[skippybentley]

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/a...nt?oid=1973424

From Sean Nelson of theStranger.com

"But also... I mean, of COURSE Seattle would be into soccer. It's almost too perfect. It's the hybrid car with the Obama bumper sticker of pro sports, a distillation of exactly what people from Des Moines to Des Moines think is so noxious about Seattleites with their fleece jackets and their recumbent bikes and their lattes and their solar-powered condos and their adopted minority babies and their gay-marriage advocacy and... Despite having no political affiliation or even reverberation, soccer fits comfortably into any generic anti-liberal screed you'd care to level. And yet, is it not awesome? Go to a game, you'll see: Soccer is awesome. Fact. The negative energy sent by the Romes and Olbermanns of the world is like a dare; let them judge our motives, our attitudes, our pretensions—we'll be over here enjoying the match. They are free to hate the player, but they should stop hating the game."

Most players in the MLS are from a similar college boy background. Funny that WASPs and liberal have finally caught on as fans. Success in Seattle was not predicted. In fact, just 3 years ago, the International Journal of Sport Management predicted that Seattle would have a very difficult time supporting a franchise. See link.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...ract_id=926202

[Couverite]

Three years ago, Seattle had the Sonics.

An NBA team requires a much larger sponsorship base than an MLS team.

[NYCfan]

Writers an @sswipe.

[BringSoccerToIndy]

I'll believe it when the Grateful Dead do the MLS Cup halftime show. That would be awesome.

[superdave]

Originally Posted by BringSoccerToIndy

I'll believe it when the Grateful Dead do the MLS Cup halftime show.

The "y" in yuppie stands for young. The Grateful Dead are more of a ouppie band, or maybe a mauppie band.

[Sachin]

I like the way the article dumps Olbermann into the anti-liberal camp.

This link should be moved to Fans or better yet Politics.

[tomwilhelm]

<shrug>

Could have made the same (reshashed) point in about 1/10th the space.

[Beerking]

New?

[Red&Black]

actually though there are some interesting points in terms of the types of people that mls is attracting now. certainly within the barra brava and at united in general we are seeing a lot of growth coming in the "young professional" market segment--the new fans we are attracting are generally from about 23-35, most live in DC or the inside the beltway suburbs--though i don't think a common political orientation exists.

this is a trend that has been happening around DC for the past 3-4 seasons and the team is beginning to market to this group--the current bar tour for the usoc final and the college and ladies nights promotions.

[Sachin]

I guess if this is Seattle's demographic, it would also explain why the National Team draws flies there.