If over 35 K show up for Inter Milan - Man City, I suppose 2 or 3 K should be able to support the LOCAL TEAM on a regular base But NO, Does CP Baltimore have a lousy FO, or are all the soccer fans in the aerea just eurosnobs?
Chattanooga F.C.’s attendance for their last home game of the season; 5,117 The source link is:- http://ht.ly/2cZ7n Okay, it’s the last home game for the trop-drawing team in its league that’s going straight into the playoffs; all the fans, even the most casual, will want to be there for the send-off party. If a second-season team that operates out of a high-school stadium offering fourth (maybe even fifth) division amateur football in a league that itself struggles for visibility in the American soccer world can draw these numbers, what is the rest of American pro & semi-pro soccer not doing that they are? There are League II (old Division IV) and even League I teams in the English pyramid that would be very satisfied with an end-of-season home attendance like this. The same for bottom of the Ist Division teams in Belgium for example
Brent, Does CP Baltimore have a lousy FO, or are all the soccer fans in the aerea just eurosnobs? If Chattanooga can draw 5k for the end of season game - 3.5k average - I guess the answer is obvious & it ain't eurosnobs
I think D.C. United being so close by has a lot to do with it. Why support a "minor league" team when you can spend a little extra cash, in some cases drive the same distance, and see a much better product? Switching stadiums constantly doesn't help and the FO isn't very good. This is one case where a D-2 team should partner with an MLS team. I'm not saying make it a true reserve squad, but if it gets an extra thousand or show fans to show up, that would be a good thing. Right now, United fans have nothing to gain by supporting this team, and that's probably hurting them.
Or, let's just forget that market and concentrate on developing a solid D2 product in another city. I'd hope that D2 soccer has goals that exceed 2 or 3k average attendance. As the league establishes itself and as the brand develops, I'd believe that much much better is possible in most if not all D2 markets. Persisting in a very tough market seems like a waste of time and just adds to the bad press.
Geez, according to that article they play a whopping 8 game regular season. So if you are a fan wanting to watch this team play you have so few home games in order to do so, your bound to sell out one of them! Easier to sell tickets to 4 home games a year than it is 15.
I was initially pretty dismissive of your argument, but I then saw Kenn Tomasch making exactly the same point about their numbers on another thread and who am I to argue with him? That said, if only having to put on 4 home games was that decisive a factor, then all the NPSL teams would be posting decent numbers, no? As it is, Chattanooga's numbers are the ONLY attendances the NPSL are willing to discuss. I think the fundamental reason for these numbers is that they've taken a page from Peter Wilt's playbook* Their attitude seems to be that you can't just throw the doors open and expect soccer fans come. You have to actively market the team to soccer fans and casual sports fans alike. And you have to give them some bang for their buck when they do show up. Make the games an event. From what I've read up on them, they go all out with marketing, promotions, Press & PR, social media, small business promotion, local food vendors doing the concessions, local beer, etc. Maybe they only have to put on 4 home games, but what they deliver are 4 events. * http://pitchinvasion.net/blog/2010/01/27/anatomy-of-a-successful-indoor-soccer-match/
It takes a lot of hard work to make a soccer franchise successful Probably a lot of Pro teams could learn from Chattanooga FC
The other side of this coin is that they only have 4 home games per year to build up a fanbase. Fans don't make a habit of going to games like season ticket holders for an MLS or USL team do. Also, how on Earth do you get fans to think you're a serious team if you only play 8 games?
Back in the day (seems like a million years ago) I used to argue with him.....it's better not to! I'm not dismissing Chattanooga's attendance, just pointing out that it's harder to sell season tickets the longer a season is. As for me, I don't take a team/league that plays an 8 game regular season seriously.
Timbers should do very well. 13,000+ sold already for tomorrow... (2000 said by the FO to remain in a press release). Will be legend.
You could bring your dog to the stadium, but there were only a couple dozen dogs from what I could tell. So more or less just your normal non-promotion Timbers match (we get a couple of these per year, it's our second sell out and we've had one other near sell out). August we always get good crowds, September also.
Let's not go overboard here. Minnesota already has drawn more than that, and they have four home games to go.
Miami did better than that last year, and they're doing better this year than they did last year. So, most likely a 'no' on that one, too. Baltimore... hard to say. Still a long ways to go, but also still have 6 more games, in a stadium that is, supposedly, better. So you might get that one.
They had some youth night and I'd be surprised if a huge chunk of those tickets weren't giveaways. HOWEVER of the three road trips the Mob has made down there, last night was by far and away the best atmosphere. Those kids made a shit ton of noise compared to previous games and it was good to finally see some life in the bleachers in support of their team.