With the Rowdies being officially back, there is finally some real buzz over this team again. Not quite the hype and excitement yet that we saw leading up to the 2010 home opener but it's there and with a marketing campaign set to hit any time now we should see alot more interest in the upcoming weeks. We'll discuss game to game attendance predictions and results for the 2012 season here. In 2011, playing as FC Tampa Bay, the team averaged approximately 3,087 fans per game. We played Bolton in a friendly match and drew approximately 4,000 (schedule only a month in advance and played on a weeknight).
First up: Saturday, April 14th: Rowdies vs. Edmonton 7:30 pm kick off It is probably too much to hope for another home opener sellout. Though over 8k showed up to GSF two seasons ago to see what they "thought" was the Rowdies, and those fans are surely still out there and then some, I think the team is still going to have a challenge this year. Firstly, they still play in St. Pete and while attendance last year was steady, it wasn't good. But local business support seems decent and with the Rowdies trademark in hand, I'd expect a better showing at the gate than last year's opener (3693). Word of mouth has season ticket sales as being strong and we have not yet seen the new uniforms, which may or may not increase interest, but hopefully they do. I'm going with the same prediction I had for last year: 5k But as always, I dream of a sellout. What do you guys think?
Last years average of 3k plus is not that bad considering the fact that the Rowdies are a second division team. We don't have the huge budget's for advertising like the other pro team's in the Tampa/St.Pete area have. I still believe that the Rowdies can draw even more fan's to their matches with the help of us,the fan's. We just need to keep telling our Eurosnob friends that we have a blast attending the games.
I forgot that last year's home opener was adjusted up to something like 4160. So my 5k guess isn't a substantial improvement on that, but I'm sticking with it. Regarding 3k being "not that bad" I guess you have to look at it both ways. It wasn't bad that we pulled that number game in and game out. It wasn't good that we never could improve on that number, despite doing very well in the second half of the season and making the playoffs. But for a metro area the size of Tampa Bay, even with a lower division team, we should expect better than 3k. However, I think my theory on why we haven't seen more marketing is about to be proven correct, or mostly so. Nestor and Co. weren't going to spend large amounts of money on marketing the FCTB brand when it would most likely be gone in short time. They felt they could draw enough last year to get by without putting much into marketing and I guess they pulled it off. And while of course we don't have the same kind of money for marketing that the big major league teams in the area have, these owners certainly have more than what they've been spending in the past so we'll see. We've been told to expect a significant campaign to be launched very, very soon. I just hope it does the trick.
Even if we wind up drawing the same kind's of crowds that we drew last season,the atmosphere at the games should be good. I'm looking forward for the season to start.
I think we'll average more, for sure. How much more depends on the Rowdies IMO. And the Mob will do what it can to ensure the atmosphere is as good as it can be
5k for your home opener as the Rowdies once again? That's it? Come on Speedcake. Either you're the most conservative soccer fan around, or you really don't have any faith at all in your club's FO. Why go out and spend the money to acquire the Rowdies name again, unless you're intending to actually put it to use? The Strikers didn't exactly go marketing crazy last year with the rebrand, but they stepped it up a bit, and Tim Robbie was a very important get for the club. Depending on how the ownership situation shakes out this year, I expect that if there is money behind this team still, we'll see a much greater effort than ever before. If I were you, I'd expect the same from your FO. No self-respcting Rowdies fan should be gunning for anything less than topping the opener for the Strikers resurrection last year, about 6,700 if memory serves. You've been challenged sir.
Your point is duly noted and well taken. I may adjust my expectations after some marketing starts happening. So far we haven't had so much as a radio spot. I hear its coming soon, but we've been waiting all month.
I hope we do better at the gate this season. There are plenty of soccer fan's in the bay area,so,there's no reason why we couldn't be drawing more fan's to our games. I just believe that alot of them view the Rowdies as minor league and don't bother coming out to support them. I hate Eurosnobs!
