Unconfirmed rumor: I was at the game yesterday. After the game's conclusion I saw all the Dash players kicking their heels backwards and forwards ripping up the field and flipping off the Dynamo banners above stadium. Must be some real bad blood going on with them trying to upset the upcoming Dynamo game against NE.
ha ha ha BTW I have nothing against the Dash players or coaches. They don't schedule the games. FWIW I hope they turn it around but I won't buy another ticket to see them until I have more confidence that I will be entertained. I had season tickets the first year. Poor management, coaching and player selection for years. Win more and I will start to pay more attention and seriously consider coming back to a game.
We've had this conversation before, so I'll save all of us a lot of time by dong both sides of it: Me: Putting aside the fact that soccer if you're investing in soccer to make money, you are likely to be disappointed and there aren't all that many truly profitable soccer teams, including pretty much all of MLS unless you count expansion fees, yes there are profitable teams. The Dash turned a slight profit in 2015 and 2016. Nigel: I don't believe it, is the stadium use subsidized, are they paying same as the Dynamo, etc., etc.? Me: Of course they aren't paying the same. They use a fraction of the facilities, a fraction of the game day staff, etc. As far as I am aware, though, it is arms length and from what I've seen, Brener wouldn't accept anything less. He's very cheap with funds for this team, including not letting them pay the $16k salary of a senior player they traded for who would not have counted against the roster cap or salary cap. Nigel: I still don't see how they could possible be turning a profit. Me: The costs are extremely low. Salary cap is small. They run on a shoestring staff, which is part of why the org is so messed up that nobody wants to come here. There is zero marketing, Edgar does what should be the jobs of about 3 people Something like that (but Nigel's parts with a British accent)
According to the below article, the Dynamo wanted to charge UH $130k per game to rent the stadium. Now, a normal rental is probably a lot less than that but the Dash likely aren’t paying anywhere near that amount for the entire season. http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2013/05/uh-sny-game-to-be-played-at-reliant-stadium/?cmpid=sportshcat
It's like the Revs paying high rent to the Pats. What's the point? And let's not forget that the Dynamo are not fans of UH.
I doubt the internal charge to the Dynamo is $130k per game. The Dash use less than half of the stadium. For the opener, only one gate was open for entrance (fewer staff and metal detectors required), bathroom stalls were locked despite being empty (less to clean), usually about half the concession stands are open, there was one merchandise stall open (or so I'm told), upper bowl closed except Presidents Club. Bud deck side of the stadium closed, etc. But again, the main reason the team has looked so cheap in spending to everyone else in the league is owners have essentially forced the team to self fund. So anything that doesn't fit in that budget, even as small as a player's $16k salary, gets lopped off.
I posted that article so folks can understand that the cost to renting out a modern stadium is significant and getting a sweetheart rent deal or being subsidized by the Dynamo is crucial to them claiming the Dash turn a profit. There’s a reason why all the NWSL teams that have folded or moved I believe were independent teams that did not own their own or control their own stadium - stadium rental costs for professional level venues is high. Even high school stadiums, district arenas and even pools are more expensive to rent than the public understands. Of course, one could argue that since the Dynamo can’t attract jack squat in terms of events other than Mexican soccer exhibitions and the occasional rugby or lacrosse match that there is no opportunity cost to giving the stadium for free to the Dash.
The point is of course not that in order to actually show that the team makes a profit you'd have to show their total budget and what that covers. Then subtract the income they receive from ticket sales and other direct income related to the Dash. I'd be willing to bet that the Dynamo folks who are on game day duty, or who provide assistance for the Dash are not on a separate Dash ticket, but are carried by the Dynamo. I would opine that if you factor in the prorated cost of the stadium, game day operations cost, player salaries, team staff salaries (which I would imagine come close to the whole team salary), travel budget. Then the team does not make a profit. Of course we'll never know, just as we can never know how many actual tickets were sold for the first game and how many of those people in seats were using the tickets that they received as a comp. While a complaint might be relevant about zero marketing - it's about on a par with their brother organization.
