This times a billion. First off, the Red Bulls have drawn ~18.5 and 20K in 2010 and 2011, respectively, which is much more than half capacity and closer to 80%. This "splitting the fanbase" argument is one that suggests that a front office can't find another 18.5-20K people to attend their games when located in a totally different part of the a city (whether it be Queens or Manhattan or wherever) of over 9 million people.
Does the Red Bull attendance pickup later in the season then? If not, it seems like they are suffering a major slump so far early this season. 13k was the 2012 average so far I read somewhere on here I think. I'm fine with a second NY team, just would hate to see the Red Bulls suffer because of it.
We can debate announced vs. actual attendance, but for the sake of historical consistency we will use announced attendance (tickets sold), where this year's average is 17184 after 3 games. Based on disposable income, the Red Bulls should be able to sell out Red Bull Arena more regularly. But disappointments on the field and questionable front office policy have hampered that. It may be too early to tell, but Chris Heck's new ticket pricing policy might be hurting attendance this year. I say it may be too early to tell because attendance for most teams pick up after March/April finishes, where NCAA Basketball, NBA and NHL all have their championships. Specifically for NY, last year's attendance picked up in a big way, with 4 of the last 6 home games announcing 25K attendances.
Great thread. People keep bringing up places like Atlanta or Detroit, but these markets already have NFL, NBA, MLB teams, (+NHL in Detroit's case), not to mention it's about disposable income, not necessarily how many people live there.
I think it's more about corporate sponsorship and local broadcast dollars than it is about disposable income.
It's also about fans. Is there a potential fan base that likes soccer? If there is, what difference does it make if there is a basketball team? Some of you are talking about it like its the equivalent of choosing between brands in a supermarket. There isn't just one group of people that attend sports events that have to decide how to divvy up their disposable income. Really odd logic. I get the idea behind it, but it fails to take into account the most basic of factors.
The Supermarket is sports, and the brands are the type of sport. This study was simply taking those basic factors in figuring the income. And yes, there is one group of people that attend sports events .... the group of people that attend sports events. Or is that too basic ? The true issue isn't that it didn't include the most basic of factors, but rather, that it's too simple.
Is there a potential fan base that likes soccer? If there is, what difference does it make if there is a basketball team? ___________________________________________ Is there mutual exclusivity? Soccer fans or not soccer fans. Of course not. But for purposes of expansion a metro area must have: 1. enough soccer fans, 2. a big enough tv market, 3. some base level of corporate sponsorship,and most importantly (pertinent to this thread), 4. enough dollars left over to acquire from sports fans in general (casual or otherwise) and 5. media space to gain attention from the local media. I do not see places like Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, or Miami serving MLS well on points 4 and 5 which I think are most critical to success in MLS 2.0. See Seattle, Portland, Montreal. This is why I favor San Antonio, Orlando, and Sacramento. D1 soccer WILL be a big deal in those markets. The Triangle is dicey because I just dont think the have enough of no. 1 ( At least right now in 2012) The San Diego market is basically being taken over in stealth fashion by the Mexican League. MLS does not seem to care. So I have written it off. I just don't rate Las Vegas and its transient population. MLS would be better off with a deep pocket putting a team in New Mexico than Las Vegas. NYC 2 is a special situation well discussed in multiple threads. That's how I see things unfolding.
Five years ago, how would you have rated Kansas City? I think you're overanalyzing. I think any market in the United States with over 2 million population could potentially support a successful (attendance and local sponsorships) team. It all comes down to ownership. Having committed and motivated ownership willing to push through and invest in and market the team. If you don't think Atlanta, Detroit, Miami, or Minneapolis-St. Paul would fit well in MLS, I don't want what you're smoking.
Luckily, Major League Soccer's Board of Governors doesn't listen to what the Algonquin Round Table that is Bigsoccer has to say about its various expansion options. Also, I'd love to see what a study like this looked like in 2002 (for example) and look at if any of the supposed saturated markets have had successful MLS expansion teams in the interim. I'd just be curious as to how good a predictor it actually was. (And, as an aside, MLS is on quite a roll with expansion franchises, which all seem to be doing varying degrees of really well. Whether their luck is going to run out or if the climate has sufficiently changed so that Tulsa or any other place could do well with an MLS team, I guess we'll see.)
