Thinking about US Soccer's Ignorance on World Cup tickets

[GIO17]

After reading the many articles online in ESPN, Soccer365 and our Fans & Travel Section it comes to my conclusion and many of you can argue it if you want to, they just can't understand, or maybe assume that there wouldn't have been such an ammount of requests for World Cup Tickets. They assumed that 10,000 was enough, but when they saw the outpoor for so many requests for tickets they realized now that

#1 They underestimated the fan base of US Supporters,
#2 They didn't take it seriously enough to get more tickets
#3 Somehow they are ignoring the success of MLS as well as the National Team and wished that things were still the same.

I could be wrong, but I think they have been acting very unprofessionally at the same time they aren't thinking of anything positive. Look at what happened between the end of the Semi-Final round of Qualifying till the start of the Final Round. This argument with the US Players association on a brand new CBA agreement. We really don't know if there was alot of shouting back and forth at the beginning, but something tells me that the USSF had already planned for something like this and decided to lockout or was ready take away the scheduled friendly matches in December & January as leverage against the players. The players stood pat, took it and finally a new agreement was hammered out. This is what happens when the USSF is seperate to MLS. Somehow Soccer House in Chicago and MLS HQ in NYC have to come together and be in the same building in the same city.

Maybe the wrong people are running Soccer House in Chicago and we have to get the right people who are more passionate and truly believe in the American Player as well as our American League.

I didn't think of this overnight ladies and gentleman, I had to read all the evidence that is currently out there on the internet including what's on the other Sections of the USA Men's section of Big Soccer. But right now this is what I think and feel what the US Soccer Federation has done. Laziness and unprofessional to boot.

[The Blind Pig]

have we ever thought it was the *correct* people running soccer house?


how is this new?

[dmike]

at first I taught it was 10,000 per game but then I realised it was the total number of tickets for all 3 games. Pretty dissapointed they reserved so little for our federation. Does anyone know how many Italy and Czech Rep. got?

[Adam Zebrowski]

if you wabnt tickets, hook up with corporate sponsors...

why should people be so naive that the real soccer fans will always get the shaft, just like tickets for the super bowl...

now, if you want to start paying OVER face value, you can get the tickets....

[FirstStar]

Laziness and total amateurism. The ticket sale was supposed to be first-come, first-served, but I know people who sent in their applications WAY after others, but still got tickets and the earlier ones didn't. From what I've heard, USSF was so overwhelmed, they wound up with a big pile of paper in the middle of a floor and they just grabbed at random.

Follow this up with not announcing the results until AFTER the deadline to apply to FIFA for the follow-up round. What a ********ing disgrace.

[GOOOOAL!!]

at first I taught it was 10,000 per game but then I realised it was the total number of tickets for all 3 games. Pretty dissapointed they reserved so little for our federation. Does anyone know how many Italy and Czech Rep. got?

FIFA said that each federation would get 8% of the stadium capacity to dish out however they please. It could be to fans, employees, sponsors, the guy on the corner asking for money, whoever. Some countries don't even put the tickets up for sale to the general public, they just give them to sponsors and "friends" of the organization.

Not sure how many the US gave out, but if there were really 10k to the fans, then there weren't that many handouts.

That was the best thing about the 94 WC. The stadiums were huge so there were lots of tickets available for the teams fans. Germany averages about 45k per stadium, the US was close to 80k.

[yellowbismark]

at first I taught it was 10,000 per game but then I realised it was the total number of tickets for all 3 games.

that's it? wow, only 3300 tickets per game. That's disgraceful.

[mschofield]

And yet, several of the stadiums will be a quarter to half empty for group stage games (US-Ghana is a good bet, IMO)...
They always are, except in USA, of course, where 1. nobody cares about the game and 2. Everyone bought tickets.:confused:
Still, for every US fan whinging about tickets right now, I can guarantee 10 Germans.

[AGF Aarhus]

10,000 applications in a country of nearly 300 million is a very, very small number. Think about it for a minute. I would be willing to bet that the smallest number of applications (be it in the federation's own draw or the FIFA lottery) in proportion to population of any participating country came from the US.

Because each federation gets the same number of tickets, larger countries will always be punished. I know people who applied for and got TST tickets for Saudi Arabia and Costa Rica. Not becasue they are fans of those teams, but because they actually wanted to get tickets and knew that was their best chance.

Also remember that 8% in the stadiums we're talking about is around 4,500 tickets for each game. They actually sold on a pretty large number of tickets to fans, especially when you look at the situation in other countries. Do you think any European country did a public sale?

I don't see how the USSF is at fault here. You can blame them for the process, but not for the number of tickets made available.

[AGF Aarhus]

Gelsenkirchen: 48,000 x .08 = 3840
Kaiserslautern: 41000 x .08 = 3280
Nuerenberg: 37000 x .08 = 2960
Total given to USSF: 10,080

That means they kept 80 tickets for themselves. You should thank the USSF for being so generous.

[TxFan]

i really don't see why everyone is jumping on US Soccer... sure we would have liked to get more tickets, but i get the sense that fifa had some say in the matter as well...

and if US Soccer was unorganized or didn't plan stuff properly that sucks, but we need to remember that just as the national team keeps getting better on the pitch, so too will the administration and management of the game. give the guys a break. if there were any mistakes, i'm sure lessons were learned and things will be better the next time around...

