Opinions on Austin FC joining MLS

Discussion in 'MLS: General' started by golers, Jan 14, 2019.

  1. firefan2001

    firefan2001 Member+

    Dec 27, 2000
    Oswego, Illinois
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    What I'm saying that it could be less if say every/most deposit requested 3 tickets and when it's time to buy they only buy 2 and if the reverse happens if every/most deposit requested 3 tickets, but buy 4 tickets. OK, so it's not an estimate, it's meaningless number.

    I hope that all the deposit request go fulfilled, that way the entire 2021 season will be sold out and they'll have a healthy waiting list.
     
  2. wingman2468

    wingman2468 Member

    Austin FC
    United States
    May 25, 2018
    Thats exactly what it is: a more accurate estimate of demand for season tickets. People willing to spend some sort of money to buy season tickets.
     
  3. wingman2468

    wingman2468 Member

    Austin FC
    United States
    May 25, 2018
    Austin FC is working with Excel Sports Management as a third party sales agent for national and international sales on stadium and jersey sponsorships. https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com...arketing-and-Sponsorship/Austin-FC-Excel.aspx

    As a top 3 sports agency in the world,This is the first time they’ve worked with an MLS team. They regularly handle NBA, MLB, and PGA stars like Tiger Woods. What are your thoughts?
     
  4. DonJuego

    DonJuego Member+

    Aug 19, 2005
    Austin, TX
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    More accurate than what? $50 is not really some sort of money except in the most technical sense. For instance, I nearly signed up simply because it is virtually free. I would have chosen 8 seats. There is no way in hell I would ever buy 8 season tickets -- but why not? I probably will not buy 1 season ticket, but like I said, a place in line is virtually free.
     
  5. don gagliardi

    don gagliardi Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
    Feb 28, 2004
    san jose
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Add up all those “virtually free” deposits and it starts to be real money. Hold them all for two or three years (or longer) at a market rate of interest and you’re comfortably into six figures of pure profit even if every single one of those de minimis deposits is refunded in full — without the interest, of course.

    Wish I could figure a scam to get four thousand or more people to send me 50 or 100 bucks to hold indefinitely on promise to repay the principal someday.
     
  6. wingman2468

    wingman2468 Member

    Austin FC
    United States
    May 25, 2018
    Edit: sorry, bad phone screen. Reply down below
     
  7. wingman2468

    wingman2468 Member

    Austin FC
    United States
    May 25, 2018
    Not a really good scam, considering he’s got at least 20 employees right now, 3 of which probably make six figures by themselves.
     
  8. DonJuego

    DonJuego Member+

    Aug 19, 2005
    Austin, TX
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    So again. More accurate than what? Make the case that this system has any accuracy to it as a indicator of true demand for season tickets. I'm actually open minded on that.
     
  9. DonJuego

    DonJuego Member+

    Aug 19, 2005
    Austin, TX
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Hmm. Lets look at math. Lets say 8000 deposits. (I think that is probably high.) At $50 each. That is 400000$. Say you put it in a REIT returning 8% a year. That generates 32,000$ / year in revenue. That does not cover the salary of one person to administer it. That doesn't cover the cost of the website used to run it.
     
  10. don gagliardi

    don gagliardi Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
    Feb 28, 2004
    san jose
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    x2 or x3 or maybe more years because there are often delays with new stadia. And an unspecified percentage of those deposits are 100 dollars, not 50.

    The website is sunk cost and if the deposit-administrator job is full-time, what will she be doing for the next two years now that the stadium is already (purportedly) over-sold but far from being built?
     
  11. firefan2001

    firefan2001 Member+

    Dec 27, 2000
    Oswego, Illinois
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Probably half as much considering 4,000 of those deposits will be season ticket holders (say 3.75 average per deposit, that's probably high), leaving 4,000 deposits at $50 or $100. Either way it's not like the owner is going to get rich off of it and if you don't get season tickets and don't like that they have your $50 or $100, just ask for a refund.
     
  12. IvanIV

    IvanIV King of all He purveys

    Apr 8, 2006
    TN
    Club:
    Sheffield Wednesday FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    wow.

    not as much football talk in here as i'd thought there'd be...
     
    Auriaprottu repped this.
  13. stanger

    stanger BigSoccer Supporter

    Nov 29, 2008
    Columbus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    There is no football to talk about with AFC.
     
  14. NashSC

    NashSC Member+

    Nashville SC
    United States
    Jan 3, 2018
    How are we supposed to talk football about a team that has never played a game, has no players and no stadium?

    Is this a Who's on First kind of scenario?
     