^ that is exactly why making a comparison of the studies from a decade a go are worthless. The one huge variable is the league itself and its relative popularity. It's been said several times that markets like Columbus probably wouldn't make the cut today.
I do buy AndyMead's argument that corporate sponsorship matters. Here is a ranking of our cities by # of Fortune 500 companies calling them home (with the # in their state in parentheses). Source: CNNMoney New York 45 (57) Atlanta 10 (14) Carolina Charlotte 7, Greensboro 2, Winston-Salem 2, Raleigh 1, Columbia 1 San Antonio 5 (51) Las Vegas 3 (3, all casinos by the way) Ottawa N/A, of the 73 Canadian companies that would make the Fortune 500 if they were American, Ottawa houses 2 of them, with all of Ontario holding 22 of them (the other 20 are all in Toronto). Orlando 2 (16) Miami 2 (16) Austin 1 (51) Sacramento 0 (53)
One valid criticism that was brought up earlier is the use of average values for teams in other leagues (the Yankees taking up as much disposable income as the Royals). I will look further into their methods for deciding what this disposable income goes towards and try to calculate individual team $ amounts for disposable income. This would be a more accurate way of finding which cities are oversaturated and which are not (and could possibly alter our list).
So it is in fact total income the study uses, not personal income. This is something we must account for, since cost of living varies greatly from city to city. Total DPI (disposable personal income) = TPI - (average cost of living * population) It would be nice to see how they arrived to these estimates in more detail. However in response, we must alter these minimum TPI numbers to minimum DPI numbers. I propose we do this by subtracting the cost of living of the city whose team has the lowest revenue in each league (example: if the Pirates bring in the lowest revenue in MLB, we would subtract the average cost of living in Pittsburgh * the population of Pittsburgh from the MLB number). This step would be the same, just with different numbers. I will only alter numbers for top 50 TV market cities (and Colubmia, SC for previously stated reasons) since MLS wouldn't realistically consider adding a team in anywhere else.
Before we get to the specific city-by-city DPI, a couple of things. - Cost of living estimates will come from the Economic Policy Institute. -We don't want to disproportionately affect a league with a struggling team in a big market (therefore disproportionately lowering the minimum DPI for certain leagues). We also want to limit our study to any city larger than Salt Lake (#48 and the smallest in MLS). To do both, we will use the population of Salt Lake * the average cost of living in the United States as a whole. This number will be reduced from the league's minimum TPI to get DPI for each league. This number turns out to be $31.3B. -The minimum DPI needed to support an MLB team is $54.1B -For NHL, $6.3B -For NFL, its $5.4B -For NBA, $2.9B We're not doing this for MLS, because we are only looking at markets without an MLS team (and we don't have to calculate New York; we can guarantee it can support another MLS team with its disposable income). The next step is to lower each city's TPI to DPI. Following that, we can subtract from the DPI the money used up in supporting its current teams to get detailed data on which cities can support another MLS team. If a city is oversaturated at this point, it is completely out of the question. We are using the bare minimum numbers now.
I made a mistake in my previous numbers. I should not have used the population of Salt Lake, but the population of the city with the team with the lowest revenue, since the minimum TPI is calculated by using the team with the lowest revenue. That changes our minimum DPI numbers to the following: -MLB: $49B -NFL: $7.1B -NHL: $6.6B -NBA: $6.2B Using these numbers, the following cities are significantly undersaturated after adjusting for cost of living expenses (cities with at least $15B in disposable income, from highest to lowest): New York, Miami, Atlanta, Las Vegas, "Carolina," Hartford, Detroit, Providence, Virginia Beach, Austin, Louisville, Richmond, Orlando, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Jacksonville, Charlotte on its own, Nashville, Memphis, Baltimore The following cities are undersaturated, but not by much, so they are on the borderline in terms of being viable cities (cities with between 0 and $15B in disposable income): Raleigh on its own, St.Louis, New Orleans, Sacramento, Pittsburgh The following cities are oversaturated (cities with negative disposable income): Phoenix, San Diego, Tampa, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Milwaukee...all of these are out of our consideration for the rest of our analysis. What does this list account for? -Different costs of living in different cities: this, together with the amount of existing sports teams in the city, affects the amount of leftover disposable income in that city. -The numbers for each league at the top involves the amount of money it would take to support the worst team financially in each league. If your city doesn't make the cut on this list, it probably won't make the cut in MLS. What does this list not account for? -Sports not in the 4 major leagues. The southern cities suffer most after accounting for college football teams. -Cities already in the territory of current MLS teams (definitely Hartford and Providence, probably Virginia Beach, Richmond and Baltimore) should probably not be considered. -A relocation of the Sacramento Kings would also put that city in the top tier. -Adding up Charlotte and Raleigh together would put Carolina 5th highest on our list. Columbia, SC added in would probably put it in 4rd or 3nd. -Big teams vs small teams: as I said before, this list acts as if every team in the 4 major sports is equivalent to their worst team financially. Cities with the big-name franchises in each league would lose more money, of course, but there's no way I'm gonna go through all the revenue data from every team in every sport. It's easy to pick off those that definitely cannot make it.