[gnatfan]

I think what is most disturbing to me is the continual lack of communication that seems to permeate US Soccer. They seem to consistantly miss the boat on things that one would think would be basic to any organization looking to grow the game, using the USMNT as the lead dog of the sled. Labor issues going on and on and on; consistant broadcast issues which, with minimal foresight, could be ameliorated if not dealt with entirely [just postpone the broadcast for a few hours if you can't show it live--how hard is that?]; lack of response toward "the fans" [I have sent several e-mails over the past year asking for/complaining about certain issues and have never received a response], World Cup ticket issues. These are just issues that have popped up in the last year or so.

It seems to me that US Soccer just does an incredibly poor job at promoting the sport and accessing input for ways to make it better. To be fair, the all-access videos are a step in the right direction. But I think they would be doing everybody a favor and try to be more transparent in how they arrive at decisions. Why should we have to guess (or rely on Trecker) to find out why we can't see a National Team game on TV? Absurd.

A good start would be for US Soccer to ASK people for input and suggestions on how to do their job better. Bet they would get a lot of wonderful suggestions.

Won't happen of course.

[Lloyd Heilbrunn]

10,000 applications in a country of nearly 300 million is a very, very small number. Think about it for a minute. I would be willing to bet that the smallest number of applications (be it in the federation's own draw or the FIFA lottery) in proportion to population of any participating country came from the US.

.

I thought the afterthefact press release said 10,000 TICKETS, for which 40K applied??

[wolfp10]

Hopefully this is an indicator to not just the Federation, but to the general population that there is indeed a growing loyal fanbase to soccer, and in particular to the USMNT. Maybe they'll clean up their act, maybe some of us will try to work there, maybe work from the inside out.

In fact, I'm willing to put a couple of dollars down that, if the US does well in the World Cup (quarterfinal or more, including beating Italy) then MLS attendance may increase a bit once we all come home from Germany.

[geordienation]

After reading the many articles online in ESPN, Soccer365 and our Fans & Travel Section it comes to my conclusion and many of you can argue it if you want to, they just can't understand, or maybe assume that there wouldn't have been such an ammount of requests for World Cup Tickets. They assumed that 10,000 was enough, but when they saw the outpoor for so many requests for tickets they realized now that

#1 They underestimated the fan base of US Supporters,
#2 They didn't take it seriously enough to get more tickets
#3 Somehow they are ignoring the success of MLS as well as the National Team and wished that things were still the same.

I could be wrong, but I think they have been acting very unprofessionally at the same time they aren't thinking of anything positive. Look at what happened between the end of the Semi-Final round of Qualifying till the start of the Final Round. This argument with the US Players association on a brand new CBA agreement. We really don't know if there was alot of shouting back and forth at the beginning, but something tells me that the USSF had already planned for something like this and decided to lockout or was ready take away the scheduled friendly matches in December & January as leverage against the players. The players stood pat, took it and finally a new agreement was hammered out. This is what happens when the USSF is seperate to MLS. Somehow Soccer House in Chicago and MLS HQ in NYC have to come together and be in the same building in the same city.

Maybe the wrong people are running Soccer House in Chicago and we have to get the right people who are more passionate and truly believe in the American Player as well as our American League.

I didn't think of this overnight ladies and gentleman, I had to read all the evidence that is currently out there on the internet including what's on the other Sections of the USA Men's section of Big Soccer. But right now this is what I think and feel what the US Soccer Federation has done. Laziness and unprofessional to boot.


I'm fairly unhappy with the whole process, but exactly what tickets do you think were left on the table?

You have no idea what you're talking about.

[TxFan]

It seems to me that US Soccer just does an incredibly poor job at promoting the sport and accessing input for ways to make it better.

i think that's a totally fair criticism. i've also emailed questions via the feedback form and not received a response. having said that though, i guess there may be limits to what they can do to promote the game. everything requires funds. lots of funds. i don't think they are doing a good job, but it would be nice to know they are trying.

i think that ussoccer just doesn't realize at times how far they have come from the bad old days. they really don't seem to have a grasp of how much soccer has picked up and how many loyal fans they do have. once they get a better grasp of their strength hopefully they will stop pulling their punches versus fifa, concacaf, nike and espn...

[Adam Zebrowski]

I think ussf knows FULL well what's going on in the ticket situation....

they were allocated 8% of the tickets, basically 10,000....

in soccer mad usa, 40,000 made requests...

that's a pittance compared to demands elswhere...

it's just like getting tickets to the super bowl...

KNOW someone...meaning a sponsor...

or get ready to shell out the big bucks to those agencies who can get you tickets....

it's all supply and demand.....

and while ussf can NO way meet the demand, without knowing their efforts, and the limitations to their efforts, how can criticism be just??

[Bill Schmidt]

Follow this up with not announcing the results until AFTER the deadline to apply to FIFA for the follow-up round. What a ********ing disgrace.
And that's after having announced they planned to get the results to people before the FIFA deadline.

[Adam Zebrowski]

http://search.espn.go.com/keyword/search?partner=front&searchString=usa+world+cup+tickets

try here to get tickets...

[ChelseaMatt]

Gelsenkirchen: 48,000 x .08 = 3840
Kaiserslautern: 41000 x .08 = 3280
Nuerenberg: 37000 x .08 = 2960
Total given to USSF: 10,080

That means they kept 80 tickets for themselves. You should thank the USSF for being so generous.
Wow! Talk about naive!!