The above quote is from Danny Bahar, Red Bull's head of corporate projects. He was at the International Football Arena conference in Zurich. Read more here. I'm biting back my initial, emotional reaction to this kind of blatant in-your-eye to the fanbase. Hopefully with a bit of distance will come a bit of serenity.
We have to take comments like these in context. His quote referring to "no tradition" in the U.S. came immediately after referring to the anger by Salzburg's fans after Red Bull remade their team. That club had been around, with its name and colors, for over 70 years. In that context, relatively speaking, we indeed have "no" [read: very little] tradition in this country. Yes, we had NASL. US Open Cup has been around forever. Metrostars were here for a decade. But compared to the type of tradition that has been built up in Europe for so long, his comment regarding "no tradition" in the US is perfectly understandable. Don't let it get under your skin.
He is exactly right. Long and short time MLS owners have done the same thing. San Jose Blue to Houston orange Burn red - FC Dallas hoops Metrostars logo to another Metro logo to Red Bull Logos come and logos go MLS Colors - Color may change See Colorado - see any MLS team Look back at any history of any club 100 years ago. The first 20 years you will likely see name changes, color changes, location changes. What he said is exactly true. Like it or not.
This is actually a very positive view from Red Bull as to the future of Soccer in America. And, he's right. by getting in on the ground floor in a major market of a very promising sport in the United States, they stand to be in a very dominant position in ten to twenty years. Very smart. This is good news for the New York franchise. You have a dominant corporation with an eye on the long term controlling you. They will be looking for sustained name recognition, not a flash in the pan burst of notoriety. Give them a few years, and there's going to be a lot of MLS fans jealous of your position. Unless the curse of the metrostars continues, in which case they'll just laugh at you. Like always
How "smart" it ultimately turns out to have been is still up in the air. You and I may think so. Or perhaps it's truer to say that you and I hope it turns out to have been "smart" But realistically, it's a gamble. It's a business gamble, it's a well-considered gamble. It's not exactly a kin to walking into Bally's and plunking down $50 million on black 44, but it's a long ways from a sure thing either. Andthe fact is that this is marketing money, as he points out. If they invest in Beckham, it'll be because they want to buy his image and his market profile and slap RED BULL all over it. But from a long term soccer-business standpoint, it's hard to justify, particularly because they - and everybody else - is self-limiting themselves to 22,000 seat stadiums. What do you have to charge per seat to pay Beckham's kind of money? If selling 12-15,000 tickets at an average of 20 bucks is tough, try selling 22,000 at $200 per just to break even on what you pay for star power. (Go ahed, do the math and tell me I'm way off - I'm sure I am, but I'm making a point, not pounding a calculator) Someone pointed out if your goal is to increase attendance and expose more people to MLS, you'd be better off to just hand out ten dollar bills to every fan at every game. It would be much, much cheaper than paying David Beckham the kind of money he's used to, and it would likely have as much effect on attendance. My main question about all of this though has always been: just how many Beckhams are there? If MLS is considering changing the rules to allow one mega-bucks player for each team in order to creat fan frenzy, great. Just tell me who the other 12 guys are. Maybe Ronaldinho because of the Nike commercials, although it seems unlikely he'll be leaving Europe anytime soon. Who else you got? Oh, there are lots of terrific players I'd pay to see, but you and I aren't the point: we're already MLS customers. And if this is supposed to be about raising consciousness amongst the great unwashed, who else can do that? Back in 1996, when MLS was starting up, the league signed a group of "Marquee" players and assigned one to every team. The Crew was awarded Theophilus "Doctor" Khumalo. Much advertising money was tssed down the toilet assuring everyone that he was a great foreign player, "The Michael Jordan of SOuth Africa" (no, I am not making that up). And leaving aside the fact that the guy sucked, the problem was that nobody gave a fat crap who the "Michael Jordan of South Africa" was. So bring in the "Michael Jordan of SPain" or the "Michael Jordan of Portugal" or the "Michael Jordan of (fill in the country)" and so what? If you have to start your ticket sales program by explaining to everyone who the hell the guy is, you haven't signed a "star" in any real sense. Luis Figo may be one hell of a player, but that isn't going to get 30 seconds of booyah from Stuart Scott on Sportscenter.
