How many of those 3,000-3,500 were Red Bull fans? 25%, 35%? 50%? still, if it was 35% redbull fans, which I seriously doubt, good numbers! can't wait to goto my first strikers game with 2,000 +...might feel like a real professional football match, not a highschool game like last year with Miami FC. damn.. opening day is so far away! I am getting tired of all this chit chat on here...LOL
Very few were actual Red Bull fans in my estimation. I don't think I saw one piece of Red Bull gear on anyone not actually associated with the club. I saw a lot of Arsenal, Barça and Mexico shirts though. The casual fans came out to see Henry and Rafa, not cheer for Red Bull. They sold close to 100 season tickets on Saturday alone, and according to the Strikers official Twitter they broke record for daily sales(probably not counting Saturday) for the 4th day in a row today. That's a number over 30 tickets(the record they set one day last week). If you run the numbers, in theory the Strikers could be in for a FANTASTIC year at the gates. Last year, with 50 or so season ticket holders, they averaged around 1200 fans per game. So 4% of the crowd was season ticket holders in 2010. Right now they are apparently around 500 season ticket holders. If those 500 season ticket holders are 4% of the crowd this year, the average attendance would be 12,000 fans a game. That's better than the Fusion got in MLS. Now I'm not expecting that but 5-6K per game is certainly not out of the question. There is still over a month to the season opener, which unlike the RBNY match is being promoted in the local paper, and they've got a billboard up near the stadium. If they keep up the pace they will probably sell more season tickets than the average total attendance for last year.
dr, if we average the 3,000 to 3,500 we were supposed to have had Saturday I'll be delighted. Anything more than that is gravy, IMO. As would be any season ticket sales any where near 1,000, though shooting for season ticket sales over last year's average crowd of 1,250 should be the Striker's goal.... As for the concession problem; I understand the Mayor of Ft Lauderdale attended the game. Rumor has it he was not pleased with the concession set up. I don't expect any more concession problems in the future. And, my own experience says that there were several rest rooms open on the north side Saturday, not one. Getting liquids, etc into the crowd was a problem. Getting it out shouldn't have been...
Zing! I dunno about the Mayor of FTL, but the Mayor of Sunrise was there, he was sitting with us. I think that might be the story you heard. I'm sure he holds a bit of sway with the club now since he's been responsible, directly and indirectly, for nice chunk of season ticket sales. I agree, anywhere in the area of 3,000-4,000 is a realistic goal for this year and that would be a great success in my book. But the possibility is there to go above 5,000. Hit that mark and in a couple of seasons who knows, we could be looking at a Portland or Montréal situation. If these Strikers can hit 10K+ at any point, I'll fly to NYC and do a dance in front of MLS HQ.
This. Beside my son, I saw about 15 other people in RBNY gear. If anything, the crowd was the casual hispanic/central American futbol fan and/or youth teams and of course the Barca/Arsenal kit wearers. Explains the pretty quiet atmosphere.
I agree with drsoflafan, not too much of the crowd was pro Red Bulls. When they scored there wasn't much positive crowd reaction. I think some people may have gotten the idea there were more Red Bulls fans because of some of the Henry jerseys, but in terms of people actually rooting for the Red Bulls, very small. The latest preseason report on the website says there's another friendly coming up this week, but I've heard nothing else about it. Anyone know anything? Any chance this one will be opened up to the public as well?
I was thinking about those numbers too. I think I posted somewhere else around here yesterday that I don't think we can expect an exact correlation, but I think it will speak to the HUGE increase over last year that we are actually going to see in the stands. I think the $99 season ticket special has probably got a lot of people to just go that route rather than individual games, so I think the season ticket holders will make up a larger percentage of the overall crowd this year. Even if at the end we wind up with 700 season tickets (I believe it will be more, but let's use this number) and let's say it winds up being 16% of overall attendance this year, that's an average of 4,375 per game, and would probably put us in the top half of the league in attendance. Believe me, I would LOVE to see 12,000 crowds at Lockhart like I did as a kid. I don't think we are going to make it there just yet. But if Traffic keeps up the marketing, if we all keep working at it at the person to person level as well (I believe most of the crowd Saturday was due to word of mouth) a tremendous foundation can be built this year, that could lead to Montreal type crowds down the road. I whole-heartedly wish they would consider keeping the $99 season ticket special the rest of the year. I think it would make 1,000+ season tickets a lock. I think the additional sales it would generate would probably cover the lower price, and that is how you build a solid foundational fanbase - season ticket holders. If they did that and were able to put a fun and competitive product on the field.....man.....this year we could see those 5k - 6k numbers averaged..... BTW, I live in north Broward so I took the Turnpike to the game Saturday, but didn't see any billboards. Where is the one you're talking about? Is it on 95 near Commercial?
I think tripling last year's average number (1,250) should be the minimum expectation based on what we know thus far. Considering the season ticket sales so far, I can't imagine an average less than 3,750 that would be. I fully expect us to average over 4,000, and where it goes from there depends a lot on how good the team is I think. If they're good it'll generate buzz, and even more people will come. As for the concession and bathrooms, I'll agree it wasn't ideal. I was fortunate in that I only went to the concession stand when I first came in, and it wasn't too bad then. But I had to take my son to the restroom midway through the 1st half (actually walked past you guys in 120, you looked like you were having fun!), and the line was insane then. I can only imagine what it looked like at halftime. The bathroom I had no problem with other then the first one I tried was locked (across from the concession stand) and I had to go to the one on the west end. But it was empty at the time. I guess what I'd really say the bottom line is, these problems of concessions and bathrooms are good to have occurred at the free game. The team knows now that they can expect much larger crowds than last year, and can plan for it. These are problems you don't mind having at first, tells you things are going right at the gate, and now you have been forewarned and can make sure they don't happen again. Making sure fans have a good experience at games they pay to come to is of course the utmost in importance, because it will help them decide to come back!
It's one of those rotating ones. It's between Sunrise and Oakland Park Blvd on the West side of I-95, you see it going northbound towards the stadium.
Ok, I know where you're talking about. It's very near where I grew up in Oakland Park, and where my mom and sister still live. I'd love to see some more, especially to the north and on the Turnpike in northern Broward and West Boca. You've got to target demographics to some degree. Coral Springs, Coconut Creek, Parkland, Boca, those are places with families and median incomes that can easily afford games, and cities all with youth leagues if I'm not mistaken. Obviously targeting the youth leagues is a separate endeavor as well, but I think it's smart advertising, and more likely to get results in the areas I'm mentioning.
Remember that there is a limited budget for all this. And a specific area that they may be aiming for because of that. The places you mentioned certainly qualify, along with Weston - AYSO Region 644 is one of the largest in the US along with one of the States elite youth clubs, and other places in South Broward and Palm Beach Counties that would be worth a billboard at least. Miami-Dade is a different entity entirely, but some effort has to be made there, too. Most, if not all, of the resistance to NASL & the Strikers seems to come from there. It will be a more difficult nut to crack than Broward or Palm Beach. It still has to be done, however. Hopefully some onfield success will soften the negative feelings. We'll see.
Agreed. I just like to think they'll go all out everywhere this year. LOL Like we've talked about here before, they need to build the foundation of the core first, which really means Broward and Palm Beach. Dade might have to be a more concentrated target next year instead of trying to squeeze even more out of the other two. And like we've also said, probably the biggest thing that will attract Dade fans, more then advertising, is having a winning team.
I do not disagree with this... I just hope that we have a decent team on the field to show Traffic's commitment to the sport in South Florida.