Despite what screen shot somebody from Wichita took of the arena in the fourth quarter, there was a large crowd on hand in Baltimore. A lot of groups and an appearance by one of the Baltimore Ravens. Was there exactly 6,421? I don't know, unlike the other venues in use last night, I could not walk around and introduce myself to everyone there.
I always find it funny the people on facebook especially trying to clown Baltimore's attendance. The ironic part in all of it is even if Baltimore lied and counted each fan as 2 (the big joke about MPS everyone seems to beat into the ground and yet continue telling), they would still outdraw 99% of the former PASL teams, especially Wichita. Hell, I'll go 1 further, if anyone is willing to try or take the time to do so, I would gamble MORE people walked in the parade of champions pre-game yesterday than Wichita's attendance TOTAL combined all year so far. People look at the TV/CPU screen and make judgements based off clusters of empties, yet fail to realize a few things about Baltimore. For starters, the arena is bigger than most other cities in the MASL making it look empty in some spots, sorry MASL but even in BMore your not packing in 12K + nightly. Also, large gaps of empty seats, especially in the mid-field area, are not really empty. They are occupied by the invisible kid(s) who are making walking the mid-tier concourse a nightmare by having pick-up 3 on 3 games in the hallways every 10 feet or behind the goal or behind the other goal on the stage playing "games" for $2 a pop. Was 6,421 people there last night? Maybe, maybe not. But I can assure you it was well over 5,000.
My point is most of the people throwing stones are typically from places that get about 200 fans a game. Personally if I was them, I would concentrate my efforts on a "save the team" campaign instead of continuously bashing a team that puts 5,000 + in the stands game after game.
Gotta be a tough sell during a Seahawks game. Even if it is away. Every sports team in Seattle could have the day off and they'd be hard-pressed to sell tickets. They'd be hard-pressed to sell tickets if there were no other sports teams in Seattle. (Or no other anything, really...)
I agree! The problem with the Blast is, at least what I've noticed, is you get the one camera view facing the player benches. You don't get the view from behind the players facing the other way. It's easy for outsiders to guesstimate the total attendance by saying that the one side behind the benches is not halfway full, therefore the attendance can't be right. But, in reality, there are a lot of people sitting facing the benches.
The first thing I noticed is they got glass on the midfield on one side, but not the other. Is that normal?
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I am one of the Blast fans posting above. I admit that most of my patience has been exhausted by the constant carping of the many dimwits that regularly post on the MASL Fan Page on Facebook. But I'm more than a little tired of people who are constantly looking for negative things to say about the Blast or their owner. These individuals typically live in cities that have had multiple teams fold on them or support teams that could not draw flies if the players wore uniforms made of excrement. In my opinion, those fans might be better served looking at their own house first and allow the city that has successfully supported professional indoor soccer longer than any other, worry about the Blast.
The Blast has survived but Ed Hale has left a trail of failed leagues behind him. In part that's because he has focused too much on what he perceives as being good for the Blast and not on what's good for the sport as a whole. Maybe others will stop worrying about Hale and the Blast when they stop doing things that drag down the sport.
Or maybe it's because indoor soccer is a really difficult sale these days and there aren't enough people who can pull it off at the Blast's level.
Leave the Norfolk Sharx, Orlando Sharks, Chicago Riot, Chicago Soul, Mass Twisters, and Pennsylvania Roar out of this.
Or the Anaheim Bolts, Arizona Storm, Bay Area Rosel, California Cougars, Cincinnati Kings, Cleveland Freeze, Colorado Lightning, Denver Dynamite, Illinois Piasa, Kansas Magic, Louisville Lightning, Ohio Vortex, Real Phoenix, St Louis Illusion, Texas Outlaws, Wenatchee Fire and the disturbingly large number of still operating former PASL franchises that fit that description.
I'll gladly provide some specifics about Hale. He played a significant role in the MISL's split into the NISL and XSL, which was terrible for the sport. He originally decided that his NISL could get by without a front office, which didn't work out very well. He brought in the Twisters which turned out to be a fiasco and turned a substantial number of NISL games into farces. Starting the Chicago Riot and bringing the team into the MISL in 2010-11 so it could be a five-team league instead of a four-team league was largely his idea. Of course, the Riot had no chance to succeed and another failed Chicago team didn't exactly help the cause of pro indoor soccer in that city. Finally, he doesn't seem to have done anything to stop the ridiculous MASL double scoring system. Hale has obviously done good things for the sport too, like having a relatively strong Baltimore franchise for decades, although it seems to be on the decline. But I think it's legitimate to point out the negatives about Hale and the Blast here and on Facebook.
If the PASL had such a disturbing number of weak franchises, why did Hale go to Dallas and ask to merge the two leagues? No one from the PASL was holding a gun to his head.
The big q: who really cares about attendance figures or the Blast owner? Baltimore has put on the show for 30+ years now. Other teams , except Milwaukee, have really yet to figure it out. I really find it ironic that people blame the demise of the sport on a single man. The man being the only man that has found a way to be successful in the sport. Could the real problem be that other owners just don't work or strive as hard as Hale or the owners of the Wave?
I can agree that since there were only eight teams involved when the MISL dissolved that the owner of every team had to play a significant role in that split. The "Great Lakes League" was rumored for months before theXSL became a reality, so I'm thinking that the owners of the Ignition, Wave, Storm and Ironmen had a larger hand in the split than the owners of the Blast, Kixx or La Raza. I agree with your assessment of the Twisters and Riot, however, had I found myself kicked to the curb with limited options for my team to play and a short time to address that need, I would have done the same thing. Since we were not in the room, and the people that were in the room, all have different accounts of what was agreed to, neither of us know what Ed Hale or anyone else did concerning the split scoring, so this point falls into the speculation range. I agree that people more than have the right to point out negatives about anyone, I disagree when people speak to things as though they have first-hand knowledge or intentionally mis-represent speculation as fact. That is my problem with the MASL Fan Group Page on Facebook.
Nobody is blaming the demise of indoor soccer on one man or one team. But I do think it's a bit much for Blast fans to attack someone for posting a picture of a Blast crowd on Facebook and suggesting that it shows the crowd may have been less than was announced, when the picture does seem to show that.