The "Let's All Laugh at aust!n" Thread

Mike Ashley is a c***.

 

Not really. It's not well thought out and would actually help them in the short term (PR, RECORDZ, BUZZ, EXCITEMENT) that might actually help them in the long term. It's stupid, pointless, immature. And more likely to backfire or be a complete non factor.

 

Aside from the fact that it's simply not true that they have taken anything like 32,000 st deposits - it's simply ridiculous - can someone reconcile the fact that a number like that o er the reported 18 hours means they took roughly 30 deposits a minute, including all night long?

 

Are you factoring in when the website wasn’t working too?

 

Eh, with no human interaction required, it doesn't seem impossible. On the other hand when I worked with an ecommerce company they had a heavily hyped product that sold globally. For the US market a new release would sell out in a couple of hours at 10K units. Or about 80 per minute. Austin FC is drawing from a much smaller audience. And one that has shown no sign of the devotion the ecommerce company's product had.

Edit: Austin isn't claiming they had 30K individual sales, they claim to have sold reservations for 30K seats in lots of up to 8 seats per transaction. So that's more feasible. Of course if they only had 6K individual depositors, that's a lot less impressive.

 

It's simply bogus. A flatout lie, and not a very convincing one. It does not pass the smell test.

Here's part of a post over at View From the End Line from aguy who just spent a few days in Austin visiting friends:

I met a lot of really great folks, but one thing that really threw me for a loop was that I did not see a single piece of Austin FC advertising anywhere. In fact, as I chatted with folks throughout the greater Austin area, wherever we were, virtually no one knew anything about the new team. A few folks seemed to remember something about a stadium being built, while others had heard there was a new sports team coming to town but didn’t really know much about it.

Just a few days ago, Austin FC broke the MLS record for the most season-ticket deposits in one day, reporting more than 30,000 deposits for the 2021 season. That means at least 3% of the estimated population of Austin is vying to guarantee their seat in the new stadium in the club’s inaugural year. Surely I would have bumped into more than just one person who was interested in MLS coming to Austin.

To be honest, I didn’t see one billboard, one sign, one commercial, one banner, or one anything. I remember when OCSC announced it was going to become an MLS franchise. There were billboards everywhere and advertising around every corner (I was on a few around town), it created a massive buzz throughout Central Florida, and you couldn’t help but bump into someone who was just as excited as yourself that Orlando City was about to join MLS. ...the absolute lack of seeing anything about the newest MLS club anywhere in the city was very surprising.

https://www.themaneland.com/2019/6/16/18656543/view-from-the-end-line-a-tale-of-two-mls-cities

So we're supposed to believe that Austin, a city where PSV has been lucky to gin up "crowds" of more than 100 people even with the promise of free shirts, free scarves and free beer, nonetheless got 3% of their population to sign up for season tickets with literally NO advertising, no marketing and zero public interest.

The brilliant marketing and sales team headed by noted incompetent bumbler Andy Two Buttons, along with their pals over at ECPR have pulled off the marketing coup of the century: they have managed a massive sales success, a monumental, record-breaking tour de force, without spending one dollar on advertising or marketing and without making much of anyone give a shit about what they're selling.

It's a miracle!!! They'll be teaching seminars on "The PSV Method" at Wharton for the next century!!!!

It's a fraud, another PSV phony-baloney pile of crap. They wouldn't know the truth of they fell over it on the way to the can. They lie like normal people breathe. They haven't told the truth about one goddam thing in over two years, and they aren't starting now.

 

This ^^^ a thousand times.

 

I think it's telling that after claiming to have sold 30K season tickets for their 20K stadium, they are still offering tickets for sale with no mention of a waiting list. If they didn't actually have seats available, they would be breaking a Texas fair business practices law as Don Gagliardi pointed out.

 

I think you're giving them more credit than they deserve. Compliance with state laws is not their strong suit.

 

I'm doing some very (very) rough math here, just to get a ballpark idea. Let's say in a year or three Dr. Pete and company get our average attendance up to 17-18k. Of course, some games could be 22-25k and there'll be games with maybe 12-14k...in other words, similar to what attendance was like circa 1999-2004 or so. We'd get 18-19k or more if for a hyped-up weekend game against Chicago, but a weekday game against SJ or Colorado would maybe struggle to get 15k.

Meanwhile, Austin claims 30k memberships, which is obviously going to be a lot less. Was it FB or here where someone jokingly suggested that it would have been great if Crew fans had set up bots to inflate that number? Either way...

If the Crew had moved, that's a net increase of approximately...maybe 5k at best? 10k?

Compare that to Orlando, Atlanta or anyone else.

The Nordecke itself is about 3k capacity IIRC, and that doesn't include section 201 or the Nordecke ticket holders who routinely gather on the upper concourse, which is a gripe of mine, but whatever.

Don't tell me they were going to move the team over a difference of about 2-3 more Nordeckes.

This whole thing was never about "lack of support" but it was always about Garber wanting out of Columbus.

If they had won, it makes me wonder about Colorado, RSL or who knows where else. New England and DC are safe. Chicago is going to move back into city limits. Dallas is in a terrible location, but they're safe.

 

Clinging to “random guy reports anecdotal experience” is so cute.

 

Well, there's no evidence that Austin FC set a deposit sales record other than their claim to have done so. But it's undermined by the fact they are still telling people buying tickets today that they'll get seats. If they are confident that 10K or more of their first day sales won't materialize, then they didn't really set a record did they?

 

No reason to respond to an obvious sock account.

 

That'd be a great get and actually makes sense.

 

Well, his birthday is June 1. He just turned 31 and therefore couldn't play a match for Austin until he was a few months shy of 33. Maybe his asking price will drop (considerably) by then. He seems to be under contract through June of next year.

I have a bottomless hate for Precourt. Still, I do give him credit for actually spending some money on the Crew's roster (or, rather, letting Berhalter do so). It's far more cash than HSG every spent, and they certainly have deeper pockets than PSV. Does that mean Tony could afford a 32+ year old Chicharito? Who knows? Maybe he expects his bud Donny G to help him out. Stranger things have happened, especially when it comes to a league that repeatedly wets itself trying to figure out how to market to Hispanics.

 

You're new to MLS, aren't you?

 

This article is always a fun read:

A Ferrari, a coin flip and 5 other bizarre signing stories you'd only see in MLS

 

I'll believe Precourt can sign Chicharito when the press conference happens. Until then, it's just Tony Twochins talking out his butt. If the little pea did come to MLS, he's more likely to end up in LA or maybe Chicago.