American expansion possibilities

Where would this team play in New York?

 

I think it odd that they would wait until after the season is over to really look at expansion and determine which groups might be awarded a franchise. It seems like they are setting it up to repeat the problems they had this year - not enough time to promote the team.

I do agree with the idea that expansion should be limited to two teams, unless they do something to recruit some of the international players (though I don't know how to do that without breaking the bank).

 

The article said it would be discussed at a meeting on the weekend of the championship game. Hopefully that means the bids will all be in an have been reviewed by that time so they will be deciding who the winners are, and can announce the expansion teams in September. That will give them a few more months of run-up time than the original 8 had. If they are going to expand for 2015 as well, hopefully they'll get to it a bit sooner. Maybe they could use this meeting to decide on 2 for 2014 (pick two teams that are already established MLS or W-League teams and will be OK with the shorter timeline) and 2 for 2015 (2 new teams that will need some more time to prepare) or something.

 

Where would FC Indiana's team be located? There are 10 Division I schools that have women's soccer in Indiana. They are spread around the state. Here are the 10 schools' average home attendance for 2012:

Ball State: 280
Butler: 257
Evansville: 290
Indiana: 369
Indiana State: 341
IPFW: 243
IUPUI: 476
Notre Dame: 1118
Purdue: 505
Valparaiso: 200

Total average DI attendance for Indiana DI schools: 4079

These numbers do not show great support for women's soccer, but they aren't awful numbers either. Notre Dame's number, in particular, is pretty good putting it as the #14 school in terms of average home attendance.

 

They play in Indianapolis now. I doubt they'd be moving. I don't know why they'd want to join the NWSL though, they would no longer be able to be the Haitian National Women's Team.

 

Indy = hometown of Lauren Holiday. A 2 hour (although very meh) drive from me, this franchise would be a winner in my book. From the DI attendance figures, looks like they would be able to compete with Sky Blue and Chicago ... so with the right owner/investor and appropriate costs - it could happen.

 

Are these numbers for paying fans excluding college students, or all attending including students who may not pay?

Just for comparisons, I looked at Rutgers women home games for '12. Ten games but attendance given for only nine.
Averaged of 622 per game including a high of 1,662 for an October game. Excluding the high, an avg. of 455.
Sky Blue avg. attendance to date is about 1,650 at the same Rutgers facility. or 2.65 times the average for Rutgers games. 3,62 times the average for Rutgers excluding the high game.

Pick a possible facility nearest to a school and do the math compared to that specific school to calculate a possible attendance.

 

Well let's pick Butler and IUPUI since these are both in Indy.... combined average is about 700/game. I don't think either of these programs is currently drawing elite talent for fans to view/support. Anyway, obviously there are other markets for expansion that would be more attractive or make more sense from a distribution/market size standpoint, just sayin'... there'd be a few season ticket buyers from my house .

 

Here are the attendance numbers for all of Rutgers' 2012 home games, for an average attendance of 667:

Date Day of Week Attendance Home Away
8/19/2012 Sunday 502 Rutgers OhioState
8/24/2012 Friday 1075 Rutgers Bucknell
8/26/2012 Sunday 316 Rutgers Siena
9/7/2012 Friday 392 Rutgers StonyBrook
9/14/2012 Friday 1145 Rutgers Villanova
9/16/2012 Sunday 458 Rutgers Georgetown
9/21/2012 Friday 483 Rutgers SouthFlorida
9/23/2012 Sunday 223 Rutgers Marquette
10/12/2012 Friday 1662 Rutgers Louisville
10/14/2012 Sunday 417 Rutgers Cincinnati

 

thanks, the Rutgers site did not have the Bucknell # which was my missing tenth game.

Generally, are these paying admissions or includes students who may not pay or pay at a student rate?