I partially agree with you, but alot of this is also on the team's shoulders. They chose not to market the team more heavily the last two years. It is obvious now that this decision was due in large part to the fight over the Rowdies trademark, or I hope it becomes more obvious when we start seeing some real marketing. I don't know if I agree totally with that decision because the negative repercussions are something the team has to work hard to overcome. But it is what it is I guess.
You should also hate MLSsnobs, people that will only go to a soccer game if the team plays in MLS. I mean how many fans used to go see the mutiny but refuse to go see the Rowdies?
I agree. where this raises it's ugly head with me is in the discussion thread while watching games on Ustream and listening to the babel about MLS this and MLS that, when will we get into MLS, we're going to get into MLS and you won't. Blab blab blab IMO
You see alot of that from Rowdies fans/supporters? I dunno, over 8k showed up for the home opener two seasons ago. People are willing to come out and watch pro soccer, but the ownership and management have their own responsibilities in properly marketing and packaging it. It's easy to say "you should all support pro soccer no matter what!". While my heart would agree with you, my head realizes that it unfortunately just doesn't work that way. Besides, not having good attendance in the lower divisions is no impediment to getting MLS if that was your goal. Those "haters" could possibly have their cake and eat it, too. Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver etc weren't blowing it up in D2/D3 with their attendance before getting MLS. Philly didn't even have a team. But the cold hard fact is that we may never get a shot at MLS and this might be our best, if not last, shot at keeping pro soccer around in any form. So yeah, I wish people would come out and support them. You can still bitch and complain and wish it were better, but if you don't at least support what you have then you run the all too real risk of losing it again. We've been through enough of that in Tampa Bay.
Good points... I was saying I see a lot of it in general on the Ustream dialog box from all the fans. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy the Ustream feed and the chat feature as well. I was suggesting there are a lot of wannabe MLSsnobs out there. I know a couple of them myself.
oh yeah for sure, they are all over the place. If you see them and you know they don't come to games now, but log into Ustream and cry about MLS just keep calling them out.
As we've seen in this country, there's a divide between "soccer fans" and "fans of your team/league/niche." There are "soccer fans" who will take time off from work to watch the World Cup (or travel there) and get up early on Saturdays to watch the EPL or La Liga, but who wouldn't give MLS the time of day because "it's not good enough." Or who are from other countries and only like soccer from "back home" (be that Mexico or wherever). The number of "soccer fans" who you could reasonably hope to attract to a second-division game (regularly or occasionally) is smaller than that, even (in most places). This is evident in any type of metric you want to use: attendance, TV ratings, social media trends, whatever you like. There's a hierarchy for a reason. And no matter what you do, the vast, vast majority of people in a given area are not ever going to go to a soccer game. In fact, the vast majority of people living in the Bay Area probably don't go to Lightning games or Rays games or even Bucs games (where if no one ever went twice in a season and every game was full would represent just over a half million people in a metro area of 2.8 million). You're dealing with a small potential audience. It's larger than what they've been getting, but it's smaller than some of you seem to think. And as for marketing, yes, they need to do more and do it better (the TV commercials last year were well-intentioned and fairly clever, if rudimentary). But you can run radio spots and put up billboards and do TV commercials and run print ads, and that may make you feel better about their efforts, but telling someone there's a game is not the same thing as selling them a ticket to the game. Obviously, you have to have awareness, but that's only part of the equation. ("You know how to take the reservation, but you don't know how to hold the reservation. And, really, the holding is the most important part.") The selling is the most important part. It has to be preceded by effective, constant, extensive and (fairly) expensive marketing and advertising. But it has to be followed up by a concerted sales effort. And I don't know that they've ever had a consistent ticket sales team that wasn't operating under some sort of uncertainty ("Are we the Rowdies or not? Where are we playing, this side of the Bay or that one?") or several significant barriers to closing the sale ("Baseball stadium, the Yankees hate us, what league are you in?" and all that). They had a guy in charge of ticket sales last year who had been in MLS in Chicago, but I don't believe he's there anymore (correct me if I'm wrong). You can't do this without consistency and longevity (not to mention resources and vision) among the people who are actually selling the tickets, because, no matter what people think, tickets don't sell themselves in almost any place you can think of. There are virtually no easy sells when it comes to soccer in this country - it's been a slog for the last 15+ years. And when teams pop up and reorganize, when front offices go through turnover and there's uncertainty about leagues and levels and sanctioning and venues and all that, it makes the job harder.