The public wants a proper answer! Give us the definitive list! Well, its not so simple as that, but if you want a final list from me of viable candidates from which we can narrow things down, here it is: New York, Miami, Atlanta, Las Vegas, "Carolina," Orlando, Minneapolis, San Antonio, and Sacramento (and Ottawa). While some of the cities not on this list are completely viable, they are not very big cities. They were only included for being bigger than Salt Lake City, which is not saying much. For my list here, I raised the bar to anything in the top 30 markets and in our top tier. This list is unsurprisingly similar to the one we already had, but it's nice to know we're being more precise.
Picks for 24 teams: #20 Atlanta, #21 Orlando, #22 Carolina-Raleigh, #23 New York City, #24 Miami-Ft Lauderdale Steady Contenders: Austin, San Antonio, Minneapolis, Nashville, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tampa Bay, Saint Louis, Cleveland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Baltimore (move from DC), Detroit, Milwaukee, Charlotte Dark Horses: Omaha, Tucson, Riverside, Fresno, Albuquerque, El Paso, Louisville, Indianapolis, Buffalo, Syraucse, Jacksonville, Birmingham, New Orleans, Memphis, Richmond, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Hartford, Pittsburgh, Dayton, Rochester, Virginia Beach, Charleston, Chattanooga, Cincinnati, Ottawa
New York will be #20. As for Atlanta -- I think that ship sailed along with St. Louis. It's a big city, but a big soccer market? A Florida team will be #21 -- either Orlando or Miami, as it's a coin-flip between them. If Chivas is staying put in LA, I think San Diego will be the next big target, joining a Florida team as league expands to #22.#23 and #24 are trickier. I guess Las Vegas is a possibility. along with a Raleigh-area team. San Antonio would also be a very tempting target. Phoenix might be, too San Fransisco/Oakland would be a plausible move, as well. I'm gonna guess one team out of that bunch, and one more Canadian team -- either Ottawa or Edmonton. As I've explained in another post, MLS and FIFA are pretty excited about Canada's potential. Even though a number of US cities might seem richer markets, I'm betting the league doesn't go to 24 without a 4th Canadian team. The league would probably pause for years before another round of expansion, and getting a bigger foothold in Canada would be a priority. Also, there's a FIFA reg limiting national leagues to 20 teams. I'm betting FIFA would let MLS slide if they held at 20 US-based teams + the 4 Canadian teams. If MLS ever wants to go beyond that, they'd have to get FIFA to change its rules, or carve out a big exception for MLS. That's gonna involve a fair amount of politicking. In 20 or 30 years, soccer might be a richer sport here. Maybe even 15 years. Look at how the NFL grew between 1960 and 1975, in both the number of teams and the evolution from a marginal league to the most popular, with billion-dollar TV deals. Let's say the USA is hosting a World Cup in 2026 or 2030. Maybe, the USA even has a great run in the tournament, and the country goes ape-sh!t.That would be a moment when the league might have the momentum to get some cities to chip in for stadiums. Can you see retractable roofs and A/C in San Antonio and Phoenix? Maybe Atlanta, or even Miami? Now, that seems comical. Wait before you laugh, though. In 14 or 18 years, things might look very different.
I think the exception to FIFA's rule is that we have over 300 million people in the US, plus Canada's 30-some million. Limiting to 20 in a country like Spain or Netherlands with comparatively much smaller populations is one thing but looking at the size of our country is another matter. Theoretically, all of MLS could be based in California, which has a larger population (and economy) than many European countries.