I didn't go to business school, but that sounds like a bad business model. In that case, hosting an MLS team in Round 3 might not be a good idea if they have zero ticket revenue. I have a hard time believing they don't charge admission to their games. Free to kids maybe, but for everyone?
Here's the schedule for USASA Region IV qualifying Friday, May 4 Group A: EP Elite vs. The Internationalist and Doxa Italia vs. Cal FC, 1 p.m. Group B: OC Crew vs. Pittsburg Galaxy and PSA Elite vs. DV8 Defenders, 3 p.m. Saturday, May 5 Group A: The Internationalist vs. Doxa Italia and Cal FC vs. EP Elite, 8 a.m.; The Internationalist vs. Cal FC and Doxa Italia vs. EP Elite, 3 p.m. Group B: Pittsburg Galaxy vs. PSA Elite and DV8 Defenders vs. OC Crew, 10a.m.; OC Crew vs. PSA Elite and DV8 Defenders vs. Pittsburg Galaxy, 5 p.m. Sunday, May 6 Championship game, 9 a.m. If you follow @usopencup timeline, they said or as olujosh said USASA Region IV got permission from US Soccer to hold their tourney after the April 29th deadline.
Thanks, i've meaning to get that region iv format posted for the last week or so, but I haven't had time. The joys of a skeleton crew website ...
Fresno has a deal with a local sponsor, so all of their tickets are free. To everybody. The sponsor has paid for them. Now, it may very well be that you couldn't do that for an Open Cup match (I don't know what the deal with the sponsor is, exactly), that USSF wouldn't let you do that or just wouldn't let you host. You could very well make the case that "Well, that's for PDL matches, but you have to pay to get tickets to an Open Cup match." To which the populace might very well say, "I don't think so." Seeing as how they're now conditioned to see the value of a Fuego ticket to be $0. And I show 91 games in which a lower-division team has hosted an MLS team in the Open Cup, with an average attendance of 5,240 (skewed a bit by Portland drawing 12k+ when they hosted Seattle and Rochester getting 9k+ overall, the median is 4,216). The Bucks have averaged 5,739 for theirs. Harrisburg only got 1900 for the Red Bulls in 2010 and CP Baltimore just 1,654 for New York in 2008, but those are the only sub-2,000 crowds I show since 2002.
Theyre free for everyone. Its why the PDL team is averaging over 4,000 a game. Thats more than every USL team. Think about it, PDL teams average, what 50 fans? At $10 a fan thats....$500. You pay more in costs for staff to collect the money. Meanwhile, 4,000 fans = beer sales, drink sales, jersey sales etc. You make more money. Hosting an MLS team they could certainly charge, but for early round games against amateur and other PDL teams? On a week night? Probably not. Last time the Fuego hosted MLS teams were Earthquakes and Chivas USA in 2010. Off the top of my head, attendance was 5,000+, and tickers were charged (general admission). Cant find the actual numbers though.
To be fair, the Fuego had drawn pretty well (very well for a PDL team) when people had to pay for the product (3,068 in 2007 and a league-leading 3,384 in 2008). Except for, at the moment, Orlando and Richmond. Charleston's at 3,999. Richmond won't keep it up, but Rochester hasn't played a home game yet. League average has been right around 500 the last 10 years or so, though 23 teams last year were under 200 a game. Some teams make no effort to sell tickets. I couldn't tell you why. Obviously, the Fuego feels it's a good deal for them. At least they get revenue certainty on that line item. I don't know what their deal with the park is, how much of concessions they get, but it's not always as simple as you make it out to be. Given they've proven they can sell tickets, one might think they're leaving money on the table, but the fact they're doing it for a second year seems to indicate they are happy with the arrangement. Neither San Jose nor Chivas lists the games in their media guides (preseason friendlies for them), but Fresno's game report said they drew "almost 5,000 fans" for the Chivas game but doesn't list the crowd for the Earthquakes game.
