Dynamo FO/TD Opinions

You are quite right. That was one of my observations when I was STH buying VIP seats. Any sign of VIP treatment ended as soon as I purchased their tickets (if there was any).

To them, it was a privilege to buy VIP seats and I should be thankful for it. "we have a lot of people trying to buy your seats" they used to tell me to pressure me into renewing.

Keeping their current STH should be higher priority than finding new ones. Dumb FO.

 

My favorite examples of this are when they add great incentives well after the majority of fans have bought their STs, such as B1G1F

 

A stupid thing I observed. Warning, this is quite stupid.

I used to ask for my "guaranteed" game-day toys, and they used to tell me they ran out of them. OK, whatever.

One day, when I entered through the VIP entrance, they told me that as usual they had run out of that day's gift (Dynamo-branded used toilet paper or something like that). A girl, a Dynamo sales rep was inside the club, near the door, greeting fans walking in. The Dynamo rep called a couple of fans who walked in behind me and said... "I saved some of today's gifts for my best clients" and pulled out from behind the counter the used toilet paper gift. That got me very pissed off, but didn't want to get into a confrontation with a stupid sales rep.

This same girl was walking around the VIP entrance some other time with cash pinned to her shirt. "it's my birthday and people are giving me presents" she told people who asked. I guess she was asking for tips for being SUCH a great sales rep. I did see some guy giving her cash.

 

good point. they seem on autopilot on ideas. come up with new stuff.

 

I've not complained of service from my rep as I feel we have been treated fairly well overall, however.... I don't like not receiving service and that's been the story lately. I've had to follow up emails 3-4 times with 3-4 phone messages only to call regular customer service line to help me 5 days after submitting original request.

The rep is good, but I'm assuming there's no time for personalized service anymore and it blows!

 

The fans may not come back for years, in my opinion. Too many issues to overcome in Houston

 

They didn't start out in BBVA, they opened that with a winning team that had missed the playoffs one year. We also got moved a good team and didn't have to work through expansion blues. So they got a lot of capital fast and didn't have to work hard for it. But they maintained it with years of almost uninterrupted success.

It's like the Astros, you burn people for not just one year but several, it's going to take some time to recover. The ST type fan was repeatedly given a product not worth it. And yet probably stuck with it 2 years too long against their better judgment. It will take at least one season of winning to win ST back, and that will lag behind current success. You can't buy a full season ticket now based on how it's playing. That chunk is water under the bridge without a time machine.

That's why I have said offer smaller packages at discounts. "You see we are doing better by you now, give it a chance again, and 'on us' for the discount amount. We're sorry."

Beyond that, unless they win it all and recreate immediate broad buzz, it probably takes sustained success as long as we sucked to rebuild the base from how many years we sucked. I'm talking 3 years. You don't run off thousands of STH and get them back tomorrow. They will want to see we intend to go back to the sustained success of old.

Only short cut is start spending money like LA or TFC. If it's going to be a budget no-name effort I expect attendance to lag behind seeing how far this version can go.

 

Also, this is where the fan experience issue matters. If you are selling a fan experience, whole crowd singing and involved, it might be more resilient to losing. If you're going to be uncreative and cheap and basically offer soccer, it needs to be sustained winning soccer. We are not there for some crowd experience, if you know Houston fans, we want to watch a winner.

The catch 22 there is they are as cheap about the team as the presentation and that is going to make it harder to sustain competitiveness.

 

Yeah, that was my statement. Think it will take 2-3 years of consistent winning. One season doesn't do it. Hard core fans that have left are too disgruntled and there isn't a long enough of a history in this town nor as large a general fan base as the Astros or the Rockets to pull from to get enough casual fans in the door. Astros are still not back to where they were pre-100 loss seasons (maybe they are this year).

 

Once the novelty wore off, it's a low bells and whistles fan experience, so what keeps us coming is a competitive product. They let the product slip for years, and when you don't spend money and you also lose you look like the Astros, like you're not even trying. They had some fan capital built up and I think the fans were fairly patient.

I don't see big "plans" and "ideas" of what they are doing. They built a stadium. About all that's really changed with that is Eado. I don't see work on making it a literally cooler place to watch a game so some of us will go to warm games. And the game presentation hasn't changed much over the years, and the game day gimmicks are gimmicks. Like most of the teams in town they haven't really worked on community building or other stuff that creates an alternate reason besides sport to show up. And if the team is cheap and crap what was there beyond that.

