And good for them. It just takes a while for it to pay off in ticket sales. Telling someone there is a game is not the same as selling them a ticket to that game. It's an obvious first step, but only a step.
Agreed. And he seems to be looking at the long game. His Twitter update talked about increasing the numbers in 2018 as much as any increases expected this season.
Cosmos on the road since 2013: Year....G.....Total....Avg. 2013....7....38,292...5,470 2014...13....78,961...6,074 2015...15...110,281...7,352 2016...16....77,439...4,840 2017...11....55,738...5,067 TOTAL..62...360,711...5,818
This coming week sees a midweek game in Miami and games at Jacksonville, Puerto Rico, San Francisco, and Edmonton. The weekly average may not crack 3,000, depending on how Miami draws.
Miami is lucky to be playing on a Wednesday this week. NO ONE in Florida is going to be playing home matches this weekend...with the possible exception of Jacksonville. Even the Dolphins and Bucs are likely to postpone their game on Sunday.
So, 12 more open letters, and they will be in business! If the owner was willing to stick around for the long haul, and had some more local competition to cut down on travel... over time as people learned about the club they might be able to grow to the level they want. Though, "might" is still very far from a sure thing, and the owner has no patience to find out.
Well....would you want to lose millions just hoping to get to break even in a league that had zero stability? Very few would, but because it's "sports" fans seem to think you should because "you have the money", what's the big deal. Of course we see this in Europe all of the time. Outisde of the big sugar daddy clubs, even in the EPL, it's lamented constantly how the owners aren't willing to pony up, and just lose more of their own cash. Selfish owners.
Completely agree. If an owner though is planning on starting a team in lower league soccer anywhere in the world, but definitely in the US and even more so in a very large competitive city it is irrational to expect things to just work out in season 1. You can build up a niche following over time. Going into SF and expecting 5k attendance every game the first year was irrational unless they had REALLY pushed publicity on it. In fact, most businesses (outside the random tech companies that take off) experience a few years in the red while they build up a clientele. It is pretty common, and experienced business people really should be expecting it. Which I guess explains the Deltas even more.