Read me bitch more here... https://barroldinhosoccer.wordpress.com/2018/04/30/lafc-limited-attendance-for-counterparts/ Incidentally, my first post from the UK (visiting family - back soon!).
Haven’t played FIFA in a while but this is hilarious if true. Is anyone else going to mention that LAFC just built Estadio de las Artes from FIFA? pic.twitter.com/fzFO65LbE8— Will Parchman (@WillParchman) May 1, 2018
Apparently all those die-hard DTLAFC soccer fans won’t drive 16 miles for a soccer match on the weekend... or any distance on a Wednesday night....
ehh it wasn't that empty. But 19k or so at the stubhub would look a lot emptier and everyone would be saying how bad it is.
On a busy weeknight in MLS, when crowd size usually dips, the announced attendance was strong in 3 venues and weak in two:Atlanta 44,696Toronto 26,089LAFC 22,000Chicago 10,067Columbus 7,683NWSL: Utah 7,137, Houston 2,668U.S. Open Cup of note: @DetroitCityFC 3,415— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) May 10, 2018 "Listed" as 22k
Hate to burst your bubbles here, but that looks pretty full to me. Granted there were spots of empty seats, but it wasn’t “empty.”
In fairness, that's before kick off on a weeknight. If my experiences with the Galaxy are anything to go on, most people hadn't arrived yet and it was probably pretty full by the second half.
Yeah look, it’s time to accept reality here, our front office hasn’t. Yes, it’s first-season enthusiasm and maybe support wanes somewhere down the road. Yes, they only have a 22,000 seat stadium. Yes, they started the season with a barely-there roster. Yes, their fanbase has an eye-rolling number of cosplaying doofuses, but the reality is on a Wednesday night LAFC didn’t look out of place compared to the Galaxy on a Wednesday at kick-off and by the end had a crowd the Galaxy FO could only dream of for a mid-week match against a team with zero appeal. Our front office and our fan base has taken for granted their position in the LA market. Klein’s, Hanans’s and Thomas’s 18 months of “we’re not concerned about LAFC” is sounding less and less like the confidence of a well run championship organization and more like a braintrust that either has no idea they’ve had their lunch money stolen or worse just have absolutely no idea how to counter it outside of their go to move which is more predictable than Preki shooting with his left foot. I’ve seen people here complaining about the media coverage of LAFC referring to us as “the other team” – you know why that coverage happens? Because LAFC have the marketing, advertising and public relations teams in place to make it happen. They’re making that narrative happen, they’ve got adults with experience running the show. The Galaxy FO aren’t just failing to drive a narrative they don’t even know they’ve lost the keys to the car because they’re too busy patting each other on the back for the epic Tweet that went viral. And that’s the most disturbing thing, the front office hasn’t just squandered a 20 year head start they don’t even recognize they’ve squandered it; you can’t fix a problem if you pretend it doesn’t exist.
LAFC chose to have a 7pm kick off which is quite optimistic in the LA area. I think the Galaxy, Kings, Lakers all choose to use 7:30pm as the start time and even then the stadium fills up late. It's just a fact of life with LA traffic. All that being said, screw them, their attractive team, and most of all their loser poseur johnny come lately hipster/Chivas fans. I don't think I've loathed a team more then I do LAFC and I can't wait till the moral arc of the universe reaches the rightful point of justice of them sucking, their shallow fans abandoning them and the Galaxy stomping them on the field and in the standings. It's inevitable.
I mean, there are fair points in here, but the reality is that the Galaxy have had 6 home games that are all sold out at 26k+. Visit this website pre season and you were talking like we'd be averaging 15k because all our fans went to LAFC. Clearly that's not the case. Also, the FO are spending (unwisely obviously) the most money in the league (or thereabouts) to try to get the on field stuff right. I don't think business has ever really been an issue with LAG and that's probably why Klein seems untouchable. Everybody loves the young new girl. We'll see what happens in the long term. I'm still convinced that LAFC's business and demand is heavily dependent on the quality of the team. They hit a rough point and then the reality of supporting a team week in week out for 20 home dates sets in and we'll see how deep much of their fan base actually is. We're starting to see softness in similar markets around the league that hit the ground in new stadiums like monsters only to start seeing sell outs become less automatic a few years in. Let's see where LAFC is 2 years from now.
