Uncertainty & Attendance

Shammy bait initiated....

 

Not sure this really deserves it's own thread. There's nothing to discuss that's new, or unknown at this point. We all know Saturday at 7:30 gives the best attendance. And playing every other week at home, too. And winning. And not having to compete against all the other (winning) teams in town on the same day. MLS hasn't done us any favors with the schedule the last few years. And quite frankly the fan base doesn't care all that much anymore. There was no bump at the beginning of last season despite the Conference Finals appearance. And there's been no traction despite winning a trophy. The casual fan ain't coming anymore unless there's something new (stadium) or a Famous European in our lineup.

@Bootsy_Collins has said it, to the ownership as well. The owners need to take a proactive approach to rebuilding the fan base like KC has. But I'm sure they are waiting to see if they will be playing here next year and beyond. And it sucks, but we're jus going to have to lie back and take it until they provide the direction.

Thx,

Jay!

 

I thought last year that attendance numbers probably reflected several thousand season ticket or plan holders who were not actually attending, and that if many of them didn't renew, there would be a lower base number for low attendance games this year. Obviously that's no genius observation, and maybe it's true. We'll see how many more of these 9,xxx or less games happen this year.

Personally, I have a half plan, but did not attend nor watch yesterday. What is the DC United style? Where is this team going - on the field - since at least 2010? This is to say nothing of the repeated and public failures on the stadium front.

I will be going to some games this year, but I'm expecting more of them to be like those last year: the fun part ends after spending time with friends at the tailgate, then trudging into RFK for an hour or two of bemusement (I don't seem to be surprised or upset at the performance anymore).

 

No, we're just rehashing the same-old, same-old. No one has answers, no one can point to when it will all change for the better. And the team isn't willing to take any steps to make RFK more accessible to an increasingly fractured fan base.

And if you think yesterday was bad, just wait until the CCL starts. I remember back in 2002 when we played Communicaciones. The attendance was listed at 13,000 for a mid-March game. Great weather, too. Actual attendance was likely around 4000.

It was the August 2001 game against them we drew 4000. My bad.

Thx,

Jay!

 

The largest factor in attendance for DC United has always been season tickets sold. Yeah, weather and game day/time each okay their own part, but if the season ticket base is large enough they count those sold seats DVDs when no one shows up.

If you look at historical attendance records, we spike in seasons AFTER the team has performed well (regardless of current form) and dip in seasons after Ed have performed poorly.

Sometimes towards the end of the year you will see a spike if we are in the playoff hunt (see 2012) but the largest factor has always been season ticket sales, and by quite s large margin.

I fear so many people didn't renew after last years disaster that we are going to see a disaster in terms of average attendance this year. My guess is 12,000/game, but that may even be high.

If the team wants to ramp up attendance before the new stadium is built (and I do hold out hope that this will happen) they need to improve the quality of the team AT LEAST one year if not two years in advance.

 

In my line of thought, Cuban's second point is greatly lost on the front office and owners.

 

A note to the OP. It may be our backgrounds. I grew up in Houston and saw my Oilers and Aeros moved away. The Oilers were my absolute favorite team period. I played on the Aeros youth hockey teams as a kid and really loved them too. It broke my heart when both teams moved. So much so, that I've prepared myself for the departure of DCU by hardening my feelings a little early.

 

Damn I was heartbroken when Fusion/Mutiny folded ... If DC folded I'd certainly end my relationship with MLS ...

The only silver lining is that DC will remain an A list market and MLS is likely to expand to 32 before they stop. You'd have to imagine that sooner or later an investor would take another stab at it. And if MLS ever came back to DC ... even 20 years from now ... I'm 100% certain they'll use the United name/logo

 

I'll make my inevitable response unusually abbreviated (lol), because the facts are the facts. However bad we think things are, they could be and are more likely worse than they appear.

1. People seem to forget that Chivas USA once had good attendance. As a matter of fact, they had only one game below 10,000 attendance in 2012 and all but 2 or 3 were above 12,000. How many sub-10,000 games did they have in 2011? Zero. How many sub-10,000 games did they have in 2010? Zero. Only since 2013 have Chivas really fallen off, largely a consequence of a hideously racist ownership perpetuating the worst form of ethno-racial discrimination. However, we've managed to reach Chivas levels by simply being a bad team. Let that sink in.

