http://www.fcdallas.com/post/2016/06/01/lhusoc-fc-dallas-host-energy-fc-smus-westcott-field Why at SMU? I can't imagine drawing 4,000 fans at SMU is better than drawing 4,000 fans in Frisco. At least in your own stadium you control all the ancillary revenue streams.
So you can't watch it online. If I recall correctly, last year's match wasn't streamed or televised. The excuse was that SMU did not have the necessary equipment/capabilities. I doubt that has changed. Or was the game last year against OKC Energy FC held elsewhere?
It baffled me at first too but then I remembered we played at TCU's soccer stadium last year for the first Open Cup game. Maybe next year we'll do UNT.
I kept thinking the game last year was in TCU. Thanks for the correction. So hopefully SMU will be able to stream the game.
So SMU has a 4000 seat soccer specific stadium? Hmmmmm......add 1000 seats, and it would make an excellent location for FCD2. Hey, one can dream.
I think this will be the first time since that one off Cotton Bowl game during the State Fair in 2009 that FC Dallas plays (a competitive fixture) in Dallas proper.
Aren't the park "cities" just townships of sorts? Can't you put "Dallas, TX" on the mailing address and it'll still get to the addresses there? I might be making all that up and I guess I could look it up but still...
Is Coy Craft eligible to play in this game for us? He didn't play against Rayo, but I don't know if he played in an earlier round for OKC. T'would be a good opportunity to see what he can do.
So, near downtown, a trainstop and all of those soccer hungry millennials will sell out 1500 seats by tomorrow... right?
It's a game against a semi-pro outfit, barely advertised, in a competition that few people care about until the final. The failure to sell out tickets in one day isn't evidence of a lack of a soccer audience in the city of Dallas (or HP/UP.) There's a world of difference between a one-off minor game like this and a sustained number of regular city games. I have no issue with FCD being in Frisco but given the poor attendances even in good times, it's probably not the right time for the Collin County supremacists to start crowing about the lack of support from Dallas.
You can put to bed anything you like pal, my reply was about how the failure (or success) of selling 1,500 tickets for this game means nothing one way or another and that the anti-Dallas mouthbreathers need to get their own house in order.
I don't think that there are any anti-Dallas people, mouthbreathing or otherwise, within the FCD fanbase. What there are among the FCD fanbase are a great many people who have heard for over a decade that a Collin County location is The Problem with FCD attendance, that a Collin County location without public transit access is The Problem with FCD attendance, and that HSG was foolish to try to market to filthy suburbanites when they could've had The Glorious Urban Soccer Fan Master Race attending their games. Personally, I've gotten bored of this discussion after a decade of watching it being litigated ad nauseum. Besides, I haven't lived in D/FW in nine years. And anyway, I would've thought that the consistent sellouts by the team 500 miles to the north, who put their stadium next to a Cabela's and a NASCAR track out in the burbs, would've put the whole discussion to bed. But if some people want to take this opportunity to ask, "What's good, Dallas?" I can understand.
If you're not interested in the discussion then pipe down. Clearly you are interested though, hence the disingenuous last point. If people want to use THIS game as a stick to beat Dallas with then look at my first post: it's a very unattractive fixture that will barely be promoted. If it doesn't sell out it means nothing. If people are lined up outside it means nothing.
This is the most banter we've had in here in ages. I'm loving it... That being said, I think it's safe to say we have a metroplex unlike many throughout the country. Location isn't really the driving force. We used to have a great walk up crowds back in the Cotton Bowl days, but terrible season ticket numbers. Now we virtually have the same attendance but with less walk up and more season seats. There's no fix all pill for this. Having a more major league feel to this team and a proper marketing team wouldn't kill HSG yet keeps getting overlooked year after year.
Easy tiger... 1,500 seats is nothing. FCD has gotten that at USOC games in Frisco previously. The DFW soccer community is aware enough a game will be played at SMU that night, what the competition is and that their area MLS team is participating in it. If 75205 alone can't conjure up 1500 fans for this game it will be ridiculous, and whether you like it or not, have some indicator that "location" isn't an issue as much as promotion, buy in of the team and a whole host of other things FCD simply stinks at. The jab, as Dustin rightfully points out, is more about the never ending noise about Frisco being the team's problem and really an indirect jab at the Hunts for the crap manner they run their off the field business. for the record. I live in Lake Highlands. I'm a 214 snob of the highest order, and I have to medicate when I go to Frisco as not to get nose bleeds. But 1500 for an interesting USOC game in the heart of Dallas, Texas? There are middle school football games that get 1500 in attendance.... come on, you believe in D enough to admit 1500 is do-able, right?
Allow me to add this: As a media member, I get regular, unrequested updates - either insisting or promising me -there is an amazing, underserved mountain of Dallas Millennials - with their hitler youth hair cuts, lumberjack beards and shaved torsos - just waiting to attend soccer games as long as they're conveniently located near a) where the party is or b) near a DART stop. So here's a game, and it fits within said location requirements and can only hold 1500 anyway. And while some want to shit on it, it still is the nation's oldest tournament and the winner's trophy is named after a significant Dallas resident and soccer icon. so golly, some fraction of these underserved soccer fanatics could probably quench a little bit of their thirst. Sure, it's not Real, St Pauli, Leceister City, Chelsea or whatever - but it is this nation's top level game and if you're a soccer fan you'd at least do yourself good to check it out. And look at me, I'll hop on the red line from the Lake Highlands stop and train down to Mockingbird Station.. Maybe I've been wrong about that DART after all.
I know it's a tired subject but I think both sides have good points so fun for me to read as people continue the dialog. Frisco certainly sucks as a location but at least there is now an element of stability and a level of relationship with the surrounding community, even if not a well-executed marketing plan much beyond that. I love the idea of holding this game at a different location to bring exposure and start to build some connection, but also agree that a mid-week USOC match is only for the diehards wherever it is played. Maybe if all of the USOC games were at a single location and it was a "thing", then I think you could start to build a more steady fanbase...maybe even get some of them to drive to Frisco for an MLS match. Side note - honestly, while the SMU campus is convenient for me, I would also say that driving through the Park Cities is not always a welcoming proposition for many fellow minorities who drive a car older than 3 years that is not German...just sayin'.
and this is the part I would like to ask more questions: Why does it suck as a location? Is that specific to you? Your perception it's away from some assumed mass audience? You hate the Toll Road? I'm not looking to change your mind as much as better understand what would qualify as a non-suck location.
The suckage of Frisco has been discussed ad nauseum. It's far from everywhere. No mass transit. Toll road. It's the burbs. No critical mass of young adults. No pre- or post-game entertainment. These are the perceptions of Frisco. The perceptions, right or wrong, are a contributing factor to FCD's attendance issues.
I lived for four years on Lovers Ln between Greenville and Skillman and for two years in the M Streets, just a couple of blocks east of Greenville. So playing on the SMU campus would be super convenient for me in those days, and in those days people online would occasionally suggest that the Burn play at Gerald Ford Stadium, but it just did not interest me at all because although UP is a lot more centrally located than Frisco, it would suck in thirty other ways. I'm personally of the opinion that in D/FW, there really isn't an ideal location because the metro area is so spread out and you have literally millions of people that are going to be a long drive from any location you pick.