I attended a soccer game at my high school last fall and was shocked by how dull the atmosphere was. There were 20-25 people there. Not that I was expecting the PNW MLS experience, but I was probably the only non soccer mom there. After this experience my friends and I decided that this fall we would start a new supporters group for our team to try and breathe some life into the gameday experience at our school's games. Anyway, the reason why I am posting this thread is to see if anyone has tried something like this before and if they had any suggestions/ideas/tips, etc. Any help is greatly appreciated. P.S. Mods feel free to move this thread if necessary.
Every school is going to be different. My experience (limited to going to my son's games last year; this year is about to kick off) is that "crowds" are limited to some--not all--parents, a handful of faculty, a handful of friends, one or two significant others, and (if it's the Varsity team) some of the JV squad. Once you get to district and then regional playoffs, things pick up a little bit. But my son's team has their "home opener" next week, and based on last year I fully expect there to be 30-40 people scattered around, tops. That said--more power to you. If you and your friends actually show up for a few games and look like you're having a good time, word could get around and the crowd could grow. You see that at some college games.
Take video and broadcast on local cable access ...Cable Access here has Kick Ass equipment fancy cams or just sweet tripods free to use
Contact the local youth soccer club - depending on how big it is, arrange for a single night for them to attend, or if there are enough teams, arrange for each team to come different nights. Arrange for youth players to be ballboys/girls - gets them and a few parents out there.
Helps to have a good team. Our school had well over a thousand people at home games because the team was one of the best in the country. Nobody wants to watch bad soccer, including parents.
Well the level of play is not that good. Spectators for these games our students friends of the players, boys of course facility. Parents not all parents because games are played right after school and parents are still at work no?
When I coached adult teams we had one of the top 4 men's teams in the US for 8 yrs. Spectators for our games were ethnic Italians most born on the other side and their kids and youth players from our club. We played on Sundays the most spectators we had was about 800. Believe me at times I wished less would show up. They could be a pain in the arse
Cute story this was years ago one of our youth traveling teams under 14 was playing at the Dust Boul here in Brooklyn. All of a sudden both teams lost their consentration and were looking at one of the touch lines. I said what's going on here. Then I saw what they were looking at two professional baseball players were watching the game and the players were watching them. The two players were NY Mets We're Darryl Strawberry and Lenny Dykstra. One of them lived near Shore Road near the Hamilton house. It got so bad we freaked and told them to get the f ck out of here True story
Free lessons for younger kids before the game and they get to warm up with the older kids before the game?
What HS teams need is to have a support program similar to that top teams have. Team dinners the night before a game. Dress the same, either a shirt and tie for boys or similarly formal clothes for girls, on game day. Encourage teamwork and raise funds together. As for attendance, I used to go to USL games and at most there were 1,000 people there, and usually it was closer to 250. The JV county championship soccer game my son went to had perhaps 200 people. Our high school has only one venue with stadium seating, and they don't put soccer nets on it, it is football only. There are two turf soccer fields, but you have to bring your own chairs. I cannot imagine having even 100 people there. I've seen about 50 on the sidelines for the first round of a state playoff, and that was pretty crazy, with people trying to film and even see at all. If your high school actually has the venue for a few hundred spectators, that's a good start. Our HS soccer is fall, so it competes directly with HS football (and they've won championships in football for the past few years and state coach of the year multiple times) and the math just does not work out. Especially when the team does miserably, which it has done with the current coach.