Tuesday 14 Jan 2020

Discussion in 'MLS: News & Analysis' started by Stuart95, Jan 13, 2020.

  1. CMeszt

    CMeszt Member+

    Farewell Sweet Prince
    Jan 9, 2004
    Gentrification's Apex.
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Lower bowl at Soldier Field is actually only 13k.
     
  2. Fighting Illini

    Fighting Illini Member+

    Feb 6, 2014
    Chicago
    The 100 sections, or the entire lower bowl including all the end zone seats?

    The whole of what they're selling (not the upper deck on either side, nor the backs of the end zones) is like 25k, right?
     
  3. Fighting Illini

    Fighting Illini Member+

    Feb 6, 2014
    Chicago
    [​IMG]

    Red is 13k, Orange is another 12k, and those are the sections the Fire are selling, and then purple and blue make up the balance of 31.5k or so.

    Right?
     
  4. Minnman

    Minnman Member+

    Feb 11, 2000
    Columbus, OH, USA
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I can't imagine that any reasonably-attainable attendance figure in Soldier Field will ever make it a financially viable venue over the long-term. 15K-18K, I don't know that it'll matter all that much. The club will likely lose (if not hemorrhage) cash in SF.

    Beyond that, while I agree that playing in SF and having it look and feel like a decent match day environment might "necessitate" larger crowds, I don't really see a clear path toward attracting them. They have one of the smallest season ticket bases in MLS, and reports are that 2020 sales have been weak.
     
  5. Fighting Illini

    Fighting Illini Member+

    Feb 6, 2014
    Chicago
    Let me preface by saying I know literally everybody in every market says this. It's a broken record, I know.

    But it just can't be overemphasized how spectacularly, magisterially incompetent the Chicago Fire have been and continue to be as a business. The naked, open hostility and contempt toward their own fans is like nothing I have ever seen in sports, to say nothing of the soccer side.

    It would take money, probably some investment beyond the initial ability to recoup in immediate revenue, but given a fairly blank check, the Fire could be putting 40-50k in Soldier Field in 2020. I am unequivocally certain of that.

    Bare, basic competence probably would have seen them well over 20k.

    This franchise is dragging around an anchor of its own making, and to see Andrew Hauptman go away and the decision making get somehow worse, and utterly and permanently torpedo the golden one-time opportunity of leaving Bridgeview must have Don Garber pulling what's left of his hair out. It has been an unimaginable disaster.
     
  6. CMeszt

    CMeszt Member+

    Farewell Sweet Prince
    Jan 9, 2004
    Gentrification's Apex.
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    The whole bowl. I went into ticketmaster and counted.

    Lower bowl is ~13k.
    Club 200 level (faces the camera) is ~4k.
    I didn't formally count but the Media Deck side 200 level it's somewhere between 1500 and 2k.
    The 200 level end zones look to make up the difference between the above and the 25k the team is selling to.

    The only parts that will really stick out on camera if they don't fill them this year are the 200 level end zones. The asymmetric design of Soldier Field means the entire grandstand is off camera. Unfortunately, I doubt they'll use tarps, mostly because SMG doesn't want to deal with them.

    The biggest questions for me this season on attendance will be
    1. The team's record, obviously.
    2. The weeknight games (these have always been atrocious at Bridgeview, and anyone who's tried to reach the stadium during rush hour on a Wednesday can tell you why. The reverse commute from the burbs is way easier. I do it every day)
    3. Spring weather. We've had snow into the third week of April the last two years.
     
  7. CMeszt

    CMeszt Member+

    Farewell Sweet Prince
    Jan 9, 2004
    Gentrification's Apex.
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Here's the Fire in a nutshell: They've only sold a bit more than 7000 season tickets so far for 2020. Not great. However, that's more than they've ever sold in their entire existence.

    Mansueto hasn't said anything publicly about what the long term plan for the team's home will be, but it's doubtful that anyone high up in the Fire want them to stay at Soldier Field any longer than they have to. The team has hired the services of some seriously well-connected real estate lobbyists in the city, so we'll have to see where that goes. MLS has a tendency to be opaque about financial stuff, but things didn't seem to be going well at all in Bridgeview either. The team's lease agreement gave them jack shit for ancillary revenue at the venue. About 5-6 years ago I was hearing that the team wasn't coming close to earning revenue to match their operating expenses.