  15. KCbus

    KCbus Moderator
    Staff Member

    United States
    Nov 26, 2000
    Reynoldsburg, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    When the Columbus Blue Jackets started up in 2000, I sent in a refundable $100 deposit for a personal seat license. Knowing full well that there was no chance in hell I'd be able to afford it. It was a pipe dream. A statement that I would support the team.

    That $100 came back to me pretty quickly.
     
  16. Yoshou

    Yoshou Fan of the CCL Champ

    May 12, 2009
    Seattle
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    How accurate are any of these deposit campaigns? This one is probably less accurate than a campaign that required a deposit for each ticket, but I suspect people are more likely to select the number of season tickets they plan on buying, rather than the maximum. Portland and Seattle required a deposit per ticket and ended up with a conversion rate of greater than 100% as people bought more, I believe Atlanta only required one deposit and, from what I've seen in other threads, only sold 20k ST from 30k deposits prior to the start of the season. If Austin ends up being on par with Atlanta, that gets them to their stadium capacity...
     
    DonJuego and Jay34 repped this.
  17. IvanIV

    IvanIV King of all He purveys

    Apr 8, 2006
    TN
    Club:
    Sheffield Wednesday FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Perspective roster..?

    I don't care.

    Seems like arguing about tickets is all that is going on.
     
  18. IvanIV

    IvanIV King of all He purveys

    Apr 8, 2006
    TN
    Club:
    Sheffield Wednesday FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Perspective roster..?

    I don't care.

    Seems like arguing about tickets is all that is going on.
     
  19. NashSC

    NashSC Member+

    Nashville SC
    United States
    Jan 3, 2018
    That IS all that is going on. Perspective roster is pretty difficult to talk about when they have zero players or coaching staff and don't play for another 2 years. Pretty silly to expect football discussions at this point. Perspective rosters talk would be extremely pointless at this point. I guess you should tell the organization to not announce ticket deposit info because that is where it came from.

    Don't like it, move along.
     
    stanger repped this.
  20. DonJuego

    DonJuego Member+

    Aug 19, 2005
    Austin, TX
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Well, we don't start playing footy until March 2021.
     
  21. jaykoz3

    jaykoz3 Member+

    Dec 25, 2010
    Conshohocken, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The answer is likely somewhere in the middle. The league cannot afford to have Austin be a failure after all of the machinations and bad optics from PSV's poor handling of moving The Crew to Austin.

    It's quite clear that after the Austin Clause was leaked to Wahl that Precourt got called to the principal's office (MLS HQ), possibly more than once. He was very likely told in clear terms from the likes of Kraft, Uncle Phil, etc. to get his sh!t together and to stop f@cking around. If he didn't, he'd get booted out of the MLS Ownership Club. It is also quite clear that MLS HQ stepped in to turn this whole situation around and into MLS' favor.

    MLS HQ helped find local owners to keep the Crew in CBus, they helped get the stadium search completed in Austin (i.e. they did the work PSV should have been doing all along), and MLS HQ had to subsequently smooth things over with all of the groups who submitted expansion bids (all quiet in San Antonio....hmmmm) now that there was at the time one less spot.

    Still would not be surprising at all if PSV is NOT the majority investor/operator when the first ball is kicked at Austin FC Stadium in March 2021. Honestly for the fans of AFC I certainly hope this is the case. Personally I don't want to see any franchise fail or have an owner who's clueless. May you build good and heated rivalries with FCD and Houston.
     
  22. stanger

    stanger BigSoccer Supporter

    Nov 29, 2008
    Columbus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States

    MLS in no way helped anything in Columbus as far as keeping the team there. The new owners were found by the Columbus Partnership, which is a collection of the local titans, and Dr. Pete Edwards.

    If MLS could have figured out a way to move the Crew without it becoming an even larger black eye, they would have done it.
     
  23. POdinCowtown

    POdinCowtown Member+

    Jan 15, 2002
    Columbus
    Do you have first hand info that Austin is reporting an automatic 8 seats per deposit? In other words that they received 3750 deposits on day one? It would explain some things but seems shameless.
     
  24. NashSC

    NashSC Member+

    Nashville SC
    United States
    Jan 3, 2018
    I don't believe that is what he is saying.
    He is saying people could reserve up to 8 seats. I don't see anywhere where he claims Austin is reporting an automatic 8 seats per deposit.
     
  25. DonJuego

    DonJuego Member+

    Aug 19, 2005
    Austin, TX
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I don't. It was the best I could assume based on the initial reports. I now assume they have a higher number mainly because my totally unscientific poll of people I know that put down deposits did not all go for 8. In fact none of them did. 1/2 of the folks in my unscientific poll of Juego's friends who put down deposits are not sure at all that they will purchase any season tickets at all. For me, the whole thing has become a meaningless marketing exercise.
     

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