With the game just 9 days away, the latest estimate has us at 12,500 tickets sold. Strangely enough, I've been hearing (err...reading) that they haven't emailed STH about the game or otherwise advertised it. An intriguing idea someone suggested was that the FO could be using this game to gauge the demand of non-advertised non-league games, thereby possibly influencing decisions on where they will play future USOC and CCL matches. How many tickets do you think we'll sell in the end (keep in mind it's general admission)? And do you think the FO has ulterior motives in hardly advertising this game?
on a totally unrelated note, anyone know what the Shield will look like? --edit: The game is in four days, not 9. I was looking at the soundersfc.com schedule and they had kong 6/16 as a tv source** and I somehow my cross-wired brain took that to mean it was being played on the 16th **Strangely enough, Kong 6/16 is not showing the game (although soundersfc.com's website has it listed as such). Matt Gaschk, their official "Digital Media Writer" has been posting the following Ok, clear as mud?
i wonder how many tickets need to be sold for it to be profitable for the fo to consider qwest for open cup and ccl play. i'm thinking around 17,000 are gonna show up for the portland match. that would seem like enough to turn a profiit (at regular seat price, not the 10$ price), but i don't know alot about the buisness operations end of operating a franchise.
I'm guess its not just about current profitability, but also future. My guess is that they want to create the regular season game day atmosphere as to avoid a situation where someone shows up to this as their first Sounders game and isn't impressed with the atmosphere and never comes back. Just a thought.
I'm a STH and it was part of my Season Ticket Membership Update they sent on Feb. 9. They've also had it on the front page of the soundersfc.com web site, which according to Quantcast has been getting between 20-35k visitors per week. And it's been in the papers...um, paper. I would guess that virtually everyone who reasonably follows the Sounders knows about this game. Keep in mind though that it's not against an MLS team (many people don't share the idea that USL Portland is a "rivalry"), tickets are only $10 (implying not a valuable game), general admission (ditto) and the game's in early March (cold). The first two years after Safeco Field opened, the Mariners hosted preseason games against teams we didn't get to see much (Phillies, Cards) just before Opening Day. This is 2000-2001, when you couldn't get a seat for a regular season game. Hardly anybody went to the preseason games. They stopped doing them after 2001. As much as we want to believe that there's a huge number of Sounder supporters who would watch them play the Aberdeen high school squad if they only promoted it enough, it's ever more evident that there's a ceiling on this, and that most people are content just to see the "games that count."
I see. It's just that when I was following the whitecaps liveblog on seattletimes.com and the soundersfc.com site, a few people were saying that they should email STH, so I took it to mean they haven't done so yet.
Too bad they couldn't hold it on the weekend. Some of us who live out of town can't make it over for a Thursday. Sad news about the Kong broadcast. Oh well, the season is almost here.
Can't wait for this game. First Sounders game of the year that I've been able to attend. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and the turf won't be overly skippy. Oh, and I'm predicting 15k - 16k for attendance.
I really mean what i say. The Sounders have an awesome fan base. You guy's know the game and are very passionate fan's. I love watching your games on tv.
bump... https://www.socceramerica.com/artic...it-51796-fans-for-cascadia.html?edition=17686 The Cascadia Cup match between the Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers drew the 51,796 fans, the second largest crowd of the MLS season. Only Atlanta United's opener against the New York Red Bulls attracted more fans: 55,297.
It's dropping fairly rapidly though.. amazing how quickly the heat goes out of a rivalry when you are playing them 3+ times in a 34 game season..