Well, we figure New England and Kansas City aren't going to be out of NFL stadia by 2008 when the next round of WCQs get going. Colorado will be. Chicago will be. Hopefully the Metros will be and DC will have its own yard. But unless the league actually says "The Nats are playing that Saturday? Okay, we're not playing," it doesn't really matter.
No offense Ron, but let the guy ask a question. Peter doesnt need an attorney. Hes a big boy I am sure he can handle the statement.
I think dabes raises a fair point - when MLS plays games without so many of the national teamers, they aren't giving their fans - ie the paying customers - their money's worth. Now, this sure as hell ain't Peter Wilt's fault. And, dabes is right that the hardcore's will likely come back no matter what. But, this can't make marketing the team any easier and I, for one, would like to hear Peter's thoughts on whether he feels he is short-changing his fans by selling tickets at full price when many of his players aren't available for the game because they are playing for another team. I know that your ticket gets you in to see the Fire or whatever MLS team your going to see, and that's all that it actually guarantees and the teams do show up. But we're kidding ourselves if we think fans don't know the difference between Ralph, Williams and Herron and Sumed, Capano and Carrieri.
Last night's game is the exception to the argument, so let's look ahead to this Saturday, where 8 of the 10 teams are playing. Everyone keeps talking about it being stadium availability. The problem is not just stadium availability, the problem is money. All of this Saturday's games could have been moved to random August and September Wednesdays, but then the teams would've lost thousands of fans, and in turn revenue. And whereas the competition level is important, yes, the league's precarious financial situation is even more important. MLS games average 15,418 people per game If my quick spreadsheeting was correct, MLS games average 15865 per weekend game, and 12361 per Wednesday game. That's a difference of 3,504 people per game. Multiply that by let's say $15 a ticket, just setting aside parking, concessions for simplicity, that's $52,560 per game in lost money. And that inlcludes the abberation of Wednesday night games, the 41,000+ at Giants Stadium for a doubleheader featuring Argentina and Peru. If you lumped that with the weekend games, the average falls to 10,676, and the difference becomes 5,392 people per game. Again, multiply by $15 a ticket, and that's over $80,000 per game in lost revenue. I think the better argument is not when MLS teams get their own stadia, but when there are enough MLS fans to justify playing more than the rare Wednesday night game, that's when everyone will get their competition level wish.
I think this is exactly the math that MLS management is using when they decide not to schedule MLS matches around qualifiers. It's big money -- I acknowledge that. The counterpoint I was trying to make is that when you are trying to build a business, you can't just think in terms of one game. You need to think in terms of lifetime value of customers. Here is how I look at these numbers. I would speculate that 1 season ticket holding household is worth roughly $3,000 to MLS ($500 per ticket per season times average 2 tickets per houshold times typical holder retaining tickets for 3 seasons). In my view, the question becomes whether 27 season ticket decision makers (your $80,000 / my $3,000) were lost (or failed to gain) because of putting a sub-par product on the field for one of these games. My math ignores the single ticket buyers who may buy fewer single tickets down the road, but their money should count too. The challenge is that you see things my way, you give up the $80k now and get it back for over the next few years. You have to think long-term.
We're sure that the club/country conflict is a big deal to those of us on Bigsoccer, but are we sure this effect is actually causing non-renewal of season tickets or a decline in business?
It seems to me that the question is: do you go to see Damani Ralph play or do you go to see the Fire play? If you go just to see a particular player (or two) rather than the team, then that is your loss. The Fire, last night, despite missing almost an entire starting lineup, played a good, attractive, competitive, attacking game. Well worth the price of admission. (And better than some of the matches played with the "starters" that we've been subjected to this season.) The only downside was the final result. And as well as they were playing it could have easily gone the other way. In this sport that is not at all infrequent.
I would wager big bucks too that at least at MLS games concession and souvenir revenue is higher per person on Saturdays than weekday night ones.
Peter, wasn't there talk about a pale blue jersey a while back? Couldn't we have road or third jerseys that aren't white, but still meet TV's needs regarding black and white monitors and gray scale colors that look white on these monitors? Seems like we could use a pale yellow, pale blue or some other pastel. Any thoughts? White's o.k. sometimes, but always having the road team in white gets a bit boring.
Well, when this game was rescheduled: 1) Razov wasn't thought to be done for the year. 2) Herron was not a name in your vocabulary. 3) Jaqua hadn't been red-carded. As for the sub-par product, I saw a half-dozen games this year where we had something much closer to a full lineup with no national team commitments where the team and play were less inspired than last night. That's the beauty/drawback of sports...you never know on any given night if your team is going to win/play well/show up, etc.
Why would you think the per person average is higher? Beer sales? From my limited experience with a baseball team, Friday nights were the best nights for concessions because people didn't have time to stop for dinner at home or at a restaurant and just ate at the park. Wednesday night was similar, but Saturday and Sunday concessions were lower due to people having more time and options to get their meals. Also i helped with a high school concession stand and Friday night consistently crushed Saturday by a 3:1 margin.
WE (you, me, everyone on BigSoccer) go to see the Fire play. We go rain, shine, home game, away game, whatever. However, we're 5K at best. The other 10,000 people around you may include those coming to their first game: wanting to see what it's like, wanting to see Adu, wanting to see Damani, whatever. If they don't know that Damani is playing, it's not our fault, but as dabes says, they may not want to come back. We can't continue to confuse the fact that we, hardcore supporters, while acting as the main backbone of fans in the sport, do not constitute all the fans of the sport.
It's a good point but when I see groups at Saturday Fire games It's more kids, for one, and two they usually make a whole day of it, say after morning youth sports or going to a museum/downtown - do the fest outside, get in the stadium early, buy pizzas and cokes and t-shirts for all while dad has a beer or two. I don't see much concession or merch sales on wednesdays, per person or period (aside from the 2.50 corn dogs which are the best deal going in sports concessions). Beer sales are always strong and maybe higher weekdays but i would absolutely guess that overall dollars per person is higher on saturdays than wednesdays.
2.50 corn dogs?!?!?! which concession has those??? I'd be in on that deal, but have somehow missed it so far. the GD $7 pizza I had last night basically cost me an extra beer.
$2.50 corn dogs?! I must've missed those. DAMMIT. Now they just gotta make the play-offs, got my whole menu planned out.
concession stand to the immediate rear right of section 8 on your way from your seat. they'll hook you up. now, about that pierogi stand...
Can you give us any insight about the rules that allowed Carrieri and Sumed to be called up for the Crew match? Was Sumed ever officially off the roster? Doesn't Colorado own the "rights" to Carrieri? Did that matter for this "call-up". Is their an official "replacement player" policy for field players or is it negotiated on a case-by-case basis? Thanks.
hardship policy allows teams to make short term call ups of minimum salary players to ensre that teams have a minimum of 2 goalkeepers and 13 field players for each game. Sumed and Chris Carrieri had both been waived. Their previous teams had no "rights" to them. Both were short term call ups and will not be available to the Fire for the 10/16 game though Sumed will be a guest player along with Thiago Gaucho, Ian Pilarski, Tony McManus and a certain soon to be inducted hall of famer for Monday's game. peter
Thanks. But what's confusing is that Reyes and Hendrickson were waived too but their old teams had to be compensated with draft picks when they joined their new teams.
Seriously? Considering I don't remember seeing Mike Windischmann play back in the day, I'm looking forward to this.
