I'm an ATL UTD fan, and was watching the DC United Vs. Orlando City match Sunday night. The teams march out, but Orlando doesn't have any kids escorting the players. It looked pretty peculiar on FS1. I'll have to watch this again tomorrow, as it's halftime now. I didn't hear any of the commentators mention it. Is there any explanation why only the home side had the children escorting them? Oversight? Orlando requested no escorts? Standing operating procedure? Unless the national commentators mentioned it, I'm not likely to hear information about this in Atlanta. Thanks!
I've noticed the same thing in some of the major games this past week. Only the home team had the escorts. And then the uniforms were for a major sponsor, like Wells Fargo or something. Is the $$ charged keeping other groups away that only the home team gets an escort?
(In prior seasons - dunno about this year) it cost each kid $50 to be an escort (cost of the replica uniform they get to keep) PLUS the cost of their ticket ... at AF that easily takes it to over $100 each ... that's $1100+ per team ... I can easily see why they are struggling to get youth team to fork out to be escorts (and add to that the cost of tickets for the parents and coach(es)).
It did look pretty bush league didn't it? Of course kids at games can be a real hair trigger conspiracy theory item among a few here.
FYI. I asked the owners of some Atlanta soccer websites about this, and they suggested that it might simply have been a weather issue that made one of the youth teams no-show the event. I still don't know. It was the only case of a 1-team has escorts that I've seen on TV this year. I wonder why teams don't arrange 'stand by' escorts in case something prevents one team from showing.
Those local kids support DC United. They don't want any cooties from the those punk-ass Orlando bitches.
So my son has been a mascot twice. The first time I won the silent auction at the preseason STM party and they gave me a tax receipt for all but $150. He walked out with Boswell and had fabulous experience in the game vs Toronto. Both teams had mascots. Second time our youth association put it out there, first come, first served. It cost $50 and again there were mascots for both teams. I want to say that tickets were $20 or 25 through the youth association. Killer experience and deal both times. But there’s no way in hell my son would ever do it with the visiting team. We had to cajole him into taking a pic with Juan Aguedelo last year by telling he played for the USMNT, when were pitch side for warmups. Dude was very nice, very gracious. There was one game this season when there were no mascots for either team. I don’t know why the team doesn’t put the experience out to STMs via FAM. Or offer it straight out to STM for the cost of the kit. The jersey costs more than $50 retail and you get team shorts and black soccer socks which I’ve noticed not all MLS teams do. That said I’d be pissed to pay a dime for a Wells Fargo jersey and kit. I get the sponsorship thing, but no. I’ve also see games in England and Germany where the visiting team only has a couple of mascots, but they’re wearing the visiting team kit. And some kids roll out in the GK kit to walk with the keeper. I just think that the team doesn’t have their shit in order yet and this item #748 that they need to worry about when they’re still clearly understaffed and playing catch-up.
it used to be included for groups, plus a slight charge, now you have to go out of your way and buy it through fam and what now. poor kids
I don't know about included. The first time I heard about they were looking for a $100-150 (don't remember the exact amount) outlay per child to cover the uniform and 4 tickets. Its not something you can buy with FAM at the moment, although I'd be motivated to get it if they did, since they've made the new place rather group unfriendly.
PT Barnum is still laughing his ass off because someone proves him right every minute of every day. Union scale for a child actor to walk across camera wearing an advert T shirt is a nice chunk of change and they find people willing to pay them? F'n amazing
I've done this many times at RFK (even provided escorts for Houston for MLS Cup '10) ... it cost $50 per player to cover the uniform and you had to commit to purchasing at least 25 tickets. You also had to have EXACTLY 11 kids ... no more no less (that caused great fun when I had rosters of 12 players!)
Why the team couldn't outfit the DC Kicks kids for free, beats the hell out of me. They could even base it on school grades, to get 22 kids to work harder. And if there are repeaters, they don't have to buy more uniforms, at least until a kid hits a growth spurt.
It was actually quite difficult to line up a spot at RFK ... if you did not get in at the start of the season the slots were pretty much all eaten up for the entire year by June or even earlier. That means it's unlikely there were many teams/groups that got to 'repeat' (all mine were done with different sets of kids) ... not to mention that kids in the allowed age group (4-11) do grow quite quickly so those that did likely outgrew the uniforms
Tottenham hosting Fulham. Only the Tottenham players (except for the Fulham captain) had kid escorts. They were wearing the Tottenham uniforms. Fulham was in a red away uniform, and only the captain had a kid escort, who was in a Fulham away blue uniform. Inner-city rivalry?
Well, whatever this is, it's a DC United thing, because DC walked out with kids, while New England had none. It's a pretty weak showing from the DC management and ownership.
Also, this is the New England Revs were talking about. I'd never send a kid out there with those thugs.
its the FO. I checked into this for my kid's team. The FO demands the youth team commit to purchasing 100 tickets to the game. Plus the cost of the kits.
Damn, that's a bite on the ass! Who the ******** is going to pay that, except for some team in Great Falls, or Potomac?
Kids on Sat came from Lee Mount Vernon SC ... I presume this was a club arranged outing with 11 of the kids getting to take part. Wonder how they choose them? When I organized Chantilly Youth Assoc outings - 150-300 tickets at a pop at RFK - I gave the spaces to the team that ordered the most - typically 35-45 tix).