All true. Regarding the ticket sales team, the head guy has been with them from the beginning and previously worked with FC Dallas. This season is the first time they've kept most of the sales team intact and it is the first time they have had some stability from season to season. Also it is the first time they can definitively say they are the Rowdies without having to explain much further than that. As F.C. Tampa Bay I know that part of the sales process was having to explain who they were, etc. now that problem is somewhat better. Anyway, we are all still waiting on this multi tiered marketing campaign that we were told would happen sometime after the new year.
So Ryan Helfrick is the main guy? Good. There's some continuity there. The two other account reps they list on their site joined them in 2011 and both appear to be young (which is what you're going to get in this sport, especially at lower levels). Who was the guy they had last year who had been in Chicago? I can't remember his name. Oh, wait Mike McAdams, who's actually in Arizona now. His LinkedIn says "Responsibilties include managing all ticketing (sales/operations), corporate partnerships, and marketing for the team." Though he was only there from midseason 2010 to early season 2011. Tough to get stuff done in 11 months. In any case, the point is, some of the issues have worked themselves out. But it's still not going to be easy. It almost never is.
yeah Ryan Helfrick is now the main ticket person and in charge of corporate sponsorships, etc. I believe. The two other guys were added last year and kept over to this season, but they let at least one go in the off season. They are currently advertising to fill that spot, but no idea if they plan to hire more staff. Which they should be doing. They have like 5 people trying to do everything. Their social media sucks because of it. I don't have any useful info on why Mike McAdams, who seemed to have decent creds, didn't last longer than he did. I know a "better opportunity came up" out in Arizona and he took it so maybe that is all there is too it, better job better pay better opportunity and he said see ya! They have a ton of work to do, all of them are trying to do the work of three other people, and it's frustrating as hell trying to work with them sometimes. That isn't necessarily always their fault.
You may have answered the question in your third paragraph in the fourth one. This can be a lot like pounding your head against a wall sometimes. That's why you usually get young people who don't know any better or who can tolerate more stress in pursuit of what their passion is or you get lucky in finding someone who can be effective and isn't interested in skipping for another opportunity that offers higher rewards with less drywall and paint on one's cranium.
yeah all makes sense. Even under the circumstances, being minor league etc etc., I feel they could/should be operating with more staff. Having sub par social media can hurt you and they don't seem to understand it, or they are just too busy to do it right. They have no one whose sole job it is to do PR and develop relationships with the media, so that clearly is suffering as well. It goes on and on. Still, alot of things are better, but they have a ways to go.
It's not just a Tampa Bay problem: if you've ever run a business, you know the cost of additional staff can make you wince. I look at it as the cost of doing business and that you're not protecting your investment if aren't adequately staffed. But the history of the game at this level in this country shows us there have been a lot more people who thought they could get by without making that investment. It also shows us that a lot of teams - whether they spent a lot or a little on staff - didn't make it, for a lot of reasons. I guess it's about smart staffing, not necessarily the number. There's probably a medium in there somewhere, but you have to have good people as well as sufficient numbers. For instance, even though it's a little thing, you can't have a media conduit who says "Opening Day is vastly approaching" or who calls the green-and-yellow hoop socks "infamous" instead of famous/traditional/iconic. And you can't have a broadcaster who refers to an Asian player as a "Chinaman." These are all little things that are symptomatic of bigger problems.