RFK is a real mess. The stadium is run down. It has become difficult to drive to with all the construction going into lot 8. You have to take a detour. And the weather in DC has been awful. We have had the coldest winter here since the 1880s. Also when you are in RFK on these types of days it's not only cold but on the home side of the stadium you are in the shade and with the way they have access to your seats the wind is directed towards your seat. That is not a good fan experience in the early part of the year. Attendance will improve significantly as we move into the season. I have no doubt the dc will be one of the strongest drawing teams when we move to the new stadium.
I saw 2 full sections open in C-link's upper bowl. I figured it was the new expanded capacity. Will 39,782 be the number going forward? Last season was 38,500 right? The increase is slightly underwhelming, but i'm sure it's been carefully considered.
They also closed some sections due to reconstruction being done on south-upper area above ECS Maybe new capacity is 40k or 39,5k ?
They don't spend on their team. Why should I spend on their team? EDIT: Personally, I think it's just the effect of strike, weather, etc. this week. But I'm kind of hoping for an attendance slump this year to force the Hunts' hand. Especially after watching the games this weekend. It's like we play in a different league.
Really? I don't pay close attention to Dallas but my perception of them is one of a young team on the rise. No?
Depends for how many and what games FO is planning to open full stadium. Last season we were just short 5k total because Portland game was scheduled right after WC Final in Brazil and last game vs LAG was scheduled at noon on Saturday during kids soccer tournaments.
The increase in base capacity should make it more likely, but the big games have so much variability, it's hard to know. A game could be 50k or 65k and single handedly change everything. Any Seattle people provide the number of expanded games this year?
I appreciate the other stuff you said, especially how crappy the drive to lot 8 is from Virginia, but regarding the weather this winter... only February was particularly cold, and February 1979 was colder so we don't have to go that far back to find a colder February.. Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-closes-coldest-since-1979-in-washington-d-c/ I agree that the "quiet side" was colder this Saturday due to the shade, but it was in the 40s. I have my season tickets there to avoid the sun for summer daytime games. Fortunately I knew that would be the case and dressed warmly.
From a neutral Texan, FCD is so disappointing in that it's a major market team that operates like Columbus (no offense intended). Houston seems to at least be stretching (DMB and Cubo), but FCD is never even rumored to be in the hunt for major players. And nothing short-circuits hope in the hyper-competitive West like going up against Seattle, LAG, and the like and not having one of the 3 or 4 best players on the pitch. Maybe it is the suburban stadium curse...? Chicago and Dallas are MAJOR markets. And both are definitely outside of the financial (and therefore competitive) top-tier of MLS (the Liberace Conference of NYCFC, SEA, TFC, LAG).
Unannounced as of yet. Should get details in the next few weeks. The schedule this year is actually not very conducive to doing 5 like last season, unless they either choose some non-traditional opponents, or basically close out the season with all of the full stadia matches after August 1. I would personally like to see Portland, Vancouver, LA, Toronto, and Orlando.
I was thinking that NYCFC could draw a big crowd because of the players on the team, but looking at the schedule it doesn't look like you play them in Seattle at all. Is that correct?
Depends on the capacity. I think they'll be much better than they are now, but I'm not sure they'll be one of the "strongest drawing teams" (depending on your definition) solely due to the stadium capacity.
So I should have the numbers up tonight. The hardest part of this whole routine is always entering the data into the AAQ calculator. I had never really used vlookup in excel before but started to understand the power of it last year. I had planned on converting the calculator to use vlookup but got overwhelmed at the task. But I decided to resurrect that plan and will instead be using the Index-Match-Match function in excel, which is really what I should have been doing all along as my data is in a grid matrix already. Once i get this working my calculated data will be almost entirely auto-generated.
FCD was playing SJE, one of the worst teams in the league, and that certainly isn't going to draw more casual fans. But I feel the same; it feels like they are onto to something in playing money ball the right way in MLS (developing young great talent and selling them to compete with much bigger budgets around the league). All that being said, SJE played at least even with FCD (if not a bit better even being on the road) and FCD was extremely lucky to get the win. Could be a long year if the youngins don't work out.
Excellent news! It makes it much easier to generate reports when they are automagical! I went through a mock-up report yesterday to make sure the game scores would operate correctly when I add in Orlando and NYC games.
1st week Comparable Stadiums attendance numbers. It's easy to get blinded by new stadium numbers but often they don't tell the real story. Companies open new stores all the time with great fanfare and therefore great sales but most financial analysts only use comparable store numbers to get a sense of the true increases. Here they are so far: 2014 1st week 117399 2015 1st week 114711 The small increases for Seattle, LAG & Portland did not make up for the larger decreases for DCU & FCD. Five locations don't tell the full story either. To get a complete understanding of the 2015 opening round attendance numbers, all old teams will need to have their first home game completed.