    Unfortunately, as much as some people won't want to admit this, the Fire have been seen as kind of a joke in this market, and compared to the game day experience attending MLS games elsewhere, that reputation has been rather deserved It's going to take some serious effort to get that perception turned around.
     
    jaykoz3 repped this.
  8. Fighting Illini

    Fighting Illini Member+

    Feb 6, 2014
    Chicago
    The Fire's total was reported on Reddit to be 6500 in 2018.

    They paid $60 million to get out of Bridgeview, moved to the best facility in the market, rebranded the team, and made it all the way up to 7000?

    If the heart only beats once when you shock it with the defibrillator pads, that means the patient is dead.

    7000 would still be bottom 5 in the league.

    They've comprehensively blown the best chance they are ever going to get to break into this market.

    This was an important proving ground for MLS. Could you create a Seattle/Atlanta from existing materials in a legacy market? The results of the experiment are going to be catastrophic, but it's tough to take to much stock in it when the scientists started pooping all over the test tubes as soon as the experiment started.
     
  9. tomásbernal

    tomásbernal Member+

    Sep 4, 2007
    Club:
    Portland Timbers
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Are you saying you don't like the new crest?
     
    CMeszt repped this.
  10. Fighting Illini

    Fighting Illini Member+

    Feb 6, 2014
    Chicago
    I mean I think it's objectively a failure of design, but the thing that I think outsiders might miss about the whole controversy is just how open and even eager the rank and file fanbase was to even pretty dramatic change. Basically so long as they were nodding in the direction of Chicago iconography (which is an incredibly rich palette to work in) the fans were going to be largely very enthusiastic. Fans hate brand change generally, but Fire fans were favorable towards it.

    What was produced has sparked such a reaction not just because it's poor design, but because of how deafeningly it communicates what this franchise never stops communicating to its core supporters: "our highest aspiration as a club is acquiring a base of support that is not you and which erases you from the picture".

    And I want to be clear, I say that not as some OG Peter Wilt drinking buddy, but as the exact sort of europhile urban millennial outsider all of this is meant to attract. As a Chicagoan, I'm accustomed to teams that *don't care* about their fans. You step into the Fire world as a newcomer and it's just bananas how much the club *hates* its fans.

    So much of this of course was personalized in the form of Andrew Hauptman. The extent to which they've failed to capitalize on his ouster boggles the mind.

    Just do these four tap-in obvious things:
    1. Fire Veljko Paunovic and Nelson Rodriguez the morning after the last game
    2. State a public commitment for improved relationships with the fans, and a greater commitment to being a first-class operation in general
    3. BEFORE the rebrand and WHILE the season ticket drive is still going on, be the team to sign Alan Pulido instead of SKC.
    4. Have the goofy thing in the middle of the badge be a Chicago six-pointed star with powder blue instead of yellow, and debut it at a press conference announcing Pulido

    The season ticket total would be easily, comfortably doubled from where it is now. Zero doubt in mind. And I use Pulido because he was obviously ready and willing to sign for MLS in mid-December, but there are plenty of other players who could have played that role as well.

    Those aren't miracles. That's not asking for vast riches or clairvoyance. That stuff is just bare, baseline competence and self-awareness. Traits that are light years beyond the capacity of Chicago Fire FC on existing evidence.

    It's just nuts, I'm truly not much of a hardcore Fire supporter, I just can't get over how horribly they have blown such an incredible opportunity. This is the Blackhawks after Bill Wirtz died, except the complete opposite.
     
  11. CMeszt

    CMeszt Member+

    Farewell Sweet Prince
    Jan 9, 2004
    Gentrification's Apex.
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    The funny thing is for all the "Boycott the logo!" talk over Fire True Believer social media, there doesn't really appear to be any significant slowdown in merch sales compared to how things were previously with the very limited selection they have. Fanatics is almost sold out of large hats, and sold out of small ones. My father in tried to get me one of the sweatshirts for xmas, but had the order cancelled by Fanatics because they temporarily ran out of my size.

    Interestingly, the top sellers in just about every category in MLS right now are LAFC and Miami gear.
     

Share This Page