And I'm not convinced of anything you say just because you say it. So, we're even. My view is that each North American market is sui generis, and yours, it would appear, is that a cookie-cutter template can be applied. The truth no doubt lies somewhere in between but the extant evidence overwhelmingly suggests that reality is closer to my end of the spectrum. Otherwise, the minor league Deltas would be seeing the same success among San Francisco's hipsters as the minor league Timbers recently did with Portland's.
This is why Fresno was such a natural expansion candidate: the Fuego's average attendance would have been around #17-#18 on the list above, well over half of the current USL teams. I would presume that attendance will only go up with a better team and more high profile opponents (including 1-2 MLS teams per year), along with a bigger promotional and advertising budget. Along the lines of this sub-conversation, however, it will be interesting to see what happens with both the Fuego and Fresno FC playing matches in the same city. It's highly likely that the Fuego will play right before Fresno FC as a "warm-up" match, but nothing is set in stone yet. If both teams come as part of the same entry ticket, it will be a moot point. But if games are separate, with Fuego matches continuing to be in the $10-$15 range and Fresno FC likely being more, it will be interesting to see whether you will see a split in fans.
Yes, clearly two cities makes up a pattern that San Jose doesn't fit into. Nevermind that the Delta's had unbelievably bad marketing and are run by morons in a league that is on the fast track to complete implosion. Those are all factors in why that specific team has struggled that go beyond a potential issue with SF not supporting minor league clubs. I have argued in the past that SF is, in general, a pretty crap sports town, which might be a factor as well. Have you thought that maybe it's SF that's unusual and not San Jose? As for cookie cutter, that's not what I was suggesting, really. I was just stating that your evidence towards San Jose being particularly fertile ground for minor league team success was flimsy, that's all. I think markets are not all alike, but that having a market to oneself and sharing a market with a major league team did not dictate whether or not a minor league team could have success. That's all. If each market is individual enough, then that would lend to my argument that having their own market or sharing a market would not necessarily dictate whether a minor league team was successful.
Yes, has his wife agreed to move to Fresno? Has he bought a house? Did he sell his house in the bay area? How much money is he making? Is it more than an assistant in MLS?
Fresno is an interesting case. It's population is mid-size by California standards, but it's still half a million people without even factoring in the neighboring cities: bigger than Oakland, home to two major league teams (thankfully soon to be just one). It's relative isolation in the middle of the state with zero immediate interstate highway access has really hampered the types of things that it can support. I have no problem believing that Fresno could have very good support for a USL team, though two teams might be stretching it. If they bundle tickes, I wonder what the price would be set at and how close it would have to come to major league prices in order to cover the costs of operating two rosters plus the incredible amount of travel expenses they probably have to incur. Traveling, alone, would make operating more than one team seem almost impossible. If you push tickets into the 35 to 40 range, even if you're getting two games out of it (and in Fresno's heat, that might be more a curse than a blessing), then that's a much less attractive offer, in my mind. That team is going to have to perform well pretty early in order to have staying power, I think, and if Yallop is leading the charge on the field, my confidence in that happening is not high.
I was not asserting San Jose is "particularly fertile ground for minor league team success," so if I've misread your posts it appears you've also misread mine. So, we're even, again. I said San Jose was likely not representative. That means it's unique. It values its A-league baseball team. (Is there a city even remotely its size that even has one at such a low level?) And, from what I can tell, its minor league hockey fans are not cannibalized from those of the Sharks.
I agree mostly with your points, but I would add two things: 1) I don't think Oakland and Fresno are very fair comparisons: Oakland is part of the greater SF-SJ-OK Bay Area, a metro with almost 9 million people. Yes, people in Oakland are more likely to support the A's and SF the Giants, but in reality, the Bay Area has two teams the same way LA has the Dodgers and Angels and NYC has the Yankees and Mets (don't forget Chicago). One team is always going to be loved more than the other, and one team is always going to be the "underdog" and "value" team (LA less so, but the teams are spread out way more than any of the other areas, especially when you count traffic at 6PM most days). Also, the Bay Area has 6 major league teams (soon to be 5), and you could argue that it is more like 7, soon to be still 7 if you include Sacramento, which is becoming more and more a part of the "Bay Area" as more and more people move and commute back and forth and the gap between the two becomes smaller and smaller. Fresno, on the other hand, has a metro of close to 1 million, and you might be able to stretch that to 1.2 or 1.3 if you think that people are going to come from more than 45 minutes away to see matches (which is unlikely, but possible). There aren’t two other major cities that are part of the Fresno metro area like in the Bay; the city is truly on its own. The only competition will be the Grizzlies (who will likely end up losing some sales as a result of this team, but will also have help paying for the stadium), and the Bulldogs, who's season only slightly overlaps. I guess my point here is that you have to compare metro areas, not just cities. 2) Just in case you haven't driven to Fresno lately, 99, while not officially an interstate, is now 6-8 lanes for more than half of the distance between highway 120 toward the Bay in Manteca and I-5 toward LA just south of Bakersfield, and is at least a 4 lane freeway the whole way. You would be hard pressed to tell the difference between it and I-5 if you ignored the state route signs (in some counts, 99 is better than 5 because it’s so much wider at times). Fresno *is* an interesting sports case, as it has average attendance for AAA Baseball (it has finished pretty much dead-middle in AAA in attendance every year since the new stadium opened), but turns out in force for college football (just under 40,000 attended the first game at Bulldog Stadium this year, even vs a D2 team). Mexican friendlies do very well, selling out pretty much every match, even with the cheapest tickets starting at $30. If the city had better economic numbers (and they are improving), it would probably be in with places like Louisville and Austin in the list of "cities that don't have a major league team yet, but could be next to get one” (it's had a few nods over the past couple years, but certainly hasn't garnered the same attention as other cities). That said, while splitting the games could produce interesting results, I don't think that adding Fuego matches on to Fresno FC matches would also add a lot to the price of tickets. Perhaps you would see a bump of $1 or $2, but most PDL teams play to crowds of a few hundred people, so if $1 more is added to the price of a ticket and 5,000 people attend, that's really about the same as 500 people attending a PDL match at $10 a pop. Also, the stadium would theoretically already be rented for the night, so you wouldn’t have much in the way of additional expenses to have them play right before Fresno FC matches (the Freeze, Fresno’s women’s team, used to sometimes play before Fuego matches, and the price of tickets were not higher on those nights). I just can’t see tickets starting at $30, even for two matches: the vast majority of MLS matches have tickets cheaper than that. I think you’ll see tickets starting about the same price as Fuego matches ($15-16), just with a higher ceiling ($35-$40).