 

Here's the NCAA attendance statistics policy:

Attendance figures for official box scores and/or NCAA reports can be calculated by turnstile count, tickets sold or estimates. NCAA championship tournament figures always are compiled by tickets sold. Schools should make every effort to record an attendance figure on each
statistical box score it produces.
For doubleheaders involving the men’s and women’s teams, the attendance figure should be taken by halftime ofthe first game for it to count on that team’s season home attendance. If no figure is taken for the first game, do not count the game in that team’s season home attendance.
When there is one gate charge for two or more games, this is considered a session and should have only one attendance figure for all games of that session. If two or more games are played and there is no admission price, an attendance turnstile count or estimate should be made for each game individually. For baseball and softball doubleheaders, use one attendance figure (the higher of the two games) and count it as one date or session.
If a team is hosting a regular-season tournament, conference tournament or postseason NCAA tournament at its regular home site, the attendance figure should be included in its full season home attendance for each game or session in which that host team participates. If a team
is hosting a regular-season tournament, conference tournament or postseason NCAA tournament at a facility close by, the attendance figure can be included in its full season home attendance for each game or session in which the host team participates if the institution so chooses.
If a team moves a scheduled home game from its regular home site to another facility close by, that attendance can count on the team’s home attendance. Some teams have multiple dates at an off-campus facility that they consider to be home games. These games also can be included in
home attendance.
While season tickets for a particular sport can be included in a team’s attendance if counting by tickets sold, all-sport season tickets cannot be counted this way. Persons attending games with an all-sport season ticket can be counted if attendance is compiled by turnstile or estimate, but
not if determined by tickets sold.
In order for a team to rank among the attendance leaders nationally, it is required to have a minimum amount of home games for the season. That minimum will vary from sport-to-sport and/or year-to-year depending on circumstances.

 

thanks,

If I understand this correctly, attendance numbers could include non paying customers. So, the figure for the example of Indiana schools of 4,079 may not be all paying customers, which a stand alone pro team would want.

 

You're right, if the school uses either estimates or turnstile count. If it uses tickets sold, then the attendance number represents paying customers. An important qualification, however, is that if the school sells season tickets and wants to count all season tickets sold as part of each game's attendance, then the count must be by tickets sold and not by estimate or turnstile count. So, for those schools that sell significant numbers of season tickets, their number most likely always represent tickets sold.

FYI, I've looked at the game-by-game numbers for the Indiana schools and it appears that they represent either turnstile counts or tickets sold (i.e., not estimates). If they represent turnstile counts, they could include non-paying attendees if they allow that.

 

To put some actual fuel on the fire:

Last tidbit mentioned here - http://equalizersoccer.com/2013/07/17/lowdown-ashley-phillips-stars-for-breakers/
As I mentioned in the comments section of the article, this does not surprise me one bit. Anyone watching lower-division women's soccer should be impressed both with how dominant the Aces have been in all competitions this season and with how much more active the organization itself is this year over last.

=edit=
Here's an article that actually says the Aces are, in fact, looking at NWSL 2014:
http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/cypr...cle_ed1f7996-ef14-11e2-a0ec-0019bb2963f4.html

 

This one starts making sense to me, as Texas colleges have good support for women's soccer. I'll see if I can pull together some numbers and post them. Whether Houston is the right location, I don't know.

 

Looking at college attendance numbers in determining where to put pro teams has the feel of looking for your car keys under the street light for me. There are so many variables driving these college numbers (does the department promote the games? at all?? is the coach/staff/team tied to ODP/community teams so that people are familiar with the program? do they play attractive games against rival schools?). Do they play in a facility that invites attendance and is readily accessible to their fans (i.e. on campus)?

 

I will be curious to see what they do with Carroll. Because it had, at last look, very little infrastructure (no locker rooms on site, two rest rooms IIRC, a decent-sized press box, but very little in the way of amenities and parking (there was a lot across the street that was basically campus parking, but wasn't very big if I recall and almost no parking on the actual footprint itself).

