You may remember the NYRB game last spring--there were 6000 people packing Giant Stadium (admittedly, the weather was so bad they also took the goal keeper off at half time for hypothermia) but it raises an interesting question--why arent MLS teams like the airlines? If you have empty seats, shouldnt your first priority be to fill them--even if it means cutting your prices? What's better than going to a sold out soccer game!?! Here's my logic, I go to quite a few DCU games in RFK stadium and it looks kind of sad to see the whole upper decks empty. I am wondering if you couldnt have some sort of promotion--Saturday game's bring your kids for free. Get your date in free with a college ID or a funny hat, something like that. Once people start going to the games and having fun they might come back again in the future--or at least become fans, buy a jersey etc. You could even organize something with the fan clubs (DCU has three, that I know of). Come in an hour before the game, get a DCU t-shirt, learn the songs so you can sing along during the game etc. Or, for away games, meet in a bar where they can explain the rules of the game to novices, talk about the team etc. Maybe this is all being done already, and I know attendance is on the up, but you hear about grass-roots campaigns in Toronto-where they sell out every game. I just dont see that kind of stuff in DC and wonder what other towns (like NY?) are doing to fill stadiums.
revs do nothing and having half of the stadium blocked off is sad. they only sell tickets on one side to make it look good on tv, but its sad to go to a game and look over and see nobody on the other side.
It's not all good news at BMO in Toronto. towards the end of last season we saw a marked increase in scalpers holding blocks of tickets and trying to gouge fans for four or five times face value, so blocks of empty seats could also be an issue next season for us.
At first blush this may seem like a good idea but when you do this you slap the face of your STH's and those that bought tickets to that match. Eventually people will say, "why buy a season or single game ticket when the team will be giving away tickets later on?" Long term I don't think it's a good idea. Smaller, properly sized stadia will help to mitigate this problem by creating demand. Why buy a season ticket or an advance ticket to Arrowhead, Giants Stadium, or Gillette when you can walk up and almost alway be able to buy a ticket at game time. If the weather is bad or there is some other conflict, your walkup crowd will suffer.
Here's a thought... repaint the stadium seats with different colors. That way it becomes difficult for the eye to distinguish between empty and occupied seats. I am not kidding here. You can easily notice on TV the empty seats during a game because all seats are painted identical, and so the eye picks it up clearly. Even better, paint most of the seats with the home-team color. You can have blocks of seats(anywhere from 2 to 10 seats per block) painted with the home color and sprinkled throughout the stadium amongst the other colors. It really fools the eye.
If it's lousy weather and something people don't want to see then you can't give tickets away or make them cheap enough to want people to go. MLS needs to make their product something people think is worth their money.
MLS teams need to copy the rest of the world to get better attendance. Play up sectarian, class, regional, and racial differences to make it a contest of "us vs them". Heck, when Toronto comes to town we can even take advantage of anti-Canadian hysteria.
That's why its important for the FO's to create added value for season ticket holders by building fan loyalty - team meet & greets, free/discounted team merch, STH mixer/BBQ's, access to training facility, free or deep discount tickets to friendlies; anything that can be done to make sure that STH's are accomodated, valued, and their hard earned cash spent supporting the team.
Yup, see what I mean. Except for the seats nearest to the camera, the stadium looks full... even though it's completely vacant. btw, the seat backs need to be painted the same color. Only the fronts would need to be painted in different color.
I dont think painting seats is addressing the whole point. it may look more full but there's a huge difference between the sound of a full/empty stadium. in addition, by putting butts in seats, you make new fans. if they have a good time, talk to fan clubs, get a t-shirt etc you might even make them into longterm fans. finally, i understand that season ticket holders might be miffed if some get into the stadium at a lower cost. but that's happening now already. if you get a group rate, its cheaper. also, on airlines, you never pay the same price as the person next to you. price discrimination occurs all the time. and, by having more people at a stadium you get positive externalities--going to a packed excited stadium is a heck of lot more fun than an empty one, right? maybe, to start with, sth's get the lower level seats and you stick the discount/very cheap seats up top. that might help. but i agree with the person who wrote that the teams should do more with the communities they are located in. they have to compete with a competitive sports market but seem completely oblivious to this. i had to explain to longtime dc residents that they had a soccer team.
Every detail adds up, though. Not looking obviously empty on TV does make a huge difference in the kind of perceptions people have about MLS. A small crowd can sound like a big crowd, but it will never look like a big crowd if the TV is showing what are obviously large sections of empty seats. Addressing this problem does not fix all the other problems, but it does help in improving the big picture. Same problem in the Boston area. I run into people all the time who have no idea what the Revolution are or that we have a soccer team in MLS.
