The work that needs to be done is the work that has not been done to date, namely, market your team to the local community. As soccer fans in South Florida, all we can do is hope that the new USSF requirements along with the change to an iconic South Florida sports franchise name and look will finally get Traffic to do what it should have been doing all along and promote the team. And by the way, if not for some thunderstorms most of the afternoon and evening in the area, I bet they might have topped 2,000. But as someone else said, it feels sickening to think, wow, yeah, almost 2,000 for soccer at Lockhart Stadium, that's an improvement.......
Traffic is going to have to figure out how (along with all the other things) to deal with the weather. Last I heard, thunderstorms in Florida in the summer were pretty nearly a daily occurrence. I believe the relevant term is 'tropical'?
its the same here in Charleston, it was a pretty heavy rain about 1hr before the game that let up a bit about kickoff but continued until the first part of the second half. We still had 4700+ Saturday night. I know the rain is a contributing factor but I think their problems are Traffic and an indifferent community. Traffic needs to connect with the soccer community somehow, ramp up the sales department and start marketing the team. It seems like every year Traffic has the "next season we are going to do something..." atitude. If it wasnt for a core group of fans that really have done any marketing that Miami has the team would have been gone two seasons ago....
The 948 or so hearty souls who turned up to baltimore last night saw their team smashed to smithereens by Montreal, 5-0. 9,157 at Rochester, though.
2,241 for Puerto Rico @ St. Louis. Looks like AC's typical attendance has settled to between 2,000 and 3,000 per game - more specifically, between 2,200 and 2,700. If the team's still around next year, that's a benchmark for improvement.
While attendance at the D2 level is no indicator as to how well a team will do in MLS, I'm wondering if the USSF should add an attendance minimum from a D3 team before they allow them to move up. Granted, Baltimore probably wouldn't have (and won't) meet the other standards that are in place for next year's D2, but I do wonder if, having seen two D3 teams move up in the past two years and promptly kill themselves, they shouldn't add an attendance minimum as one more barrier to avoid any more self-inflicted disasters. ...now that I think about it, I guess they couldn't. That would be unfair to put that on a D3 team, but not have anything of the sort for a brand new team coming straight into D2. Still, looking at Baltimore's numbers and overall quality last year, you could see this coming a mile away.
L'Impact a annoncé mardi que le match du vendredi 27 août au Stade Saputo contre les Rhinos de Rochester (19h30, Radio-Canada, radio-canada.ca/sports, CKAC Sports, THE TEAM 990) sera disputé à guichets fermés, alors que les 13 034 billets ont trouvé preneur. La formation montréalaise jouera à guichets fermés pour une cinquième fois cette saison. L'Impact affrontera ensuite à domicile les Rowdies de Tampa Bay, le 19 septembre, puis les Aztex d'Austin, le 3 octobre. Il est possible de se procurer des billets pour ces deux derniers matchs de la saison via le Réseau Admission (514-790-1245 / 1-800-361-4595 / admission.com) ou la billetterie du Stade Saputo. (hint : sold out )
If I read it right, it's the game against Rochester that's sold out. Nice. However, not that shocking. I mean, they've done it four other times this season. Still, with not much space between their capacity and their average last season, they've managed to improve over last year. I'm looking forward to the day when there will be more than one other team in D2 that regularly draw half as well as Portland and Montreal.
Their stadium only holds around 5,000. So they're limited by that. And I'm not sure you can really call them weak in any way. Remember that the USL1 Seattle Sounders attendances were worse than all three of the teams that are coming in the next two years. In fact, only Miami and Atlanta were worse than Seattle in '08. So, more precisely, "yeah, but, so?"
The MLS stadium is being remodeled. But the stadium that the MLS team will use next year is all done. Currently being used by the BC Lions. The Vancouver Whitecaps have, for many years, used Swangard stadium, which only seats around 5k. Not sure why they decided to stay in Swangard this year rather than moving to the stadium that the MLS Whitecaps will use next year.
Apparently Sunday is looking VERY close already. Don't know about tomorrow, but it'll be a good show. Big crowd.