THEY come from a place famed for its music and culture. But sports fans in the New York neighbourhood of Harlem are now being urged to get behind Hull City on their return to the Premier League.
For the club has been "twinned" with the New York neighbourhood as part of a drive to convert American TV audiences to Premier League football.
The campaign by American TV channel NBC Sports coincides with the network securing exclusive rights to screen Premier League matches this season in a $250m deal.
It means the Tigers black and amber colours are now being prominently displayed in promotional videos as well as advertising billboards in Times Square and on subway trains.
The poster campaign divides New York's suburbs into the colours of each Premier League club.
The resulting image puts Hull City in Harlem and two other adjoining neighbourhoods – Hamilton Heights and Washington Heights.
NBC is also running an online poll asking viewers to pick a team to support for the season.
Hull City Council leader Stephen Brady, who visited New York recently for a family wedding, said: "One of our aims in the City Plan is to make Hull a visitor destination.
"We know that most people who search for Hull on the internet already live in the city but it is things like NBC's promotional campaign that can change that.
"We hope our friends in Harlem will be inspired to find out more about Hull, what we can offer and our ambition as we bid for City of Culture 2017.
"This is the kind of benefit of having Hull City in the Premier League that can also help the city as a whole."
Sports journalist Christopher Harris, publisher and founder of World Soccer Talk, said the NBC advertising campaign was already winning plaudits among sports fans and viewers in America.
"The visually jarring poster will definitely stop New Yorkers in their tracks to figure out what it means," he said.
City's opening away fixtures at Chelsea and Manchester City were both screened live in America by NBC.
A total of 3.4 million American viewers watched five live matches over the first weekend – the biggest US audience for an opening Premier League set of fixtures.
American Harold Engstrom, who is a Hull City fan, said: "Thanks to NBC's much-publicised deal to televise all matches in the US, America's growing numbers of EPL followers will be an emphatic part of the international audience.
"Hull City has a smattering of supporters strewn across America, but it has yet to establish itself in sufficient numbers or in an organized way, so as to register on the nation's collective soccer landscape.
"By making the most of its high-profile opening-day match, Hull City not only emphatically announced its return to the EPL, but it has also show an unprecedented Hull City-viewing US audience it is an EPL side that warrants attention and allegiance."
NBC has recruited a team of English presenters and commentators to deliver coverage of the Premier League games.
They include former footballers Lee Dixon and Robbie Mustoe.