Your tradition is a speck on the back end of a fly compared to the established clubs... But you do have one. It just needs more time to get further entrenched.
Red Bull Park will have 25,000 seats. Let's wait until the team starts selling out games on a regular basis before saying they are 'self-limiting themselves'. Also, when that happens, Red Bull might not mind that there is only 25k, as their brand would well advertised by a succesful NY area team. I dare say that, in Red Bull NY's case, paying Beckham money would not be dependent on the amount of people filling Red Bull Park.
Well so far all he's done is complain about league rules, rules that are probably enforced more consistently today than in 1996. I guess his knowledge hasn't helped find any loopholes.
OK, so Red Bull's strategy is more to market their product in the US than it is to cultivate the the New York City fanbase. I'm not shocked, but I do have a question: Does RB have anything in their deal with the league that gives them exclusivity in the NY market? Because assuming the answer is "no", if I'm MLS I just put New York in the list of potential expansion cities.
And so you're saying the case is completely different if there are 3000 more seats? If you build a 25,000 seat stadium, then 25,000 seats is all you can sell. ie. there is a "limit" to their potential sales at any game, and it's a "limit" that they put on themselves when they built a 25,000 seat building. Am I going too fast here? Please refer back to the part where I said signing Beckham would be a marketing strategy rather than a soccer business strategy. Can't anyone around here read anymore?
Just making a correction. The actual seating of Red Bull Park will number 25,000. Don't worry, I wasn't calling you dumb because you could not recall information from from previous months. Let me slow it down a bit myself: [pause] Red Bul NY has not averaged 25,000 yet. [pause] This season, Red Bull NY has averaged somewhere in the 15-16K range [pause] This is with Shakira performing at the first game and a Colombia/Ecuador double header before the WC. [pause] When Red Bull NY finally averages 25K on a regular basis, only then can you say that the 25k that the stadium was built for was 'limiting'. [pause] This is in my opinion only. Feel free to view it as you do. [/pause] Just a statement. Ok, you said it first. Now, please go on with your condescending, pompous ass self, Mr. Archer, Sir. Oh, and there's another condescending, pompous ass on the RBNY that you should meet (a moderator, no less). Maybe you two can compare notes.
Who are you laughing at? There are only like 25 MLS fans in all of New York, and half of them are on this website. The only people laughing are the 99.9% of New Yorkers who are "I'LL WATCH ANY SOCCER BUT MLS" Soccer fans who only laugh at a joke of a league that thinks they are Major league
Great post, great point. Just goes to show they don't really care that there aren't enough such players to go around. They just want a Bekham for LA. Or NY. Maybe splash out on a famous Mexi for Chivas - wait they did that. But they'll call it the Beckham Rule - so it's fair to everybody, you know. Point is you're just fodder there in Columbus - just as the Quakes were in SJ. You can hope the guy that gets bumped off the Galaxy bench by the Beckham acquisition sells season tix for you. Good luck with that.
man that would be a big stadium! i love this post...and its so true. are the yankees limiting themselves? do the rangers limit themeselves? what about manchester Utd. they have a massive stadium.....shame they have to have a capacity limit......
Like blue and white hoops for Man U or something? Granted. Imagine seeing Buffalo Bills with silver helmets, the Raiders in gold and black rather than silver and black, the Broncos in brown and canary yellow and no New York Jets. Yep. Welcome to the AFL, 1960.
Teams aren't limiting themselves. See, stadia and ticket sales are not the future source of profit. The stadia, in today's professional sports world, are nearly an anachronistic nod to the fans. The Sox, the Packers, the Lakers, none of those teams make the majority (or even a really significant proportion) of their profit from ticket sales. Rather, it comes from TV deals and sponsorship, corporate advertising, things like that. A 25 000 seat stadium limits the number of fans who can attend a game, but that's not a big deal for a professional sports team anymore.