excuse me, I have to reply to this thread just so that I can uncheck the box to receive email notifications. BS has been sending me emails about updates to this thread...
I thought that the "owners" suite was the one right behind the Quakes team seating, however, I think there was an open area there as well. I just thought it part of the owners suite. My guess is that they have walled part of it off. They mention the Sky Lounge and Bench seats as a "multi-million dollar' improvement to Avaya. How about a multi-million dollar improvement to our roster?
Yeah, that multi-million dollar quote really irked me. A few million added to the roster would be a significant improvement, wouldn’t it? Just shows where the owners interest really lie.
I'm okay with all of it. I criticize the organization for NOT spending money. Any money spent on infrastructure is a good thing. Sure this may be "elitist" and not where I would spend that money (a permanent SJ home for the development academy should be the #1 priority... oh and the stadium could still use an outer facade and completed roof), but elitist stadium experiences are what bring in the big bucks, this is nothing new if you've been paying attention to professional sports over the last two decades. If they think this will bring in more money, go for it. Hell, slap sponsorships on both new sections to bring in even more money.
I've solved this completely by arriving early and not leaving my seat area until the end of the game I have noticed folks swooping into other seats though. On the plus side, we moaters can do the same thing in other club sections.
I was told the same thing, but I was more adamant about being closer to midfield (the moat sections are further away from midfield than I would like), so I stuck with my seats in 1 and 2. And I figured I could get through and exit through the suite if I needed (which I can and people do). Then, when I went for a preview during construction, I found the walkways next to the seat, which was great. Problem is there is also a walkway right next to that one, on the suite side, and small children do gymnastics the whole game on the bars, blocking my view of the Ultra's goal :\
The 2018 seating map now includes the "Sky Lounge": Those seats cost almost exactly triple the ones surrounding them which means....a barrier separating them and security to enforce the boundary and the entrances on the top concourse and the elevator. More rules and security are not what I want at an entertainment venue. There is an old saying that the greatest income disparity at an international border is between the US and Mexico. Now we have a little example of that scenario at Avaya Stadium, complete with a border fence. As distasteful as this or any VIP section is to me, I think there will be takers, because the price includes parking, some food and drink and is lower than the moat prices.
Sure this new features will bring in more money, but it's not like this money will go towards purchasing more expensive, more talented players. The money will make the rich owners richer. So what are you rooting for? Increasing Fisher's net worth?
Indeed. I had row 1 "club" seats for the first three years, and moat access was a second-year innovation.
How do we know that? I would imagine that they run the business in such a way that spending has something to do with income.
What... you don't think there's any connection between how much money the team makes and how much money they're willing to spend on players?
Though I think it nice to spend money on the stadium, MLS still relies on butts in the seats for a lot of its profitability and the best way to achieve that is by putting an entertaining winner on the field. I would venture to guess our actual attendance this past year was in the 13,000-15,000 range. Better to spend a couple three million on players to build a better team and get 2,000-3,000 more fans to physically show up. 2500 more fans spending a conservative $50 per game is $2.125 million for the season. 3000 fans is $2.55 million. 100 suckers paying $1700 for a season pass for the Sky Lounge + another $50 per game on concessions is only $255,000 for the year. Tthough, as you said, they will probably get sponsors for the sections. The Sky Lounge could be sponsored by an airline or some company dealing with the "cloud".
I don't think it's as simple as spend $3 mil on a few players and voila, 2-3k more fans. It doesn't hurt but if those players are not "name" players and the team isn't significantly better, not sure it'll have that impact. And besides the team usually plays well and wins at home already.
I didn't say that 2-3 million spent automatically translates into more fans showing up. I mentioned having an "entertaining winner" and build a "better team". We may be fairly successful record-wise at home, but, fans do pay attention to the overall record of the team. And we have hardly been entertaining at home. We only averaged 1.65 goals at home, and allowed 1.23. Our opponents twice put 4 past us at Avaya, while we never managed that once. We scored three at home on only three occasions. In nearly half of the games, 8 of 17, we scored 1 goal or 0. And all you have to do is look at the stands to see that the product we are getting is not bringing in the fans.