I don't think there's a personnel plan either, they put their eggs in the Jordan basket and that's very hit and miss. Since the purpose seems to be pure sport that ebbs and flows with their second rate GM. This last offseason, at least on defense, was very short termist. If they win that may get some people back, but if you're paying close attention you have to know that this roster is not a long term rebuild roster for fans to glom onto. It's get it competitive for a year to stop the bleeding, and then next winter scramble again. I don't know if that will deter fans but it's a risky strategy for sports because you will have to get x% right again next winter.

 

The year of the world series the Astros were averaging 30k+ and top 6 or 7 in the league.

This is the 4th biggest city in the country but I keep getting told it's a small market that has to pay like it.

The Rockets are the only other team that wins and when they do they have usually paid/splashed like they give a crap. Mind you, some of the carefully crafted teams were better than the Old All Star money burning sprees, but they are the only team here that acts like we are the market we are. Everyone else moneyballs us like it's Des Moines. It's a conservative town and I think "Moneyball" can be window dressing for just being penny pinchers treating it like a business rather than a trophy winning project.

 

If TV isn't financially material (yet) then why am I defining the market in TV terms? Even if I took TV markets as the estimate, what I see is 3 markets beyond everyone else, only 2 of which actually convert it to MLS competitiveness (Chicago doesn't), and none of which dominates every year. Philly and SJ struggle, DC hasn't been consistently top notch in years. What does this prove other than LA and NY are big? #5 and 6 I'd be surprised if people drove from one to the other (SF-SJ-Oak) (D-FW).

FWIW, Houston is at a relatively similar number to 4 on down. The raw numbers aren't dramatically different at that point, and you're talking tenths of a % point. 2.7 million vs 2.4 million. 2.3% vs 2.1%. I could see LA v Hou (though I think we have drawn similar to NYRB) but as of about #3 I don't understand any pay disparities or that we're really meaningfully smaller of a market. Particularly when we've drawn 20k it's less compelling to be like, well, we're not that big a town, for how they are playing, 16k is what we should draw, blah blah. Not if the team was any good.

Seattle is #14 and leads the league in attendance. Chivas is folded. I think you're underestimating the efficient and attractive handling of a business.

Bare minimum explain to me how #8 market = #20 payroll. I get not as big as LA but less than Portland, Columbus, SLC, etc.? Boston has nobody showing up for games and manages more payroll.

 

More punchy? Why in a corporate town like this are we owned by out of town individuals and not one of our corporations? Or at least corporate leaders? Did they ask for too much from Les? Would Les screw us on payroll. I ask because I am fairly sure part of our problem is people seeing future asset value in the franchise as obligations are paid off -- or perhaps looking to host their own events at BBVA in the future -- but not really wanting to spend $ owning the soccer asset.

 

In relation to the sport of "soccer", Houston is one of the biggest markets in the USA. not so much MLS. I bet Univision, and Telemundo considers this a big market.

 

Seattle, Atlanta, NER are all cheap offseason filler for NFL stadia. LA is AEG. NYRB is Red Bull. Colorado's owner also is in Arsenal. Paulson used to own the AAA Portland baseball team. FCD is the Hunts that have been in MLS since inception. TFC is owned by the same entity as the Maple Leafs. NYC is owned by City and the Yankees.

People talk smack about AEG but this was generally a competitive team under them. Mind you, a chunk at the start was no or low DP, but AEG has wide soccer holdings. It makes sense AEG owned us. We might have been the red headed stepchild but the raison de etre was clear.

Why do we exist now, and why are we owned by this set of people? Beyond professions to the papers, what connection does our ownership have to the city? sport? team? How does this fit into some obvious business big picture? If you struggle to answer these questions perhaps that's why we are paying bottom barrel salaries and seem somewhat adrift from above. These are not people who live here and have civic loyalty (or shame) for how it goes. I am not clear why any of our owners are in soccer. So it's run like a tight fisted business.

 

If Corey would've walked up to the Robertson stadium box office back in the day and bought a $10 tix with no fees and then snuck in a 6 pack of beer he would understand.

Now a $22 tix is $38.95 with fees and bullsht beer is $12.50. Video killed the radio star and BBVA killed the walk ups.

 

for what its worth, i saw jordan walking the concourse on saturday. i shook his hand, said hi and told him "we are really counting on you this summer, don't f^ck it up". He did smile and laugh a tad bit but he also seemed surprised. I would be too i guess. He kept on walking

It made we wonder though if enough fans are putting pressure on him directly via email or social media. we all like to play monday morning GM but I wonder if he feels any direct heat from the fan base or does it get filtered out? Cannetti got to feel it but not sure if Jordan has really been made to feel uncomfortable yet.