I highly doubt this would ever happen. Utah is the most conserative (ie Republican) state in the nation. I am going to be shocked if Obama ever sets foot in this state.
I tried to post a comment. Took the time to register, added more spam to my email, but nothing happens.
I sent an e-mail to the author of the article about how my family was converging on SLC from DC and SF for the game and suggested there was a story about how SLC was going to be ground zero for USA soccer and got a prompt e-mail response saying there would be a full schedule of articles leading up to the USA vs. ES game. So keep your eyes on the good old-fashioned newspaper (or web site) for the next couple of weeks.
I am so glad that we got support from all over country coming into SLC for the game, to make up for the lack of local community support. I am a little bit concerned though with the lack of ticket sales. I just went over to riotintostadium.com and looked at the sales for the WCQ and there seems to be quite a few sections with a large chunk of seats remaining and we are now only 10 days out. We BETTER have a sell out or there will not be any more qualifiers in Utah ever again.The USSF will look at Utah and say "You can't even sell out a 20,000 seat stadium for a qualifier?" The grass roots efforts of many of you on this thread is fantastic, I just hope the papers and media outlets won't forget to get on this story and that they will make it priority. I guess we can only just continue to send emails and messages and hope for the locals to help out more. Here's to making the game a sellout in favor of the U.S!
The good news is that I have no doubt in my mind the game will be a sellout. The bad news is it may be a lot of El Salvadoreans from California and other nearby places that buy up the tickets on Game day.
By my count there aren't very many seats left in the lower deck. Basically a few random seats in the less expensive sections and some blocks in the expensive seats. Just over 200 in the whole lower deck and about 70 of those are in the "patio" sections. The upper deck has some pretty empty sections, however, and over 1100 tickets left as of this afternoon. I'm guessing there will some visiting team support because this is the last stand for El Salvador. They may be toast already, but they'll be burnt toast if they don't beat the USA. So come you Salt Lake City folk, jump on those remaining tickets!
1100? I think the stadium will be close to filled once matchday rolls around. This should make for a good environment!
I'll be there. Got my ticket in the mail last week. I'll be in the supporters section. Based on what I've heard and read, I have a bad feeling that when I walk into RT Stadium that the scene will be nearly 50/50 like it was when I first walked into Crew stadium for the WCQ back in Feb. So much for places like Columbus and SLC being fortesses for U.S. Soccer support. But then again how many games has the USMNT played in the U.S. and the atmosphere...? Ah, what else is new.
Unfortunately no mention still on the radio programs. I was hoping after the email efforts of last week that they would start to mention something about it. Kall700 sports (local radio program who broadcasts RSL soccer) claims they are waiting to discuss anything until Bradley releases his roster. Well we all know that Bradley will wait until Thursday of next week to release the roster so good luck with that. I also haven't seen any commercials advertising the match either. The USSF really dropped the ball on this one. The least they could do is run the commercial with footage from the Mexico-U.S.A match from February where they announce the USMNT is coming to Salt Lake City. Similar to the advertisements for the WCQ's in Chicago and Nashville.
Salt Lake packed Rice-Eccles (about a thousand seats short of a sellout of a 45K stadium) for the Costa Rica match in 2005, and the US fans overwhelmed the smaller group of Costa Rica fans who attended the match. At the time, I felt that Salt Lake had a good chance of becoming a regular host of matches where the US could enjoy a great home advantage and was excited when we were selected as a host for next week's match. But now for this match, we can't sell out 20K seats. Competing with college football, in particular the Oklahoma-BYU game, is part of it (Utah and Utah State do happen to play earlier that week) but I feel the biggest reason is ticket prices this time are more in line with what they cost around the country for similar events. It might offend some of the locals to hear this, but fans in the state of Utah are cheap and are used to getting relative bargains when it comes to sports attendance. Just several examples: Since last years college football season and Utah's Sugar Bowl victory, there have been a number of SEC football fans from places like Florida and Alabama visiting the local bulletin boards and there have been a lot of comparisons made between college football in the deep south and in the Utah area. The visiting SEC fans have been surprised when told the prices of Ute season tickets and they have indicated that the cost of season tickets (which includes donations to the university) at the SEC schools is many times the cost of the same tickets at Utah. There are long waiting lines for the right to pay those huge costs at the southern schools and their massive stadiums are packed every game year in and year out. I am quite confident that if college football fans in this state had to pay similar prices that the stadiums would be fairly empty. It's a standing joke (told by a certain legendary football coach who the stadium is now named after) that when BYU fans go to bowl games, they arrive in town with a $50 bill and a list of the 10 commandments and they usually leave town without breaking either one. They have a reputation for arranging to stay with cousin Jim, or even in the homes of LDS families of people they don't know so they can avoid motel and dining costs. I remember in the mid-80s when the Jazz and Lakers met in the playoffs. Some of the celebrity Laker fans came to Salt Lake for the games in the old Salt Palace and arranged to purchase VIP front row seats and were stunned to find that the most expensive seats were something like $100 where they had been paying several thousand dollars for the same seats in the Forum. They honestly thought the $100 price was a joke. I know a few people here in my office who follow the US national team, one of them very passionately, and they had expressed strong interest in attending next week until they heard the ticket prices and then it was "well I really can't afford that much and will just watch it on TV". Hey if you're a big fan of US soccer, then you ought to attend the match and yell your head off for the US because otherwise someone cheering for El Salvador will be sitting in the seats you didn't want to purchase. I fear that the game will only sell out if a huge number of El Salvador fans turn it into a neutral crowd and that Salt Lake will become less attractive as a potential host for the next round of qualifiers. If you're living in Utah and thinking about going, then pry open your wallet and get some damned tickets and record that Sooner-Cougar game so you can watch it later. This game is huge and the US must win to have a good chance at going to South Africa next year. Watching our national team try to qualify for the World Cup and proudly cheering them on is a chance that only comes once every four years.
I do agree the prices for this game are a little high ($45 for endline) but it is a huge game. Come on Salt Lake this game is going to be a blast!
I wish I could go, but have to find a bar in Indiana. C'mon folks! Go if you can make it, the men have been working on qualifying for 3 years now! Let's give em a sellout!
I don't understand this. We had around 40,000 for a qualifier in 2005. This game should be sold out by now.
I was thinking about this too. After careful consideration, 2005 was more of a novelty since it was the first official match in Utah. It has lost a bit of its luster four years later. Also consider other factors such as the economy, different part of town/stadium, football season, and just plain band wagon jumpers off the bandwagon do to poor results the last few games and we have an equation for less interest.
As I noted a bit earlier, the ticket prices are considerably higher this time around, and you have that other sport they call football here in the states to compete with. I will be quite embarrassed if we can't sell this thing out. The sad thing is that all around the country, wherever they put a qualifier, they can't enough US fans to buy the seats with the result being seats that are either empty or filled with fans for the visiting team.
Well back in 2005 I brought 6 people with me that had never been to a Qualifier and ever since then they have been hooked on the USMNT. I even got some of them to travel to the 2007 Concacaf Gold Cup with me down @ the Home Depot Center. This time around I'm bringing 12 new people that have never been to a WCQ so I'm trying to do my part. 5 out of the 12 have been following the Nats for over 5 years on TV but have just never had the opportunity to go to a qualifier. I guess we can only bring in new USMNT fans one at a time. Here's hoping to a fantastic game! Come on U-S!
I am sure most of those 12 will be hooked for life, well done. This game will sell out, there will be some sallies but I think it will be positively American.