2. DC fans are shellshocked because, unlike Chivas fans, who were blindsided by a speeding bus, DC was left in room-temperature water that slowly increased to a boil over 4-6 years. That combines with this odd psychological phenomena where we were 'once good' so it is possible to 'be good again.' Chivas fans simply walked away. As a result, the league took back ownership and will make the long trek back to respectability- re-earning fan's trust. DC United fans, on the other hand, are only slowly walking away- death by a thousand knives. In an odd twist, even the statistically obvious decline in attendance every year since 2009 (taking into account weather, opponent, win or loss previous match, whether other DC teams are playing that day and day of the week) is chalked up to 'rain' and is considered "obvious" to the point where pointing it out is "trolling." No, DC is losing fans, consistently, every year. It's not just turning off casual fans or new fans, but old fans and people who always used to attend matches- whether played on Saturday, Sunday, Monday or Christmas. There is no bigger issue than this right now. It affects every aspect of the team, the experience of watching the team, the future of the team and the stadium as will be discussed in the following bullets.

3. Attendance directly influences what benefits fans get, how the stadium is maintained, what essential staff (Read: not Kasper) are kept on payroll. If this continues, will the club fire more of our ticket reps, marketing guys (those that remain) or essential business side players? Very, very likely. This, in turn, leads to problems like the club not negotiating our TV contracts or the team losing it's connection to the community through events and advertising.

4. Attendance directly influences our ability to get players once the season has begun, whether during the prolonged window through which teams like Kansas City and others are still acquiring players or the Summer Window. There is a direct relationship between attendance and viewership and such purchases. I've done the legwork and looked at the numbers- it's true, just accept it. But don't we have allocation and additional funds remaining?

• Alternative A: We have no allocation or cap left because we paid most out to clubs we owed money to, particularly Seattle, for Eddie Johnson.
• Alternative B: We have allocation left over but we are hoarding it. Allocation has no expiration date. It's possible that we have no intention of improving the club this season beyond what we have and no help is coming for CCL.
• Alternative C: The rules have been bent and, as some have hypothesized in years past, our shortfalls in revenue and costs of operating at RFK are partially offset this year vis a vis allocation money.
• Alternative D: We have some allocation and we will spend it later, and it will be enough to overcome strong limitations to incoming revenue.

Each of these is likely in their own way. Operating costs are significant for running at RFK and have been estimated by various people, but when you're losing 20% expected revenue each game, it gets rough. Allocation won't save us.

As previously mentioned, we have EJ leaving soon, and yet some fans are already calling for Doyle and Espindola to get play together in a 4-3-3 (it's never going to happen people, so stop bringing this formation up!). In part this is smart, since we likely won't find someone to shore up the offense without EJ here. However, Doyle doesn't appear to be a 'serious' figure at DC United. He is, however, our 'guy' when all other options are overseas. We also have CCL and where is that help going to come from? With what money?

5. The acquisition of Doyle on the free (and relegation to depth) and the disappearance of Najar transfer money leads credence to the idea that the club has no intentions of spending 'real money' on players. EJ was kind of a half-hearted display on their part. Attendance declining by 5% makes acquisitions of a serious nature realistic. 20%? Impossible, by any club.

6. All of our eggs are in one basket- the stadium, but without a healthy and happy fan-base- i.e. good attendance and the electoral 'signaling' this illustrates, the primary impetus for public and government support of such an investment is lost. Guys like Powerboater69 are anti-spending trolls, but the economic literature over the last 20 years with regards to public investment in stadiums is clear- the return is never as good as expected. Revenues are usually small(er) than anticipated; development around stadiums usually staggered over long periods or in some cases does not occur; and while this stadium deal is vastly superior to others in the US in the last 50 years, will take 5 years or more to really pay off. It's a long term, smaller growth investment that doesn't really 'resonate' with some political figures unless the proper signaling (i.e. voters showing they will vote according to this issue) occurs. Maybe you disagree, but this is based on actual empirical and qualitative literatures rather than peoples hopes and puppy dog dreams.