It isn't the price that's keeping people away, it's several stadiums being in inconvenient locations (NE, NJ, CHI, COL etc), and the opinion by the majority of American soccer fans that MLS is minor league and not worth their time when they can watch "Proper Footie" on FSC, GOLTV, Setanta etc.
i dont think that explains the full story. DC is very convenient to get to (RFK has its own metro stop and is about 20 to 25 minutes walk from central DC). People packed into Houston games at the end of the season because there was excitement there--even if the quality of play was not at the level of the EPL. You get that sense of excitement when there are lots of other people in the stadium. Watch the games with Beckham in the early summer. There was a buzz as Giant Stadium was packed. Even if he barely played. at the MLS cup--there were a bunch of kids who must have been invited to be on the half time show. they filled up the area behind the goal and really filled out the stadium. i am not sure how much their tickets were, but i wouldnt have minded if they paid less than me. some people may not go to games because they dont like the quality of play, but there are many others who just dont even know the opportunity exists or find the atmosphere dull. the teams could try to capture that market through more promotions, i would imagine. how about the fan clubs teaching the cheers/songs to the rest of the stadium and get them involved? also, teams need to explain the rules of the game, as well as the subtleties of tactics, who the players are /their backgrounds etc. other than fans of big soccer.com, who can name more than one player in MLS? My girlfriend grew up with Michigan Football--she can name the entire current team as well as every alum in the NFL. And she's considered just an "average" blue fan (she still bleeds blue and maize, or whatever). She never misses a game--shouldnt DCU try to get that kind of following/knowledge of the team?
Genius, I'm a DC fan, I've been to RFK. I lived there for 20+ years. That's why I didn't include DC in the inconvenient stadium list.
And now the English are doing it too: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/fa_cup/7138505.stm It appears that for early round FA Cup games, kids get in for a pound with an adult who bought a full priced ticket. Sounds like a good idea!
It really all comes down to Market exposure. The larger the market the more resources need to be attributed to the exposure. When no ones knows about your team, or if they even exist, it makes for some real uphill efforts in getting people to your games. You can force the exposure like LA did with Beckham (they had no problem getting fans to games they were involved in) or you can invest in market exposure though adverts, through pressure on local media to cover your team, ect. Its a long term investment, but if you can't achieve relevance in your market then your always going to fly below the radar. First rule of marketing is to make the public aware of your product.
I'm sorry, I understand there are many people that don't understand some of the subtleties of the game, who the players are, etc, but this thought just makes me cringe. I don't ever want to go to a game that has the team attempting to explain their strategy to the fans (except for a comical explanation of the offside rule on the screen before the game, that would be gold). Personally, before this season (2007 season) I was not a fan of soccer at all. I had no idea about any of the rules, I bought into the "it's a boring game, you might not even see a shot on goal for half an hour! (ok, true, but..)" rhetoric, the whole shebang. My brother and I just decided to start following TFC right before the first game (the advertising I must say made it look like a real professional league, not a minor team). I admit I was baffled by offsides at the start. Heck, I didn't even know which way the linesman was indicating when a ball went out ("wait, is he point to the "home" of the team that gets it, or the direction they want to go?"). By a month into the season I was pretty well versed in the rules, by the end I could discuss subtle strategy, formations, etc (even the offside rule) with the best of them. The only thing it takes to learn is watching the game (and the occational wiki search doesn't hurt). What I'm trying to say is, if you treat it like a real, professional, sport, people will believe you. If you treat it like spectators should know what's going on, they will want to learn because they will respect the game. If you treat it like a freak show, as something "unamerican", as something "foreign" that people need to learn, I think fans will be turned off. You would never see an NHL game stop in the middle for an explaination of the rules (even though I'm sure there are people who have no clue), and I hope never to see an MLS game follow that route either.