I hope this is true, but we'll see. In terms of fans, Sac certainly turns out. I'm just not sure how many corporations there will be buying press boxes and luxury seats or are willing to put down huge money in sponsorships (the city had to get a state university to sponsor their kits)...Fresno would have an even harder time with that sort of thing. I think the heavy tilt toward public sector/government employment in Sac has always held it down when it comes to pro sports, but the Kings seem to be doing well enough, so they must be making it work. Fresno has less than 1/4 the government as Sac and less than 1/2 the population...I don't see MLS coming our way anytime soon with heavy hitters like Cincy, Nashville, San Diego, Detroit, and Austin still waiting.
I would tend to think inquiring minds would like to know especially, in a Frank Yallop titled thread...
Fair enough, but if butts in seats were all it took, Sac would have been announced long before MNUFC, and Cincy wouldn't have a giant question mark still over it. I'm just saying that big money is as big a factor as "butts in seats" for pretty much all major league teams.
Whatever it is, it's going to go a lot further in Fresno than San Jose. All he has to do is show her what they can get in Fresno (especially if they are selling their place in the Bay) and I don't think it will take a ton of convincing.
No doubt, which is why Fresno will never get an MLS team, and LA is getting its third after one of the first two has already failed and the other cannot fill a stadium despite a league-record five titles.
No his wife is getting established up here with her real estate business. I believe Frank will have an apartment or a condo down there during the season.
Yeah, I know what you mean. My comparison was pretty strictly about Fresno's size in the city limits, and that there are plenty of cities in CA that would be much more poised for major league teams if they just didn't happen to be placed in the most populated state in the country that also happens to be one of the largest. Not sure if you know this or not, but A's support is pretty limited to Oakland. You have some fans around in other areas, but even Alameda County is dominated by Giants fans, so while the A's do draw from some surrounding areas, the greater Bay Area does not add a whole lot to the potential fanbase for the A's specifically. The Raiders are a bit different since they've had excursions down to Southern California, which has spread their fanbase around moreso than the A's. I have driven to Fresno plenty, and while 99's improvements have made the road itself better (mostly), it is still incredibly isolated. You have to drive between 20 and 30 something miles to get from 99 straight over to I-5, and none of the ways over are straight freeways until you get down below Bakersfield or up to Sacramento, with 120 being the only exception as far as I'm aware. So if you are coming from other areas of the Central Valley to Fresno, you have basically one major freeway and a bunch of small country highways. Unfortunately, that limits the ability for fans from surrounding areas to go to Fresno to enjoy sporting events. Driving there is fairly easy, but it's also basically the only reliable way to get around down there as the public transportation in all of the Central Valley is terrible (it's bad in the Bay Area as well, but at least there is more of it.) Your comment about Fresno State is interesting, too. I know they have had up and down success in their sports, but I always had the impression that turnout for their football, baseball, and basketball programs was pretty good. In many cities or states even (particularly the South), college takes the place of major league teams. Fresno has or had a bit of that vibe to me in many ways. Is that still true? It hasn't seemed to hurt the Grizzlies too much, if at all, and I don't think Fresno State's soccer team is in a position to take fans away from a USL team.
[QUOTE=".......................................................................................... ........................................................................................................... ................................................... Fresno has or had a bit of that vibe to me in many ways. Is that still true? It hasn't seemed to hurt the Grizzlies too much, if at all, and I don't think Fresno State's soccer team is in a position to take fans away from a USL team.[/QUOTE] Fresno has a history of supporting it's local university football team. As far as Fresno State's soccer team is concerned, the school only fields a women's team. It dropped men's soccer in the 1990s.