All of this Fresno Fuego free-ticket talk reminds me of the times when the Laredo Heat outbid the Michigan Bucks (twice) to host the PDL Final, and all of those tickets were free. Very frustrating when you're trying to build your product to your home crowd, and just get outbid by some big-money Texas guys. But, the way I read the new LHUSOC rules, is that you pay the base fee when you submit a bid to host; they keep that check if you are selected to host; if your attendace gate was less than the base fee, you pay no more; if your gate was more than the base fee, you pay the percentage of what you made above the base. So to use this Fresno as the example case: if they submit the fee to host, and get selected; then they let everyone in for free, then they've already paid the hosting money, and get no refund.
USASA Region-II (2013) Just a thinking-out-loud question... Is there a way to get R-II get more than six teams in its tournament? The R-II web site lists fourteen state associations ( http://www.soccermidwest.us/ ). I've never seen more than seven teams in the regional tourney (even when NPSL teams were included), leading to the "most states don't even submit a team" plaint. This year's format was kept as single-elimination, but this time held at one site over a weekend (presumably because the qualy deadline was pushed up this year). Previously, it was held over three weekends, with matches at home teams' sites. Does qualifying have to be state-based? Couldn't teams be allowed to apply directly for a regional tournament? It would be nice to have maybe 16+ teams apply, have preliminary round matches to get down to 8, and have a finals weekend with group-play (as other regions do). But I do realize that USASA should run their tournaments as they see fit. (We like to call these "LHUSOC qualifiers" but in reality they are "USASA qualifiers" that also send teams to the LHUSOC.)
Will they announce the first round match-ups this Monday? Or will it be next week after Region 4 of USASA is finished?
The ownership thing is complicated. The Fuego are mostly owned by the same people who own the baseball team. The baseball stadium is owned by the city because someone who was supposed to pay for it defaulted (of course). The teams pay rent...but most of the rent is waived if the teams dont meet certain revenue goals. So I have no idea who makes which money when. The baseball team does naturally charge for games...sort of. Im actually going to a game tonight in which the team pretty much pays you to go... $32 buys you two tickets, two hot dogs, and two drinks. Good value right? And then they throw in two tickets to the water part (usually 27.99 each) AND two tickets to mini golf ($7 each) AND two tickets to a kids storyland thing. So pretty much if you plan on going to the water park (I do) the cheapest way to buy admission tickets is via the baseball package. In the end, the fans win I guess. Back to the US Open talk...I hope Fresno does host so they can kick all the butts.
Fresno Fuego (PDL) at Stanislaus United Turlock Express (US Club Soccer): Academica Fields; Turlock, Calif.; 7 p.m. PT
The pairing for Rounds 1 & 2 were released earlier today: http://thecup.us/2012-us-open-cup-first-round-matches-unveiled-for-may-15-second-round-pairings-set/ Here's the bracket: http://thecup.us/2012-us-open-cup-bracket/ Here's a map of all the 2012 entrants in the US Open Cup (minus the USASA Region IV teams): http://thecup.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/2012-usoc-entrants-map.png
And then off to....Florida. Lame sauce. Whats weird is that to qualify for the US Open Cup, Stanislaus United Turlock Express played their last game at.....the Fresno Fuego stadium. Thats where the tournament was held.
So now we know that CAL FC & PSA Elite have qualified from Region IV, which one will face either Portland Timbers U-23's or Kitsap Pumas?
Since Cal FC is now all the rage, does anyone know what they did to make USASA's Region IV qualification tourney? Was there an open tournament, did they have to achieve certain results in a Region IV league, etc.
http://thecup.us/eric-wynaldas-cal-...region-iv-to-complete-2012-us-open-cup-field/ Don't know how they got into the qualifying tournament, but they only had to play twice once they got there because one of the teams that also got in forfeited all its games. It doesn't appear to have been a tournament that was really hard to get into.
I believe the way you get into the Regional tournaments is to win a State tournament... with CA being two 'states' for these purposes, having a CA South and CA North. It varies from Region to Region and State to State, but not much. In some cases, the state hosting the Regional tournament has been allowed an extra team, and in many cases only one team registers for a state (actually, in most cases, none), so there's no competition to get there. You should be able to get all the details somewhere on thecup.us.