Eh, if Precourt was so good at things, why did his former team get screwed over? In prior years the team could have avoided midweek matches in April and early May. We could have played less than 3 home matches in March. Those matches have to be played at some point but it didn't have to be this early.
Again, I think you're reaching because there are plenty of cities that have tough winters in the league. Notice the league has chosen to expand into mostly warmer climates recently, probably as a correction to the league's early expansion. Like I said, Columbus is hopefully better off with an ownership that's committed to make the market successful. We know you have a distaste for one particular owner, but blaming all the shortcomings on one person isn't very believable.
To you, because you think that person magically changed into something he has never, ever been. Can we put this topic to bed?
Latitude has nothing to do with it. The league is trying to squeeze the 34 game season into fewer weeks so the playoffs end sooner. They also have to schedule around the Gold Cup and other international windows. Fine, it means more midweek matches and fewer bye weeks. But it doesn't mean more home games earlier in the year than in prior years. The mid week matches could have been in July or August or September (better drawing months than March-April-May). The teams can't make their schedule themselves but can tell the league when they are available to play. It doesn't help Precourt to tank Crew attendance for 2019 but the Haslam/Edwards team didn't take over until after the schedule was made. So who is to blame in your view? Garber?
You probably wont like it, but ill say it again. 17 potentially bad winter clubs in the league and all of them will say the same thing come schedule-making time. "We cant play home games in the early season". 5 Stadiums opened since 2017, and likely have first consideration at the moment. 3 Canadian teams who probably have worse winters than Ohio 2 teams were working on their stadium, and thus couldn't start the season at home anyways. 2 NY teams will always get preferential treatment, because the market is too big to ignore. 1 Ohio expansion team that will get preferential treatment as an expansion. Plenty of reasons why your team could be shafted when it comes schedule time. You don't need someone to blame. Your club will crawl its way back to relevance soon enough. Your market preference for home games will swing your way when the new stadium opens in 2021, and MLS is already working to balance the league geographically. .
And once again the Crew have exactly 2 midweek home matches this year. Both have already been played. For that matter, one of the March home matches could have been made a mid-week match in better weather. It's really not that hard, they've done it plenty of times in the past.
That's not what he's saying. We play two home mid-week matches all season. One was scheduled in April, and other in early May. It would be better for attendance to play these matches in warmer months. I suspect we tend to over simplify the complexities of an MLS schedule. And I doubt the Crew are the only club this this year who feel as though their home schedule is terribly flawed (Chicago played 5 of its first 7 matches at home, all by April 20). But 6 of our first 9 matches at home between March 2 and April 24 is undeniably shitty. Maybe Portland having its stadium online all season next year will help. Even Minnesota, which certainly can't play a lot of home games early on, will have a stadium all year and will play at least a home game or two in the first couple of months of the season. Expansion clubs in warmer climates should help. But only if MLS schedules in a such a way that it tries to take advantage of these opportunities. To date, MLS seems kinda tone deaf when it comes to clubs in colder climates. Teams seem to play very similar schedules regardless of climate. I don't get the sense that MLS sees this as being a problem. Unless, perhaps, particular owners demand something better. In Central Ohio, we rather doubt PSV cared at all what kind of schedule the Crew were given this season. Maybe the Haslam and Edwards families will demand end get a better schedule next season. But unless there's a change in league priorities and processes, it certainly looks as though playing in at least some challenging early season weather will be a perpetual issue for some clubs. The best we can probably hope for is change in the margins.
Agreed. I have been watching MLS attendance threads on here for over 20 years and it took several years before the conspiracy theories and false reporting threads were kicked out and it became a very solid discussion based on stats and trends. It's unfortunate that the individuals who spent so much effort in providing and maintaining this information have left. It has created a vacuum that is again being filled with people who just don't understand the history and why those discussion are not only pointless but drive people away from the thread.
Agreed. We don't want to make this a Columbus Grievance thread. There are lots of other places to debate that subject.
What conspiracy theories? The reported attendance does not line up with butts-in-seats. There may be reasonable explanations for that on a case-by-case basis, including DC fans afraid of the rain huddling in the concourse, but the "stats" do not cohere with the eye-test, and that is true across virtually the entire league. It's worth discussing.
But the distinction between tickets distributed and tickets sold verses butts in the seats is not that clear. I am a DC United Season Ticket holder who decided he did not want to go to a game under such horrible conditions (and they were really bad). So yes my tickets were counted and yes I was not there. So what? I don't agree that MLS is "slipping back to old ways" - what does that mean?
If you've a way of measuring that let's hear it. Until then, a thread has been created to talk speculation so...have fun.
What I see with my own eyes is not speculation. The fact that it cannot be converted to "stats" does not make it false. And the fact that teams report attendance with numbers do not make their stats true.
@POdinCowtown maybe we should rename this thread the weekly attendance summary. Anyone who wants to discuss bums in seats versus tickets distributed can start a separate thread. FWIW I think the two are getting closer due to ticket trade-in programs and fewer free tickets being distributed.