If we were winning championships, we'd get a lot more press locally and that would end up with more butts in seats. For all of you "elitest" haters out there, we have cheap seats and a stadium because of the expensive seats; every seat in Avaya is pretty damn good, why worry about where someone else is sitting? I'm suspect of the new skybox since they displaced loyal season ticket holders, but I am glad that they are working to help them find new, reasonable homes (some extra perks for them would have been nice, at least for next year though). If someone wants to pay that price for those seats, all power to them but the food in the suites looks horrible so I really don't get the value. I think the bench seats are a good idea... I'm sure those will be VERY expensive. I do wonder how they'll handle security with such access to the players... everyone has to get a background check first?
You are drawing up a sequence of events: Spend $3 mil on a couple of players -> become a more entertaining, better team -> 2-3k more fans I just skipped the middle part because I didn't want to have to describe the whole sequence. We get it. My point is that 1) buying a couple of $3 million players may or may not make you a more entertaining, better team, and if it does it may be very incremental. I mean it's not as simple as 15% more entertaining translates to 15% more fans. It would have to probably be 40-50% more entertaining / winning to start having a significant effect, and that is a very hard thing to do in MLS. Remember the other team is in most cases similarly ambitious or more so, and getting more so every year, and with parity and everything else, winning in MLS and getting sufficiently above parity so that it's actually noticeable to all but the hardest core fans is no mean feat, and there is no easy recipe. I think the Quakes are going about it the right way - no easy fixes, they need to define an entertaining style of play and then work towards it for the long term at all levels of the club. And of course, acquire and but also develop good players that can play in your system and work as part of a team for a greater good. And 2) I question how much a really good team has on attendance. When the Quakes had arguably the greatest ever American player and a championship season it didn't impact attendance much. I know - I sat thru the 1st game of the 2014 season after the Quakes had won a championship, along with about 7k others. That is anecdotal, but I think the attendance lagged a bit even in those championship years.
Been there done that, didn't make much difference in either press coverage or butts in seats. We had arguably the greatest ever American player and 2 championships in 3 years, and we were still somewhere below high school football in mainstream media. And besides, "winning championships" in MLS still has a great deal of crap shoot in it. Yes, you should be good enough to get into the playoffs but then it is a roll of the dice, and you can't just cash in your "more entertaining, more winning team" chips for a championship. And even if you added two more $3 million players to the Quakes, there would still be several more ambitious teams that you are competing with.
In the Doyle era they didn't make many promises, at least on the technical side. It was more like excuses (we're a small team"). Jesse OTOH is a big talker ("impose our will on the opposition"), etc. Too early to say that he didn't deliver but he's set the expectations pretty high. I guess I'd prefer the big goals even if they fall short, over "we're a small team". You may fall short of your big goals, but if you have no real goals to begin with then you're pretty much dead in the water.
I disagree with this. It seems like it is pretty much a requirement these days to have multiple "Premium" options available in a state of the art stadium. It's not uncommon to have different types of exclusive clubs or services available within a stadium, so that you can choose your preference (if that sort of thing is important to you). The Sky Lounge is a reasonable way to add another option without significantly impacting the rest of the stadium experience. Seems like a reasonable solution without a significant change to the stadium. For me, in years past, I would have killed for a "Young Family" section up in one of the corners with an enclosed space, an Earthquakes-themed play structure, couch seating, and changing tables facing the field. Each of us experience the Earthquakes in a different way. It is perfectly reasonable to offer a number of different ways of enjoying an Earthquakes game. The toddler in the "Young Family" section of today is the Ultra of tomorrow...
The Doyle era just ended in June with the firing of Dom. I think next year will be Jesse's year as he will have been on the job for a year and has his people in place. I also have a feeling he will be getting rid of Leitch sooner than we think.
There is a rather brilliant post on the Facebook Earthquakes discussion group, spoofing the Sky Lounge announcement with some fake news regarding the 'Quakes signing a Nigerian Youth star: Skylo Unge.
That was with completely disinterested owners. I would hope, if we had that success again, that we'd throw some marketing to help reinforce the message.