Yeah, but they're still playing fast and loose with the generally accepted use of the term "season ticket deposit." I have no idea how many full season ticket packages Austin will sell in 2021, but it sure as hell won't be a bazillion, or 20K, much less the fantastical/impossible 37K. The best practice (for MLS), ideal number of full season ticket packages for a 20K stadium would be in the 15K range (give or take). If Austin manages that, I'll tip my hat to them. It would be a real accomplishment. Needless to say, I'm doubtful, though.
I'd think best practice would be to sell almost as many as they can. With capacity at 20.5K and at least several hundred required for visiting teams, they in theory could sell close to 20K. Why wouldn't they want that instead of hoping for walkup sales in hot weather? Extra demand could go on a waiting list and people willing to sit in hot weather who didn't get tickets could buy on the secondary market. While season seats are usually discounted a bit, it's money in hand instead of trying to sell several thousand every week.
I have never ever heard of a US pro team not leaving some tickets available for single game sales. Pretty sure that would be unheard of. You could kill your ability to build your fanbase. You would lock in the same 20k people to every game and never give anyone else the chance to become a fan. Especially for the launch of a team that would be dangerous. Other people outside of your season ticket base need to be able to come to games. You need more than the same 20k people over and over. You also want to sell merchandise to other people. Getting them to come to games is the best way to do that. You don't want your merch base to be only 20k people. I feel pretty confident in saying they will not sell virtually 100% of their seats to season tickets. There is a reason teams like SKC and Portland have chosen to not sell 100% their seats to season tickets when they could have easily done so.
I agree. I especially found this part interesting, "And we are in a very good position as we aim towards the goal of selling out for our inaugural season and beyond." If they have sold 37k season ticket deposits for a 20k stadium in a couple months then there should be no question they will sell out their inaugural season considering there is over a year left to go. Yet they are still questioning it? None of this adds up.
Completely different situations tho. Atlanta still had thousands of seats available for deposits after their initial round. If Austin's numbers are accurate, they no longer have any impetus to push for additional deposits. Anything above what they have now is just gravy.
If you believe this is really 37k full season ticket deposits...then I don't know what to say. I wish I had your faith, is all I can think to reply with.
If they want to promise all season ticket holders a guaranteed opportunity to buy tickets to a potential MLS Cup that they host, they need to leave a buffer of a few thousand to accommodate league obligations for that event.
It depends what you mean by "37k full season ticket deposits", Austin's method of only requiring one deposit for up to 8 season tickets could be prone to abuse and it sounds like they were also accepting more than 8 if you called in and made your deposit. So if you mean they got 37k deposits, then, no, I don't believe that happened. However, if you mean they got a fraction of that and the number of season tickets people claimed along with that.. Sure, why not. It literally costs a person nothing to say they want 8 tickets vs saying they want 2 tickets...
On the plus side, you now have to look a little deeper to uncover the depth of the lies. Time was, the lies were so patently absurd that you laughed immediately.
Hahaha, AFC hosting MLS cup. If they do host, they'll have angry ticket members as the best seats get taken by MLS and the highest paying regular season ticket members get relocated out of their primo seats.
Seriously, can we please get the ability to block jackoff moderators when it's not the section they're the moderator of? I hope Columbus folds/moves just to piss you off.
He was actually speaking from experience. There were ticket holders in prime seats that were displaced in 2015 when Columbus hosted the Cup.
I was laughing at the idea that any MLS team would limit their season ticket sales based on the less than 4% chance they'll host MLS Cup. Extra laughs for Precourt though.
So will the inevitable rivalry cup between Austin and Columbus be the DouchyP Classic or something like that?
LAFC caps season tickets 4,500 below capacity for this reason. They obviously could sell more season tickets if they made them available. If the argument is that LAFC should have this cap because they're a good team with an obviously strong chance of hosting, but Austin shouldn't because LOL Precourt sux, that's not a good way to plan league operations.
The possibility of hosting MLS cup is not the only reason teams are leaving several thousand seats open and not selling them to season tickets. This is pretty standard practice at least in US pro/college sports (many college football teams could sell every seat to season tickets if they wanted). I discussed some of the reasons in an earlier post. It would not be good marketing to limit your crowd to the same 20-30k people every game. Companies that pay for in stadium advertising (not visible to TV broadcasts) are also probably hoping for some new eyeballs throughout the season.
There are always a couple of thousand tickets available on resale sites. Who was the Washington State resident who sued the Timbers for taking his 111 STs away?
Sure, but LAFC is pretty confident of being able to sell those seats. Good weather is the norm in LA. Austin has a lot of days in the summer with temperatures above 100. My view is that while of course it's desirable to get lots of people exposure to the live experience, the team would probably do best to sell as many seats as possible ahead of time rather than counting on selling individual games. It creates scarcity, allows more pricing power, and creates cachet. A lot of the season seats will go to businesses who will rotate employees and customers through them anyway.
Not sure where to put this, but stadium thread sounds close enough. Just took my fall MLS trip with a couple MLB games thrown in= Sunday RSL @Minn ( Monday Sox at Twins) Wednesday ATL@CIN (Friday Mets at Reds) Saturday SJ @ATL ---------- Best experience by far was at Allianz. Excellent crowd and game, everyone around sat and watched the game, knowledgable soccer fans. Walking into this stadium, it screams Soccer, with a Euro flare. Looks bigger on outside than for what its listed capacity actually is. Cincy next best- old classic stadium, announced crowd of 24,000 on a Wednesday (even if people around me said it looked like 20,000) would still be larger than some established teams get on a weekend. And for a team that is dead last in the table. I drove by the construction site and lots of dirt being moved and my goodness, did they wedge that into the neighborhood. Hopefully all issues will be worked out. The Cincy Ballet parking lot is still across the street - I parked in it to take some pictures- surely a shared situation can be worked out and I also drove by the new high school football stadium that was built at the trade off- it looks very, very nice for high school. Atlanta. Yes, 40,000 were there, but I just never felt comfortable watching the game there. I bought a ticket in the second deck and could not see the near side corner flag or part of the field, which caused everyone to stand when the ball was in the area. In a stadium this expensive, thats a shame. Crowd reminded me a lot LA. On their phones, walking around and keeping the bars busy. Maybe it was just my section. I have never been in such a high end NFL stadium, other than SEA, but I still felt soccer was a visitor in an NFL stadium. -- Side notes, Twins game on a Monday night, not a big crowd despite leading the division/in process of clinching it. The freeway ramps and giant parking garages all around the park gave it a walled off feel, not friendly to approach. The light rail at the front door is nice and commuter train in basement are better access than many MLB parks. Reds game was Friday on the beginning of the Octoberfest 3 day weekend. Lots of people , crowd was pretty good. I sat around the stadium in 2-3 different sections. Stadium and food set ups better than Minnesota. Riverview side of stadium ok, but the rest of the area is composed of parking garages, freeways sports arena on one side and football stadium on the other. Freeway cuts off the stadiums and the river from the rest of downtown. Once again, a poor pedestrian feel to approach the stadium.
I dunno, but I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed. Further confirmation is due later this morning when the Crew is supposedly going to drop stadium renderings on the world. Even Don Garber, who spent the last five years conspiring to torpedo CBus like a Japanese ammo barge in 1945 is openly dazzled. We shall see. Team release this am under the heading "It's time": One thing we can say for a fact though: the new management knows PR. Crew fans went 20 years getting high school pep club level crap from the team. This new stuff is really first rate and we don't know how to cope. Ownership spending actual money on marketing. What a concept.