At this point, you're nothing more than an attendance troll. 18 of your last 20 posts have been in this thread, all negative. You have nothing to offer the forum right now, so I won't be responding to your shitposts. I wish everyone else did the same, but to each their own.
If you'll recall, 95+% of his posts in the Mega Thread were all negative too. And not just negative, but "ALL IS LOST!!!" type doom and gloom.
The revenue numbers are from last year's Forbes article on MLS team valuations. The promise of enough local sponsorships to get the team to middle of the pack revenue was something Fischer mentioned had been offered to PSV if they stayed. Presumably it is also on offer to the new owners too.
Hmm that’s my bad then. I know there was one ticket level I was looking at that made you select the home opener and the select your other games. I tried getting it for my fiancé but she could make the home opener due to work and I ended up just not getting one instead
Simply pointing out the fact that attendance is trash (which we all know) and rather understanding that everyone needs to do better, most of you just make excuses. “Hey the final four was on last night, what did you expect?” It’s like everyone wants a perfect situation to attend games.
It all depends on your priorities! I chose soccer and the Crew over the other sports a long time ago!
We have excuses because they are actual real reasons people don't attend. You dont have to like it or respect it...but that's reality. If you're above all of this...since your dedication is not fairweather, but steadfast and unwavering...what are your real solutions for the issues of attendance?? Have you ever bothered to consider why some people dont show up? Not everyone is as diehard of a fan as you and the rest of us on Big Soccer. Most arent actually. Most treat it like a fun, affordable, good weather, night out for the family. Not a religious mass they attend out of committed faith every weekend. Its gonna take time. Its gonna take investment in improving on the field, as well as in the facilities and infrastructure, as well as in their marketing and advertising. Like we said. Massive undertaking. Get mad now if you want to or need to...but you're gonna get emotionally exhausted really quick that way.
If you bought online...you had to pick the opener. If you called in 2 weeks into the new regime and told them what you wanted to do to support the pledge, you didn't
Not that I think this is the most important reason, but those three cities have MLB teams (Chicago has two, of course) and since their seasons run pretty much concurrently, I would argue baseball is MLS' biggest competitor when it comes to the casual sports fan's attendance dollars. Several years ago I did some analysis that I presented on the Massive Report podcast, where I found that having a MLB team in the same market was, aside from having won trophies recently, the biggest determinant of lower ticket prices for a MLS team. YMMV.
I really think there needs to be some sort of reality check. We can blame Precourt, the Hunts before them, Don Garber, Alan Rothenberg, the weather, Matt Geiger, David Beckham skipping Columbus, quarterhorses, fans with naughty language, the lack of capos, scoreboard fires, and a host of other things. At the end of the day we have over 20 years of data right now and more than 20 years of excuses. The fanbase, and the cities dedication to the team is what it is. We may see a 1-2 year bump when the new stadium comes in, and that will be great and we will all feel good. And then we will likely go back down to hoping to draw 15k on average. Cities like Atlanta, Cincinnati, KC, and yes probably even Austin passing us by. Thing is averaging 15-16k a game to watch soccer in a very nice new stadium in 4-5 years, after the initial attendance bump, isn't bad at all. The hand-wringing over attendance is typical Columbus Inferiority Complex stuff. Who cares what other fans or talking heads say. If the owners are committed and you are going to the game, just concentrate on the product on the field. That's what matters most.
Attendance problems of other teams are not my concern. Columbus Crew attendance problems are, insofar as they present a poor image for the team.
No, but we don't ever want to be, either. And we don't do ourselves any favors by always being in the bottom quarter of team attendance. It does seem as though 15K is the new 10K in terms of bottom-end team averages in MLS, though. If so, it's hard to imagine that number getting much higher. Most new stadiums are in the 20K range, so a 15K average assumes Club X is selling/distributing 75% of their tickets which, by historical standards, isn't too shabby in MLS. At the other end of the spectrum, there was/is a sub-set of posters in here who were lobbying for a larger stadium, or at least for one that was built to make it easily expandable. I'm hoping we can put that debate to rest, but I doubt it. In the end, I don't think that, with these new owners, we have much to worry about in terms of being "the league's most-pressing attendance problem" because the league isn't going to pester us much. But I think we're deluding ourselves if we assume that the Haslam and Edwards families don't care about our attendance numbers. Personally, I hope and have to believe that they care - a lot - about attendance.
Did anyone see the New York Redbulls match? They tarped off entire sections of their stadium and still had mostly empty seats. According to ESPN- the attendance was 15,700. There were what, maybe like 8k people who were actually inside that stadium? Our 10,900 or whatever number felt pretty close to 10,900 of fans in the stands. Maybe higher 9k, lower 10k. I have a feeling MLS as a whole doesn't care about the number of fans who actually go to the games. They just care about how many fans had a ticket distributed to them. I think they would rather see red bulls stadium have 5 fans actually inside for a game, and have a reported 'attendance' number of 15k, then see a half-filled crew stadium with 10k people there, but only have 10,900 listed as the attendance number.
I get this to a point. If the point is that we are unlikely to attract big name players because they don't want to play in front of a mostly empty stadium I concede that point. But as far as other images of the team, how they are perceived locally or nationally in terms of non-on field items like attendance, branding etc, it means very little to me. I've just given up arguing for the relevance or importance of MLS and it's franchises. It's going to be looked at in the same vein as minor league baseball in most cities.
That was a lot of it. Another component is we're also unlikely to attract more lucrative sponsorship deals, also limiting our ability to attract big name players.
So is saying stop whining about attendance. Which I believe was your position. Great contribution to the thread. Which I started, BTW. Factors which can affect attendance: 1) Weather: not an issue last week. 2) Ownership neglect & understaffing. We have had our share and the FO was in shambles 3 months ago. Still, not too long ago we had good numbers with PSV at the helm. Again, I get there was a ton to do prior to the season starting, and they were understaffed. In my view 3 months SHOULD be long enough to start hiring needed staff. And all the info I have seen says we still do not have it. My point is you can only decry the previous regime's lack of attention for so long. Eventually, you have to deliver. How long do you get a free pass for? 3 months? Four? Six? A year? Frankly, the fact that we are still so understaffed bothers me much more than the actual numbers. The staffing situation starts to speak to a lack of commitment at some point. Not quite there yet for me, but it is close. 3) Community outreach/penetration. Decades of neglect here. Gonna take a while. 4) Media coverage. Remains dreadful but largely out of FOs control. Though Dr. Pete has certainly done good radio stuff.
This and Jim's previous post are spot on. I guess there are two things that really chap my @$$ going on here. First, the complete strawman idea from the unicorn & rainbows brigade that discussing the continued attendance issues somehow means we cannot enjoy the season. Or that it means we think our attendance issues are MLS' #1 issue. Or that means we think we are in relocation danger. That is all BS. No one is saying that. What we are saying is that we hoped for a bigger improvement. Especially with the nice weather. Further, as Jim said, how the team is perceived, nationally, can impact our ability to attract players. Which hurts the team. This goes directly to the heart of the matter. And I know the FO is concerned. I have run into Onstad two of the last 3 matches, and he brought up attendance, unsolicited, both times. So yeah, I am a Crew fan. I want the team to succeed. And I understand good attendance can help and poor attendance can hinder. So when attendance sucks, I get frustrated. Especially when the FO is still understaffed and the weather is awesome. Second, when people come into the attendance thread and whine about people talking attendance. Self-evident.