Turnout to games shows political figures that it is costly for them to vote against your interests. While Hispanic and other minority populations are growing (at a slower rate than some here think), that in itself is not enough to show officials in the DC Government that it will be costly for them to not support a stadium. Again, the literature (the actual, journal article literature) shows that the primary impetus for officials supporting public investment/involvement in stadium construction are: 1) campaigns by the teams to prove financial benefits to the community and 2) strong public support of the stadium and the team itself. Sub-10,000 attendance doesn't signal jack or shit. Frankly, a lack of real investment or change at DC provides more fodder for anti-spending crusaders to assume Thohir is looking for a sweetheart deal or more food for thought for those of us that think that Thohir doesn't think MLS is a real soccer league, and instead a long-term investment for his portfolio..

7. For this team, right now, draws are at best slightly better than losses. Improvement means nothing without wins. A butt ugly 5-4 win, with 5 red cards is more meaningful to this club than any number of draws against any quality of opponent.

7. DC fans are left thinking 'what can they do.' Well, they ignore me, foremost, because I am an easy outlet for their frustration. I understand that. They think they can't affect change at the club, or won't try, and so they simply don't want to hear these things brought up. They want to talk about how DeLeon looked a bit more crisp or how Franklin had some decent crosses. Again, quaint, but irrelevant in the grand scheme of this team.

So what can people do? Well, some are already walking away from the club each day- while other fans are trying their best to 'turn their back on them' as if they just aren't gosh darned cheering hard enough! Maybe if they just rah-rah'd with more gusto then the team would improve! No. Let's not fall for the trap that 'support at all cost' has any inherent meaning over 'being mad as hell and not taking it anymore!' (a reference to Network (1976)). Writing letters could help. New England fans actually took out a page in various newspapers to humiliate their owners to do better by fans and this was accompanied by articles in Boston Magazine and other sources on such an issue. People can send e-mails to those at various blogs, persuading them to write about the issues facing the club more emphatically, and to demand change from a grassroots perspective. There are things to do, and the Supporters Groups are likely going to have to be a the forefront. Right now, they are asleep at the wheel.

 

Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ.

 

Shit, I could write 4,000 words on the subject in less than 45 minutes. Consider yourself lucky.

 

Shammypants, well done on a cogent argument. I don't necessarily agree with your points but do agree that overall our ownership and the club is headed in the wrong direction. As fans we do have little control over those decisions and while you may view supporters as not taking the team to task, in my experience and knowledge, they do, just not publically. Well, there was that protest about ticket prices last seasons from the District Ultras that was quashed by the stadium staffers. Without an ownership mentality shift, I'm not sure that anything we do will make a difference. The PR folks at DC United are touting the e-mails sent in favor of the stadium to the DC council but are excited about less than 5,000 people sending e-mails. Really pathetic from my point of view. I am highly concerned that DC United will not exist in a couple of years. I firmly expected that without change, DC United would not last pass 2011/2012. I thought the new ownership might breathe new life into the club, oh how wrong I was.

PS: Shammypants, please do not undermine your own points through incessant posting and belittling of any that might oppose your views. You have good points, just don't fall into the "someone is wrong on the Internet" trap. Thanks.

 

On this issue, I was oversensitive perhaps, because there have been so many clear attempts to highlight how bad things are and yet people constantly fall back on "the rain" or "it's just a little downturn." It's a bit surprising and a bit sad to see that as a reaction actually.



I'm not the only person to have looked at this. Some random dude at Black&RedUnited also did analyses in a fanpost [A statistical look at DC United attendance (link)] and came to the same conclusion. Systematic sucking either through observable factors (points) or unobservable (not entertaining) factors are the biggest issue for us. Weather and other things mattered, but sucking matters most.

Most critically, we seem to have really broken through a wall this year. Consider the home games of 2013.



Notice that we never really lost our 'core' fans. We always seemed to have at least 13,000-14,000 willing to come. Until now. We're now eroding the very core of the DC fanbase that not even 2010 or 2013 could immediately effect.

It's an unmitigated disaster.

 

Well sucking since basically 2007 could possibly do that...

However, look at Toronto. They have sucked each and every year since joining MLS. Originally, they had good attendance but over the last several, it went way down. This year looks different, all it took was bringing in some seriously star talent.

Fans are stupid. If the club acts likes it cares and makes moves to improve, they continue to show up. If there is a general malaise from the top down, they won't. Simple.

