of the custom jersey he received from the Bulls in 2016 and his penchant for walking his dog in a different Bulls jersey.

He noted that current Bulls forward Chris Duarte of the Dominican Republic already posts Spanish-language clips on his social media and interacts with fans in Spanish. Dukich believes that if the Bulls can use dedicated Spanish-speaking staff to curate that content on @LosBulls instead of, say, running the Bulls’ English-language social media through a translator, it’ll result in more meaningful connections.

That belief is based on the Bulls’ experience launching its French-language Instagram, @LesChicagoBulls, with @LosBulls agency partner Sport5 in 2022, just ahead of a game against the Detroit Pistons in Paris in 2023. @LESChicagoBulls now has more than 108,000 followers, the fourth-largest international Instagram account in the NBA, and has Bulls and Bulls alumni, including Joakim Noah,  Adama Sanogo, and Nikola Vucevic contributing French-speaking content.

“Every time you started creating content for them in French, people started responding,” Dukich said. “That made us realize we need to have a real plan to actually speak to these people in their own language and in their own culture.”

The global game

Last season, 125 of the NBA’s players—or nearly a quarter of its rosters—came from outside of the U.S.

Each day, the Bulls staff watches busloads of tourists pull up in front of the Michael Jordan statue just outside of the United Center from points all over the globe and take its picture. When a group in Poland told the Bulls they hosted an annual tournament that culminated in them watching a Bulls game at 3 a.m., Dukich said the team sent gear and memorabilia that resulted in the group’s now-yearly trip to the United Center for a game. 

When Dukich visits family in Serbia and wears a Bulls hat, it’s instantly recognized.

While @LosBulls aims to shore up the Bulls brand both locally and abroad, it takes its cues less from other NBA teams than it does from organizations in global soccer’s English Premier League or Italy’s Serie A. When Dukich’s team spoke with officials from famed Italian club Juventus earlier this month, the contingent pointed out that the majority of the people who follow the Turin-based team don’t speak Italian—prompting the club to reach out in other languages.

With the U.S. fanbase evolving and technology shrinking the distance between NBA teams and their international fans, Dukich suggests platforms similar to @LosBulls may become a lot more common around the league.

“The Bulls in the ’90s were iconic, and everyone knows them, and that’s a big part of our history,” Dukich said. “But we want to build for the future as well, and this is how you do that.”