I agree but I'd feel better if Christopher Thomas's attitude wasn't along the lines of "They have more STHs but we'll get higher attendances". It just underscores the feeling that our FO is complacent and lackadaisical about a great many things. If SoCal residents are prepared to start following the Clippers because the Lakers have started to suck (and I know a number of people who are) then LAG will certainly lose fans to LAFC if we continue to perform as we have the last year or two. While I will happily and gleefully mock such 'fans', it doesn't mean the FO shouldn't take that distinct possibility very seriously.
Chris Thomas is a jack ass. However, we're probably some of the 0.001% of Galaxy fans that are even aware of his existence so I try not to let his jackassary impact my love of club. But you make a good point that is true.
Perhaps I stated my position inelegantly. My pre-season accolade for LAFC was not that they stole customers from the Galaxy, but with 17,000 season tickets sold they did the legwork to find and attract 17,000 soccer fans the Galaxy had failed to gain/retain to over the last 20 years. I’m not suggesting even half of those 17,000 were potential Galaxy customers, but even 10% of that figure would represent an increase of 15% over LA’s current STH base. As for selling out each home game thus far you’re right it’s impressive, especially that Sunday game against SKC, but it should be put in to context, three of those four games had Zlatan – to your point below, let’s see how many sellouts happen after the shine of Zlatan has worn off. Maybe. It’s certainly seems more likely than not, but let’s face it I (and many others here) have been dead wrong about LAFC. I’m done underestimating or belittling them. They’re executing at every level from business operations to soccer operations better than the Galaxy right now and the response from LA is underwhelming.
I really don’t see how you can say from a business standpoint that Lafc is beating the galaxy. Almost all metrics that we are privy to from attendance totals to TV contracts to sponsorship money favor the galaxy. You might be right but you are definitely assuming facts not in evidence.
Actually I think it is good for LAG to have a real competitor for attention and fans. Of course I want to see us beat them silly on the field. But I look back on Chivas and there was no honor in beating them after they went into their long slide to oblivion. The fun was beating them when they were good. So let LACF be good and lets have some fun.
Fair point. Though I’ll make two counter points. The TV contract was signed late 2011 for 10 years, the shirt sponsorship extension was signed a year later in 2012, both were 10 year deals and both were signed at a time when LA was still executing very well in the front office. Tim Leiweke was still head of AEG and invested in the Galaxy, Beckham was still on the team and his team still had a massive influence on the marketing/branding the team did. In fact I believe the majority of that work was still done by an outside agency. Even the StubHub contract was signed while Leiweke was still in around. The Galaxy hasn’t signed a major sponsorship deal since Leiweke left. It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens next year when those big contracts start coming up for negotiation (stadium 2019, tv 2021, shirt 2022). Not only as the Galaxy and AEG org changed dramatically since those were signed, the league as a whole has changed. Point two, I’ll admit I might be falling to a perception gap, but I’d argue that’s just evidence LAFC’s executive team is executing while the Galaxy are operating under the same model that was fruitful over the last two decades. I think the game has changed and the Galaxy hasn’t adapted.
Totally agree. I just want the front office to see the same thing. LAFC are not the joke Chivas was and need to be treated seriously, not with the dismissive “our stadium is bigger than theirs”.
I just feel that us galaxy fans on big soccer in particular are acting unnecessarily insecure and probably incorrectly extrapolating that insecurity over the entire population of galaxy fans for which there clearly is a large one given consistently great attendance. When of the galaxy get its shit together on the field I think you’re going to see an explosion of galaxy pride both on social media and in the real world
I share LAA's concerns about our FO. Now that he's pointed out how much of our commercial success is a product of the Lieweke regime and the deals that would be renegotiated by our current crew, I feel like we're facing even more unknowns. As someone who can be somewhat neurotic, I ironically have a well-developed gut instinct for my own insecurity versus pragmatic worry. I don't feel insecurity on this. I feel somewhat concerned that poor personnel decisions from the top down, could see us squander a two-decade head-start on a rival that should have a lot of work to do to become as relevant as us. I don't think the Galaxy is going anywhere. However, it bothers me that we are not far and away the likeliest candidate to be the next MLS Cup winner in this town.
I'm taking the keeping-my-side-of-street-clean approach. Whatever LAFC does will really not affect me as a Galaxy fan. They'll try to market to me or rub it in my face with their success but I'll ignore it because I'll be supporting and pressuring the whole Galaxy organization to never stop striving to be the best from the players up to the upper management. I want to watch commieball, be entertained and of course, win trophies.