There has been a lot of talk on the various threads about travel costs of the various teams. With a little time on my hands I attempted to find out a little more. Some Disclamers: 1. Using one of the online ticketing agencies, Oct 15th to Oct 16th were the days chosen at random for the flight to the city and the return. 2. If it was a two game swing, a multi-leg flight was chosen and the dates were 15 Oct-17Oct. 3. I am assuming that 16 people travel. Some teams take more, some less. 4. I could not use a group discout thing online, so the costs reflect one ticket multiplied 16 times. 5. Bus transportation is not factored into the costs, this is just airline tickets. Buses were used for anything around 6 hours or under. 6. Due to time constraints only a few cities were completed. Cincinnati Riverhawks: $30016.96 Indiana Blast: $22976 Charleston Battery: $13700.32 Pittsburgh Riverhounds: $15151.36 Minnesota Thunder: $19904 Montreal Impact: $30967.52 Pittsburgh benifited from a schedule that allowed bus travel to many of their games. Montreal has a difficult time due to the extra fees involved with travel into Canada. Any thoughts?
Richmond owns their own luxury bus that they take on road trips pretty much anywhere east of the Mississippi. It's decked out with 25+ beds, TV's, kitchen, DVD players, etc. They also rent it out to other teams in the offseason or during long homestands, so I'd imagine that they may have even made back the initial cost of the bus by now. So other than gas for that monster, I don't think the actual travel costs the Kickers all that much these days.
Interesting idea. I would think that the Canadian teams would have a higher travel cost due to the weakness of the Canadian dollar. Good work
The Canadian teams also travel to each other Canadian city at least once a year so theres always a cross country trip every year for them.
not to get down on your hard work. it is very interesting for sure. but those prices seem quite low. I am sure El Paso had some nasty travel costs, but I think this formula you came up with gives a good relative cost. not at all likely a real travel cost. how do they arange hotel stays for away trips. 1 night only? 2 per room. motel 6 or more like Marriot? also those travel busses can easily cost over a million. I would assume they got a cheaper model, but at least 500k was spent. still definately the way to go if you plan on spending a long time in the league. It definately makes sense to own a team in the NE simply for travel cost reasons. Rochester can make day trips out of Syracuse, Toronto, Montreal. Tot too bad. If Ottawa, Hamilton, buffalo/niagra, Albany ever get teams. they will be all set. Not to mention if Harrisburgs new team is ever able to make it back up. definately a nice region. another good region in my opinion would be in the Michigan/indiana area. there are tons of cities in W Michigan that could support teams, as well as parts of indiana or ohio. Michigan has Grand Rapids, Landsing, Flint, and kalamazoo. Add Detroit or some burb like Ann Arbour and you have a whole division for A-league.
travel costs I can tell you what general travel costs are, having formerly worked for an A-League team... First off, home teams are required to provide one night stay at a hotel. The type of hotel depends on what kind of deal the team can get. Most teams get pretty good hotel such as the Marriot, or something like that. 2 people per room is the standard. Any longer stays are covered by the visiting team, but they can generally get a lower than normal room rate. It was my experience that most teams traveled in busses, if the away game was within a 12 hour bus ride. This saves a lot of money over airfare. If a team doesn't own their own ride, then figure around $5,000 per trip. Airfare gets expensive. If you don't do non-stop, then you can get away with under $200 per person if you time it right and get the tickets early. If you wait too long, you'll pay more, teams usually finalize their travel plans before the season starts. Obviously, the farther a team has to travel raises the cost (which sucks for El Paso), but most teams only have to travel 10-12 hours away (by bus), unless they are going cross country. Also, if a team can get sponsored by an airline/bus company/travel agency, they can get great deals, but in today's economy, that is a tough thing to do. That's the view from here. If anyone knows anything different, speak up.
I think buses get used for trips longer than 6 hours. And you have to keep in mind some of the little things that have been done to help with those costs. For example, El Paso traveled to MN for one weekend where they played a game on friday and a game on sunday, both at MN. Also, I would think these teams have some arrangements worked out with an airline. Then agian, I don't want to make too many assumptions about how well (or not) some of these teams are run.
It has been said that the Rhinos and the Battery shared a charter jet to fly down to Charleston after the first leg of the play-off game. Im sure it was interesting flight if so. mikey