Unfortunately the Dynamo seem to have one of the few owners in the world of soccer that seem to actually be in it to turn a profit.
https://www.houstondynamo.com/post/...th-carolina-courage-rescheduled-sunday-june-3 The Dash home game originally scheduled for June 2 has been moved to Sunday, June 3. A friendly between El Salvador and Honduras has been added to BBVA schedule on June 2. Corrected June schedule for the Dash: Sunday, June 3 Dash v. North Carolina Courage 5:30 pm Friday, June 22 Dash v. Portland Thorns 7:30 pm Wednesday, June 27 Orlando Pride v. Dash 6:30 pm
BBVA just rescheduled a Dash game i order to accomodate an Honduras - El Salvador friendly. that's either poor planning or poor planning. although it may just have been poor planning.
Sounds like $$$ re-planning. This fits in perfectly to let me catch the Houston vs Seattle rugby match on Sat and then catch the Dash game with my girls at a better 5:30pm time slot.
I love the last paragraph below implying some sort of administrative accident - “booking conflict”, also known as “we can make more money hosting a Central American exhibition game than having to open the stadium for 2,000 people to watch women’s soccer”. Following up on yesterday’s discussion on what the Dash actually pays to rent the stadium, this implies they aren’t paying much “The Houston Dash home match against the North Carolina Courage has been rescheduled to Sunday, June 3, the club announced today. Kickoff time for the new date is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. CDT, and the match will be streamed on go90.com and the go90 mobile app. The match was moved to the new date due to a booking conflict at BBVA Compass Stadium on Saturday, June 2.”
Of course they aren't. The entire stadium will be open for El Salvador vs Honduras. The Dash use about 1/3 of the stadium and facilities and far fewer staff than you would for this event. Why would they pay anywhere near the same? That aside, you're thinking about this wrong. You're thinking, "the friendly will pay more so they prefer to schedule that" whereas you should be thinking, "the friendly will generate additional revenue AND can only take place on Saturday so we either re-schedule the Dash game and get two sets of revenue or we don't and only get one". It's an all or nothing proposition. Even if the Dash were paying an equal stadium fee to the friendly, they'd still try to do this.
Because most facility rentals have to cover at least some capital cost recovery and return on investment, not just cover variable costs so only using 1/3 of the facility doesn’t mean rental rates are reduced on a linear basis.
If the Dash were a random team that called up the Dynamo and wanted to rent the stadium for a Saturday night - even 1/3 of it, the rental rate would be closer to what El Salvador is paying than you think. There a fixed cost to opening and staffing even if you shut down 2/3rds of the sections and there is little concession revenue upside from a sparsely attended game so that works into a smaller discount to the standard rental rate because the facility owner has no extra revenue upside from ancillary ops. If the Dash were independently owned in order to make a profit they’d be playing at Butler Stadium or some other cheaper HS stadium. The Dynamo subsidy is not small
All the stadium debt is in the stadium co along with the customary debt restrictions. They ain't opening the stadium at a loss, and Dynamo operating co ain't transferring funds to stadium co to compensate.
I had composed this massive post pointing out that there are at least three separate entities that are involved with the operation and subsidy of the Dash. Dash Soccer LLC which has about 5 employees Dynamo Soccer LLC Dynamo Stadium LLC But then I thought better of it, because regardless of which pocket its coming out of, its all the same wallet.
When Brener bought out AEG, the team took out a loan secured by the stadium lease according to Harris County records. It looked to me that they may have retired an original Amegy Bank loan and took out a larger loan which probably means that the team ownership is backstopping the stadium debt and the debt covenants on the stadium debt probably were relaxed. The notion that the stadium ops are being closely watched by debtholders when the team/Brener is backstopping the debt is overstated. And with Canetti as president of both legal entities there is no firewall there. The bond holders would be more concerned with the fact the stadium has few non-soccer events than whether or not they undercharge the Dash. I go back to this - if the Dash were an independent team they could never afford to rent out BBVA at a market rate and make money. Just like KC failed, Boston, WNY
We got an announced crowd of 3,433 - since that is tickets distributed and the game was a snoozer did anyone get a actual physical count of folks attending? I watched 10 minutes on go90 and got a count of 3 people in section 123 and 12 in section 124 so I figured someone physically there could have counted the entire crowd.