I know for a fact that sometimes, it does not matter what kind of attractive marketing strategies the club may have, if fans are not interested, they wont go. For example, lets take Chivas USA in this case. Chivas USA has created to many great promotional and freebies campaign but have failed to sell-out the non- Galaxy and now Cuatemoc Fire games. Below is a list of the many strategies they have failed in. 1) Chivas Pass: Kids get in for free all season (No increase in attendance) 2) Lowering ticket and parking prices (No Sellouts) 3) Free Admission on Mexican national holidays, as-long as you wear any Mexican colors or MNT jersey. (That game did not sell out) 4) Buy a ticket, get one free. (No increase in attendance) 5) A Guys night out: Buy a ticket, and a take a friend for free, Free Beer, Chivas USA Girls are walking around the HDC and you could talk, flirt and take pictures with them. (Game did not sellout) The last major failure was during its last playoff game at home against KC. I was at a Best Buy in Burbank when I saw staff from Chivas USA give out free tickets and red shirts. (Game did not sellout) I had asked one of the reps how many tickets he could give me, he then replied by saying: "As many as you want, you just have to promise me that you will take as many friends and family to the stadium because we just want the HDC to look full." So he gave me 14 tickets and 14 Red Shirts, I then gave the tickets and the shirts to a close friend of mine who is Chivas Mexico fan but then later found out that he didnt even go. My point is that Chivas USA is in a major hole in terms of attendance and the typical soccer fan, does not have no interest in Chivas USA. Like I said before, I see more Chivas Mexico, America, Cruz Azul fans wearing their jersys at Galaxy games where tickets and parking cost double. I just could imagine how many people would show up to the HDC if the Galaxy offered a 2 for 1 special and free beer! "I'll buy that for a dollar"
Anyone know if any club has tried offering soccer clinics to kids with tickets, say on the Monday after a match? It seems to me that the reserves could put the clinic on and have a few starters and coaches around to sign autographs at the clinics. This might be a way of indoctrinating future fans to the individual club while encouraging attendence in the present. I don't believe the clubs can do this by themselves, but that the players and coaches are going to have to show that they are part of the community and want to integrate with it. I don't live in an MLS market and wouldn't have any knowlegde of what's been tried, but that seems like it would be more attractive than a t-shirt or Hooters girls running around. It also would go a long way toward building relationships within the community. With regard to Chivas USA, I think Vergara was trying to capitalize soley on the brand name when he invested in MLS. They are going to have to give Chivas fans (those are the only Mexican fans with ties to FMF who will think about going to this IMO) something they could only get in Guadalajara. That means putting true Chivas goal scorers or playmakers on the field in L.A. There's no other way around that. The Chivas USA name is too polarizing within the Mexican community (again, it's just my opinion).
This is exactly what I was alluding to earlier with regard to Chivas USA. You have an MLS team with no Mexican league affiliation and you have the Mexican fans from several teams showing up to enjoy pro soccer. I doubt you'd ever get any Pumas, America, etc. to set foot in, much less support any MLS team with the Chivas name. Therefore, you have to give them true Chivas attacking players or some foreign player that is so compelling (a la Beckham) that people can overlook the team name. Branding the team like that was a mistake in that they took an already small group of soccer fans and chose to market to only a very small portion of that fan base.
Really, we should ask what the Houston FO did to sell-out 3 (count 'em, 3) straight games? The first one is obvious, as it was supposed to be our "Beckham" game, but everyone knew a month a head of time (if not longer) that he wasn't going to show. Yet 30K+ still showed up. Why? We had two weeks to sell our Hou v FCD game, which did sell out with 30K+ again showing up. Beyond the fact that it's a decisive game against Dallas, why did it sell out? With only one week to sell tickets, another 30K+ crowd shows up to see us take on the Eastern Conference team Kansas. Why, oh why, would people show up to that (normal people here....not the die-hards)? I don't have answers to any of these. I do know that the Beckham game was not advertised. In fact, they had restrictions on that game and made it hard to get tix (first went to STHs, then packages...sold out at that point). Not sure how they got around 100K to show up like that, but I hope we can do it again, and I hope other teams learn how it was done so they can do so. The crowd against Dallas was electric and totally insane. Maybe it was packages? I dunno, but I hope they replicate it. Oh, and we have only had a handfull of gimmick-games (a la Chivas) that I know of this year: Championship ring (1st homegame) and a few others. Nothing quite like "Buy 1 get 1 free" (again, that I'm aware of). Anywho, just dropping my .02
ok I realise this isn't representative of the whole NFL, but, as a shift worker, I get to see some unusual sports TV for a Limey. Last night "rather, early this morning" Channel 5 showed MNF New Orleans at Atlanta. There hardly looked to be anyone in the stadium!! Why was that? And can MLS learn from it?
Nothing that can be applied to soccer. Don't fire a successful coach and hire a college coach with NO NFL experience. Make sure you give the electrifying Jerious Norwood as few touches per game as possible. Make sure your star player doesn't go to prison for dogfighting. Don't trade away said star's back-up. The Falcons had a reasonably successful coach who was trying to turn Vick into a pocket passer first with run as a last option. They fired him and traded away their back-up (a pocket passer) to keep Vick happy. Now, Vick is in prison for two years, Matt Schaub is in Houston and the quarterback position resembles a turnstile.