Not all of what you're looking at above actually exists at the moment. the "inner" stands are all renderings of temp seating put up on the track that surrounds the field. I am not even sure the east end zone (that's right, the field runs east/west, meaning sun in the eyes of at least one keeper depending on the time of day) stands actually exist. There might have been something there back in the day. But the main stand (to the right of the picture, the south end, topped by the press box) is, to my recollection, the only part that actually exists currently (unless they have added to it since).

Well, here's a shot of it as of (apparently) last August:



So there is some seating on the left (north) side, but nothing else. And it's now grasstroturf, but at least IUPUI doesn't have American football, so there are no gridiron lines. The scoreboard at the center (east end zone) would be obscured by stands erected there, and any stands on the track would cancel out the ones you can see to the right and the left, just off the track.

Decent view of the city, surely. And, given the paucity of actual options in Indianapolis, certainly the best choice for temp digs for the Eleven and a potential NWSL team.

I've not been to the Maryland SoccerPlex, but Carroll Stadium would likely be an overall better NWSL venue than anything except Sahlen's and JELD-WEN. I used to live two minutes from Benedictine University, and that's a very nice complex as well, with fewer seats than Carroll and more distracting lines, but better creature comforts.

As to the general point of expansion, they'd better get on it for 2014 if it's going to happen. The clock is ticking. Also, let us keep in mind that no professional women's soccer league in this country has ever had more than eight teams. Let's prove we can get to ten before we start extrapolating 20 and 24 and all that.

 

Thank you, I did not that the there was even an existing facility or just a empty lot except for the drawing showing a what if.

Thank you again for a sense of reality. History shows that there likely be dropouts as much as additions in the near term.

 

The discussions of college attendance was not to support the idea of a pro team in a specific college area but to dampen the possibility of a FC Indiana team in the pro league.

 

Why not talk about wiener dog racing? Just as pertinent. If FC Indiana has the dough to cover 5 years or so in the red, why not? If they're under capitalized, who cares what kind of market they're sitting on (hello, LA Sol)?

FWIW, if they can make a go w/ 2-3k fans per game, Indy can certainly support that (and given there's no MLB team, the market may be less saturated with options). If they're really well run, why NOT 4k per game? It's easier to get to wherever they're playing than the Plex!

 

Actually, not so. The college numbers simply are facts. When I put up the Indiana numbers, however, I wasn't particularly discouraged by them, especially if the site is Indianapolis as IUPUI appears to have attendance well in excess of what one would expect for the level of its program.

Although college attendance is not a perfect indicator of likely fan support for professional women's soccer, I haven't seen anyone come up with anything better or likely to be a good additional indicator. And, Portland's experience suggests that strong support for local college women's soccer may indeed be an indicator of likely strong support for professional women's soccer.

If someone thinks there is another good indicator of likely fan support for professional women's soccer, let's hear about it.

 

That's the rub, there isn't one - and I mean "there isn't one period", not "there isn't one besides college attendance". Women's soccer is just to niche at the moment for there to be any real indicators.

The Thorns don't draw well because of the Pilots. They draw well because of the Timbers (and because of Portland in general). Despite Morris20 's comment about the Sol being undermarketed, they still were far and away the strongest-drawing team over WPS' three years; they were in a good market and shared an MLS stadium. The same can essentially be said for the Red Stars, for that matter (they were in the top 3 in attendance for both of their WPS years, and their '09 season was the third strongest among all WPS teams over all seasons). I think both the Sol and the Red Stars would have killed at the turnstiles if more marketing had been done in conjunction with their hosting MLS teams (or more marketing period).

Though, as Morris pointed out, ultimately attendance doesn't matter nearly as much as ownership. That's where I think FCI most definitely fails, and while I don't know very much about the Houston Aces, it sounds like that organization is much better-run than Shek's outfit. And, of course, TFC and NYRB would blow any WPSL ownership out of the water.