The Union sales team is asking for a monetary commitment from breweries / distributers/ restaurants etc in exchange for carrying their products that fall outside of the typical bud/Miller etc. When I worked for a brewery, they asked us for 50k a year for 2 years in exchange for them essentially forcing the concessions company to carry us at the two craft bars (the one in the plaza and the river deck) , and providing some signage/advertising in stadium. They don't buy anywhere near 50k in beer for the season, so we politely declined. But that's why you saw sterling pig etc last season. Dogfish pulled their commitment to the deck and they needed to make up the money. I would suspect most of the breweries they got last year have dropped out this year
You are aware and understand that the Union's FO doesn't set the concession drinks right? The concessionaire they hire determines and sets the drinks based on what their costs are.
Well, he's not technically incorrect, they have a certain number of openings they can play with. But, in the end, all the buying is done by the concessions company (it was ovations at the time). Also, all of this is illegal in principle but since they frame it as the company paying for advertising it slides by on a technicality
The lowest-attended regular season game at 14,795!!! Second was 14,838 from a Friday night 10/3/14 against the Fire. I didn't see the game, but my dad texted me only mentioning how empty it looked. Wonder if people really were true to their word, and didn't renew this year.
My prediction is people will hear the paid attendance and complain that it's not the actual attendance.
From the Digital Town hall they held today McDermott says they were at 86-87% renewal rates last year. (which he says was an uptick) 4th in MLS.
4th in MLS for what? Renewal rate percentage? It's all relative. Long gone are the days when there is (was?) a season ticket waiting list. 85% (give or take) is actually a net loss on a year-by-year basis for renewals. I'd say anything below 100% renewal rate is poor. Let's say last year, for argument's sake, there were 15,000 STHs. 85% of that is 12,750. 85% of that is 10,838. Then 9,212 ... Then 7,830 ... Then 6,655 ... Then we're talking Open Cup levels of attendance. Retain your season ticket holders. Get people clamoring for tickets. Supply, demand, and all that jazz. Maybe they're one and the same.
Tim blames weather for poor attendance. Thinks we need a few more weeks of weather like today in order to get the numbers up. (I'm sure there is some truth to this, but LOL either way) Says big picture ticketing-wise he says they have exceeded their expectations on full season tickets budget wise. Group tickets up 11% higher over last year... thinks single games will pick up with weather improving.... .... .. idk. He thinks fans appreciate the Union's strategy of a youth based approach.
They mean 85% retention, that's not counting new season ticket holders. Overall they are likely maintaining or increasing the number of season ticket holders but given in-game attendance you can see the shift in the type of fan they are retaining and targeting. You're going from die-hard soccer fans to casual "weekend out with the kids" type fans who may not attend every game, give tickets away or whatever. When you think about it, this makes a lot of business sense to the Union. Retaining die-hard soccer fans requires you to field a good, entertaining team and win matches. Bringing in casual fans just requires you to turn the lights on and maybe put on a little half time show with some kids kicking a ball through a hoop to win some kind of prize sponsored by, I dunno, Dave's Double Dutch Diner, conveniently located on the Beltway. Make sure to stop by Dave's Double Dutch Diner booth on your way to the concessions for free samples of all of their tasty butter and lard based deep fried doughy sensations. But you see the strategy here. They're never gonna win games, so its futile to try and court the kind of serious fans that would constantly demand better play on the field. They basically have to go after the casual fans. So if you're confused why they appear to be more interested in choosing a mascot than finding a real coach, well, there you go. The mascot is more important to this team's business plan than the coach.
When you aim for double A baseball level of entertainment you get double A level attendance. Of course the Union are trying to charge major league prices and can't even deliver double A coaching.
For me, the relative lack of other season ticket holders, or really the abundant availability of cheap secondary market tickets, is the leading reason I'm leaning toward not renewing next year. Why not just pick up single-game tickets to games I can make and actually save money on a per-game basis?
The Union created the cheap secondary market themselves by directly linking the STH account to StubHub. I assume they get a cut directly from StubHub for this but my tickets had more value when I had to the little bit of work to list them.
The tweet says this is the number of fans that "have COME to Doop with us"....so is it ACTUAL attendance, rather than PAID attendance? Inquiring minds want to know.