Atlanta was getting 45,000 for their non-full capacity games last year, believe that was do to SRO tickets (2,500 SRO's). Capacity is 42,500, so only 151 SRO tickets for the Philadelphia game.
It should be understood that MLS does not have a large fan base, especially compared to the NBA. The TV numbers show that pretty convincingly. What it does very well is get the fans it does have to turn out.
In the Land of Over-reaction, aka Twitter, there's a lot of hemming and hawing about the new owners following a similar path as the previous owners with regards to marketing. They had a ton of momentum when #SavedTheCrew happened, if Twitter reactions are true (I know, I know. At least allow me a bit of fantastical thinking here), they may not be capitalizing on that...
Not saying that. Just saying that it was less than last year, as was the home openers 72,035 vs. 70,382.
"Fans will come when we get a new owner." "Fans will come when we get a new stadium." "Fans will come when it's warmer." Come on, Columbus, do better.
Unless “Columbus” is shorthand for “Columbus’s owners”, it’s not really the people’s responsibility to “do better”.
Well, in a way, when "you" is Columbus, you just finished a fight to get your club to stay, as such you do in a way, need to "do better". Any other circumstance, sure, it's all on owners, but that club was as good as gone a year ago, they fought to keep it despite the market not being super on-board. Now there are no excuses, people should show up to show that they are happy it worked out in their favor. The Crew were saved, do better.
Naw.. They’ve already been burned twice. That’s why the new owners need to capitalize on the momentum when they have it. Otherwise they run the risk of people thinking “Same sh*t, different owners”.
It’s pretty crazy to expect the new ownership to completely reverse decades of poor ownership in 2.5 months. I spoke a bit with Dr Edwards at the season ticket member party and he said individual season tickets are way above where they thought they would be and they hadn’t really started selling corporate packages. We have also heard the previous owners stripped the FO down to bare bones and there were no processes in place in any FO department. They are basically building an entire organization from scratch and have had less than 3 months to do it. I’m not worried and none of you should be, either.
Of course, of course, no question, but he's been owner for a two short months and they aren't giving him a shot despite being the catalyst for him to buy and thus save the team. Tell me this... new ownership group comes in to save the day at the request of the fans.... spends a good amount of money to do so... If he hadn't done so, there would be no Crew... they'd be in Austin. Then, people don't show up. How is that the new owners fault? Man, that's all on the fans and previous owners to me. You can't say "Same shit, different owners" until the owners have had adequate time (which is NOT two months) to steady the ship, much less right the ship. Expansion teams often need a year or two to build a fanbase that's already just happy, not at all malcontented, Columbus has to rebuild a collapsed one, that can't be fixed in a month. The ownership right now is part of the solution until proven otherwise. You want your team back? Support them. Edited to reflect a change in opinion.
The Revolution of all teams sold like 40k tickets in about a week back when they hosted MLS Cup. When you have all the buzz, you need to capitalize, otherwise, you are proving everything Garber and Precourt said about the Columbus market correct.
Obviously something is wrong with the Columbus market - something just a big game won't fix. Hopefully that something is fixable, and that's what we'll be watching as the season goes on.
While I expected a number around 12K instead of the sub 10K we got, I'm not worried about the Crew. Our schedule sucks this year but even so we'll improve considerably on last year's numbers. We should be above 16K average at season's end, maybe above 17K. The reason we drew so poorly is it's a winter game vs a no name opponent. There was no walk up crowd to speak of, the game wasn't selected by many people in their partial season ticket packages, and a lot of full season ticket holders traded in this game for extras either during better weather or vs a more attractive opponent. There also wasn't much marketing for this game, it was played during a CBJ game and on St Pat's weekend.
Gonna be honest. I’m not a fan of giving STH the option to trade in their tickets for later games. Time to start getting Crew fans used to the use it or lose it model or they’ll complain if/when seats get sparse.
I can tell you exactly the problem but it’s long and involved and posting it here may run me further afoul of the mods. I would be happy to explain to you or anyone in PM’s. And not only is it fixable, it’s being fixed everyday.
Does it involve Garber, Precourt, and the conspiracy to make the Columbus market tank? We already know that one.
I normally go by the bleachers. If they're full it's usually a decent crowd. In saying that they've probably been exaggerating since at least 2016. But there's really no coverage of the games in New York. You'd have to actively look up the fixture list to know if either team was playing. That leaves little room for spontaneity.
I'd be really interested to what the local media coverage is like. My guess is that in places where attendance is strong, the local media coverage is strong. Now the question is whether the media comes because there are crowds or whether the crowds are heavily impacted by the media. Obviously there is a symbiotic relationship, but I would be curious to get an idea of which teams are treated as major league and which are treated as an afterthought. Seems to me like part of the issue with the so-called MLS 1.0 franchises vs expansion teams is that the media treat expansion teams as a major sport to cover. If the crowds come (and stay) so does the coverage. When LAFC came to town the coverage of MLS (including Galaxy) in LA times increased dramatically and stayed that way. Once the local media loses interest, you need something big to change it and you need to stay on of things to make it grow. From an outsiders point of view it seems the Crew should have gone all out to make sure the first game was some type of event since I'm sure there was a lot of local coverage on the Crew.
I'd rather say…and have over the years…that something may not be right about the market…at least right enough to expect some transformational success... Was always a big supporter of MLS expansion to Atlanta but never envisioned 70k for multiple games…17k maybe but nothing like we've seen…and don't think Blank is a miracle worker…neither the ownership group in Seattle…Cincinnati…who would have thunk it…and no assurance that soccer city St Louis will have an automatic trip to the top of the attendance rank if and when they get a team no matter what the ownership group does… The new folks may do all the right things in Columbus without achieving breakout success…no formulas…if only there were...