Some random comments about attendance: Home matches in March are always horrible experiences, weather-wise. I can't blame anyone for not going. I would strongly prefer a 2:00 pm Saturday kickoff as the norm. I can go to the match during the day and then do something fun that evening. In 2008, the equivalent (i.e., second home match) saw about 6700 people watch us beat Chivas. It was also just about the most entertaining match I've ever seen in Crew stadium, so there's always a silver lining.
Has there been a push to have cold months (March April) down south and hot months (July August) up north? I would not be opposed to 1 home game in each March and April, and 3 home games in July and August. Then 2 home games in May, June, September. That gives us 14 Saturday Home games, mix in 3 Wednesday games and that's a season. It's too easy right? I'm sure there are numerous reasons why that can't happen, but has there been a push or even consideration to such a thing? If attendance is a big concern, I'm all for reducing obstacles.
I think most teams wouldn't like 3 home games in a month as it crowds the schedule. Crew can't do 3 in August at Mapfre because of the fair.
tOSU football, likely. Given that the fairgrounds are used for parking/shuttle service. Not that I'd object to a couple of Sunday matches, but then you go up against the NFL (and our one September home match is a Sunday game). And, I think there's a FIFA week in there somewhere (looked it up--there is--and one each in October and November as well). While I don't think the league has done us any favors with scheduling, to be fair, we're not the easiest team to schedule either. It will be interesting to see what happens if we have a home playoff game during the QHC.
Eh, given our restrictions, had they swapped out one March game for a later game, I would have been ok with it. Let's remember that we only have three weeks available in September in any case due to the FIFA calendar. The Gold Cup didn't help either.
I doubt OSU football has anything to do with this. We have had many games coincide with OSU home games over the years, and we actually tend to have some of our highest attendances on those days. As a matter of fact, a few years back OSU played Cincinnati at virtually the same exact time we were playing a home match. We had 19k+ on hand, and OSU set the record for attendance at the time with 108k on hand.
That said, you'll note that our September game this season is on a Sunday.... They also scheduled away from conflicts with Ohio State on the other two home games that season--2014 (one of which was on a Sunday). And, also to the point, is that there are only three weeks available in September, due to the FIFA week. So even if you split the games up fairly, half the teams will have only one home game in September. Scheduling is tough.
MLS schedules the last two weeks exclusively on Sundays now. So it wasn't a Crew decision to play on Sunday rather than Saturday. On the 29th all Eastern conference games kickoff at 5:00, all Western conference games kick off at 7:30. All games on Decision Day kick off at 4:00.
In 2 years no longer an issue. We used to schedule games during the fair. If I recall correctly my crew ticket used to get me admission to the fair. I mean when else do you already have an already made 100k captive audience in your parking lot? A bet some creative people could have made "Crew Fair Days" a huge win for both groups instead of petty in fighting over parking spots.
You'll note that our last home game every season is on a Sunday. In fact, that's how the entire league operates. Additionally, nationally televised games generally occur on Sundays. In 2014, we played on Sunday, September 7th because that game was nationally televised. We also played on Sunday, October 26th because it was the last game of the regular season. Correlation is not always causation.
But then another team has a home game in March. There are other teams, you know. There's 5 dates in May--odd number. You can't schedule 2.5 home games. One of which is a concert weekend at Mapfre. One of the August dates also is a concert date. Again, the point is that scheduling is not easy. I am not saying MLS did us any favors--they did not. But it's still a real challenge. Everybody's going to get some bad dates. Colorado, where it certainly gets colder/snowier than Columbus, also has three March home dates this year.
https://www.houstondynamo.com/713?u...l&hootPostID=40b012d0dd80283a22c9cfe6d108613b Who remembers "Columbus has the cheapest tickets in the league" being a business metrics issue for the Garbs?
If I were Crew I would do something similar for Wed. night games. Shoot if I were MLS would encourage all teams to do heavy discounting for week night games. TV optics for those games will not be good otherwise.