Now on sale, season tickets for the 2012 season: http://www.womensprosoccer.com/Home/ny/tickets/season-tickets-2012.aspx Hopefully this is a good thing.
Don't place too much stock in it. Both Chicago and Washington were taking season ticket orders at this point last year.
The attendance thread, and a number of posts elsewhere about marketing the teams and league prompted me to post here. I think Sky Blue FC needs to be "doing business as" the New Jersey Sky Blue. the New Jersey Sky Blue needs to grab the New Jersey card and play it early and often, designed to generate the "Abby effect" that happens in Rochester. The "Jersey Girls" moniker already exists and I've seen it used in the media for Sky Blue already - New Jersey Sky Blue has to pump up the volume. Take advantage of not only the Jersey Girls on the roster, but the visiting Jersey Girls as well. Averbuch, Heath, O'Reilly, Rampone, Lloyd, and Loyden are all from NJ. I have no idea about non-WNT players from New Jersey in WPS, but there must be a few. Hykos1045 said: My point is, Yurcak is a great soccer site all year round, under-appreciated by New Jerzeans all the time. Use the players to create the necessary connection between the fans and the team. Every community is proud of their hometown heroes. They will make the trip to Yurcak.
A SBFC employee I chatted with before the last match in Philly (that late goal still breaks my heart) seemed relatively confident that 2012 was going to happen. They HAVE to promote!!
And on that note, why is their website /NY? Do they play at SUNY? NO! They play at the State University of New Jersey. Agreed it should be a hometown pride thing for Heather O'RLY and the NJ girls. I realize these vanity team names are just advertisements, but part of proper advertising with a team name should be : where the hell are you really located? I wonder if they did it to dupe the NY Post or the TV station(s) into covering them. Or because the league "needs" the NY market to lure sponsors. However, with the worst attendance numbers in the league, whatever strategy to siphon off NY fan base just wasn't working. The fan base of Sky Blue should be primarily drawn from the huge populations in New Jersey towns. The Raritan river Valley... The Rutgers crowd.
Fine...I guess I'll just have to throw my support to WNY--since they're the only legitimate "NY" team in this league... just kidding. Though I do get quizzical looks when I try to convince people to go out to, what I call, "real" Jersey (as opposed to East Rutherford or Harrison) for a game. That's why I only ask my friends who are Nets fans. (then again when they move to Brooklyn they won't be an NJ team anymore.)
I agree that that connection needs to be made. It's very vital! It's closer to the city than WNY. HAO lives in the City does that mean she can't play for Sky Blue? j/k I do agree that they have to build more of a base in Jersey first, but I feel that also have something to offer to fans close to or in NY City. Working with the Red Bulls would help as well. They have extended their hand to us and I'd love to build on that. The problem is not the location. It's the LACK of a draw. Losing their two largest draws last year hurt the team last year. Look at all the wonders Kai's working in Philly. Going to Union games, signings and such. People want to see her. We need a solid player who is slightly flashy and can go out there and pull fans in. If one is on the team they're going to have to not be afraid to stand out. And the organization has to let them (something they failed at with Kai) We also need to hold our players and organization to higher perfomance standards. Don't just set goals for attedance but also for on field play as well. Wins, making playoffs, ect. We've shown we have the guts we just need to develop the discipline. Just skating by is not going to cut it anymore.
She was actually pretty good--she was our second best goal creater behind Nogs. I think she didn't do as well against really physical defenders, but she was still second in assists and third in goals. The Spanish league runs basically the months opposite of WPS (September-May) so hopefully she'll be back next season.
She had an elbow injury (broken?) in one of her early games (first?) and then played with cast. Good but not a wow player.
Happened at the boston game prior to WWC, I was there and have pics, she had a pretty good season she had no one to play with up top so it is hard to judge her at SB... did not seem like she connected with many players
yeah, nobody seems to come in from NYC anyway. It's tiresome too for it to be New York Jets/Giants etc. come they all play in and only in NJ. I'm surprised they don't draw more since NJ has long been such a hotbed of suburban soccer playing kids.
And the NY stations and papers are snubbing them big time. Even right post WC with the Flash in town the NYT didn't even make a peep about it and some of the NY TV station sports anchors seemed like they had teeth pulled to even mentiom the WC more than 10 seconds on the nightly news. Not that they should just forget about that, they need those papers and stations to mention the games. NJ Star Ledger hasn't done a whole lot better. Not sure I've seen photos but they did at least write a full article about the post WC home game and sometimes list a WPS score.