I'm curious about how the tickets are distributed. When I called I asked what they had available on the east side and there were only 5 different areas that had 2 tickets together available.
Interesting thoughts from Chris Hill in the trib on Rice-Eccles expansion that might also apply to Rio Tinto: "I said I'd take a look at it, and then a few years later I'm looking at it and thinking, man, our atmosphere and Oregon's are the only ones that feel great when you go into them," he said. "Expanding would be the cheap seats, and it would cost $50 million. People ask, 'Why don't you expand?' But you research, you ask around, and there's not a team in our league that would tell us to expand."
This is a good point, but the comparison's aren't exactly apples to apples. Rice Eccles isn't going to expand to 100K seats like the Rose bowl. It isn't going to jump to 65K like Arizona State. The realistic proposal there is to go to, at most, 50-60k. I laugh at what Hill says in these. He's talking about stadiums twice the size of RES. Of course the expansion shouldn't be that big. But I think RES could honestly use a close in of the south end zone. Same with RSL. So long as the RioT doesn't try to double in size, I think it would be smart in 10 years or so to move the stadium into the 25K range.
10-years is waaaay too long. The popularity of this league is growing quickly. RSL's season ticket base has doubled in the last 5 years. Waiting 10-years would be a huge missed opportunity. As far as Chris Hill - he's in a very different situation. He works at a University which in theory doesn't have a profit motive, and the goal is to provide the best "environment" for it's students. RSL has to maximize it's profits and remain competitive financially with the rest of the league. To turn its back on potential revenue would be not only financially irresponsible, but also could impact the long-term viability of the club. The trick is to make the decision at the right time, and to expand in the right way. Not sure when that is, and how many additional seats makes the most sense, but this is likely a decision that will need to be evaluated over the next few years.
What happens if after 5 years DLH decides to expand, so he takes a $50 Million dollar bond to pay for the construction, RSL has a bunch of players retire and goes into a down phase with several losing seasons. Rio Tinto expands to 25-30k, but the notoriously fickle utah sports fans stop showing up in droves because RSL misses the playoffs 2, 3, 4 years in a row. Attendance goes from sellouts every single game to averaging maybe 17-18k per game (reasonable given the downturn of Jazz attendance after they started to suck multiple years in a row following literally decades of good play). Now you've got attendance barely 60% of the stadium every week and DLH is on the hook for tens of millions of dollars. This sort of thing has happened to pretty much every single team in the league. DC used to average massive crowds, by far the most dedicated and proven fanbase in MLS, they had a few years of suckage and their attendance plummeted. Chicago used to have an extremely dedicated fanbase, they pretty much sold out their new stadium when it opened every game. They sucked for a few years and their attendance plummeted. The LA ********ing Galaxy used to sell out every game during the Beckham era, they won championships, Beckham leaves and they get Robbie Keane and go on to win another championship and they can't even crack 25k a game now. NYRB wins the supporters shield and has one of the greatest soccer players ever to play the game on their team and they can't even sellout. Utah sports fans are known to support a winner really really well, be among the best fans of whatever team in whatever league. But they are also known to accumulate a whole lot of broken ankles jumping off bandwagon's when their "favorite" team stops winning a bunch of games every year. I'd hate to see DLH make a rash decision, take on a shitload of debt to expand the stadium after a few really good years of RSL attendance, and see the team go through a rough patch which resulted in attendance dropping 10-20%. RSL is still in the bottom half of the league regarding ticket prices, as much as it hurts my wallet to say this, but I'd rather keep the RioT near the size it is right now and drive up demand (developing even a STH waiting list). Let's revisit this in 2-3 years after Javi retires, Sabo moves on, Kyle has taken a step back, Olave is gone, and the core of our team is either gone or has one foot out of the door.
Well there's always going to be a risk. What if in 10 years soccer has exploded, RSL is even better than it is now, and the owners are kicking themselves for not expanding? If you don't invest in something, no matter what it is, because you're worried it might not pan out how you hoped, you'd never invest in anything. Dell Loy and gang need to be at least discussing the subject right now, whether they actually decide to or not. I think the safest way to go about it is to say, "ok once we hit x amount on our STH wait list we will expand."
Oh, no doubt, but smart businessmen like DLH don't make big money decisions involving tens of millions of dollars based on a sample size of 1 or 2 years worth of sellouts. Also take into account that DLH has spent an enormous amount of money in recent years making infrastructure improvements to the RioT. I'm certain he'd like to take a couple years and use consistent sellouts with an enormous STH base (think: guaranteed money) to "pay" off those debts as a team.
I don't think anyone will say they aren't discussing it. Haven't they even come out and said they are? The thing is, you don't pull the trigger on that until you have years of sellouts. Not 20 games in which you have to use heavy promos to keep the streak alive (see this weekend). RSL has to have sold out every game through the 2018 season, IMO, for this to become reality. Here is the best gauge, though: Portland Timbers. They've made minor expansions here and there, but still have yet to make a big one. Haven't they sold out EVERY SINGLE MLS GAME they've had so far? If that franchise, that charges upwards of $40-$50 for some of the shittiest seats in the league, doesn't have plans to make a big expansion - then is it really smart for RSL to?
Problem with Portland is they have no place to expand. There is no more room to add more seats. The south end of the stadium has the Multnomah Athletic Club building which is contractually obligated to have an unobstructed view of field from building/club (written lonnngggg ago with the city of portland when the stadium was built). So the Timbers could add a few more seats to the south end, but there's an access road and the health center down there as well. The east side of the stadium is sunken below the road and the stands are quite literally built right up to it so they can't add anymore there as well. Adding a second deck would mean a massive overhaul of the stadium and its roof structure, I can't even imagine how much that'd cost.
I think a big part of the equation for DLH will be how much he can raise ticket prices. If we only have fans coming now because they're on a bandwagon, then the right (business) response is to take advantage of that temporary high demand by raising ticket prices, not by expanding. They still get higher revenue, but without the cost of expansion. If, however, the increase in fan base is a permanent thing, then expansion probably makes sense. If I were DLH, I'd definitely wait for a few years to see if the fan base sticks around even if RSL is bad. He isn't out much by waiting, since he can raise ticket prices in the meantime and still get higher revenue if demand does continue to increase.
That's why I'm saying a STH wait list is probably the most logical way to judge it. If you reach the point where you have a 10,000 person wait list (just an example) another 5,000 seats is probably worth the investment because you can fill it with STHs regardless of whether the odd Wednesday night game against Philadelphia sold out or not.
God, the way they're playing right now we might be seeing this much sooner rather than later. This team is flat out unwatchable right now, they're not even playing soccer, it's just foul foul foul, boot the ball up the field, foul foul, boot the ball, foul, lose possession, foul.
So that consecutive sellout streak we were using to justify this discussion... Referee: Sorin Stoica Assistant Referees: Ian Anderson, Anthony Vasoli 4th Official: Younes Marrakchi Attendance: 19,715 Weather: Partly cloudy and 70
Since I'm directly across from the Maverik corner, I am kind of using that as a gauge of ticket demand. It seemed about 2/3 full on Friday, but nowhere near full.
Season ticket sales is still the better gauge anyway. If they hypothetically did expand and sold out 25k for 14 games and were 19000 for 3 I don't think they would mind. It's all about STH numbers though.
I think there're probably arguments for considering expansion if all Saturday league games are sold out and games on off-nights are close.
Against San Jose...If I wasn't a season ticket holder I would choose not to spend my money to watch RSL play SJ.