 

Except not really- their drop off in attendance as a result of sucking for a long time was not as drastic as one might think. 20,100->18,200 average is not a huge drop across 4 seasons (since it was stable during 2007-2010 or so). It was a shock to them to lose 10% attendance, somewhat expected, but they still had 5,000 more in attendance each game than DC United every year since 2007 and even after their decline. Hence their ability to still buy good talent, despite being bad and despite losing attendance. We never had that luxury. We didn't have that luxury with 2013 attendance and so what does that mean with 2014 attendance?

Let's not forget allocation having no expiration and other factors. They could in theory have saved close to half of their players salaries over the years and then spent it in one big marketing burst, but more than likely they just saw it as a worthwhile investment, since they make far more than 25% more than DC in revenue.

 

Attendance is hardly the biggest problem for this club. Attendance can always be rebuilt.

The problem with this club is basic survival. The club is perpetually on the brink of contraction/relocation. Attendance will be the least of our problems when this team stops existing.

Attendance is not the issue. The issue is the stadium ... and it has been for a long time.

We'd all like to be in the playoffs with star players on the roster. Sure that would bump attendance some. But that's not going to solve the stadium issue. It's not like the odds for a stadium went up in '12 when we made the playoffs.

 

So look, connect the dots for me. How is attendance not intrinsically linked with the stadium coming to be?

How does the plan for the stadium being 3 months late now, the election and the loss of support for the club not create a difficult environment for DC to get a stadium?

If we made the playoffs each of the last 3 years and had good attendance, would you say that our chances of getting a stadium aren't improved? [I see you mentioned 2012, and I genuinely feel like our chances were higher after 2012 than now]

If we get a stadium (i.e. a deal is announced and ground broken, with an opening of say 2017-8) do you think we immediately get a burst of investment or what?

Edit- I think there is a lot of undue confidence in suits like Levien and Thohir finagling their way into a favorable deal for themselves (and the club) 'just because we're due' for a stadium and the City should be open to it. The reality is we're not in any power position right now, and every move we make is scrutinized.

 

I think the team's record and current attendance has a very minor effect on whether we get the stadium or not. You honestly think DC council members even know our record?

All that matters in the stadium deal is money. How much is the owner willing to spend ... How much revenue will the stadium make ... How many jobs are created ... How much value is the city getting out of the land swap ...

That's what everyone is looking at ... not the team's record and attendance.

Not saying it would hurt to be undefeated and sign Michael Bradley and Dempsey ... But this franchise is losing money. The franchise does not have revenue to support big signings and world class coaches. Those things would essentially be charity. I'm not interested in telling people how to spend their money. I'm still just happy that the club exists. In 2011 I was only 50% sure that the club would even still be here today.

I'm not trying to totally excuse the owners. I think they have some accountability for results. I think even with our limited resources this team is underperforming. People should be getting fired. But the attendance drop is at some point inevitable as long as RFK continues to age and as long as the fan base realizes the team could fold at any moment. That's not really an environment where we can expect growth.

 

Don't forget ticket prices. DCU has the most expensive tickets in the league and hell, PARKING prices are more expensive than many teams game tickets! When Toronto has 5k more attendees we still bring more money straight up (before RFK rental costs) than them because our ticket prices are twice as much.

But yea, high ticket prices are also a factor for low attendance.

 

Shammy I appreciate the abbreviated response. The issue of weather applied specifically to last Saturday. Attendance is a problem. We had an extremely small opening day game attendance with great weather and when the Eagles, Barra, and Ultras sold out! That was terrible. There is no advertising for the team and it's games. If someone wasn't already a supporter how would they know a game is on? The owners fired their media and communication staff and haven't replaced them adequately. Small things are ignored. Last year as a STH I got a thank you email after every game for attending. In the beginning I thought it was lame, and I hardly read them, but it did indicate they were happy I came. That stopped this year. Heck they mailed me my tickets three days before the first game and they were for the wrong section. Oh, and on Saturday they had a deal where any random person buying a ticket for $27 also got a free beer. STHs in the supporters section pay $26 just to get in. Great way to treat loyalty.

So while having a new stadium will help, attendance will only rise when the product on the field gets better and wins a game or three, when the owners spend money on advertising, and when they make creative use of free media. This requires staff, leadership, and innovation. All of these are in short supply in the current front office.

So, let me state this clearly, Shammy you have some very good points

 

Have a $10-15 ticket upstairs and attendance would be a lot higher but ....

 

Attendance problems solved - it'll be college night this Saturday.

We'll just end up wishing there was still low attendance

 

This is always a joy.