Looking closer, how do they justify $25 per ticket (thanks to TicketFleecer) for the cheapest seats to a third division soccer team playing a glorified exhibition game? And that’s the “reduced” price.
Family, thank you for the love. Tomorrow is a sell-out, and online sales have come to an end. Final tickets for Saturday's inaugural game will be available at the FREE E10 Block Party beginning 3PM tomorrow. Please come out and join the celebrations. #OaklandFirstAlways— Oakland Roots (@oaklandrootssc) August 30, 2019
Correct it’s Laney. And its not 5k I was mistaken. It’s around 3.5. Still rather impressive considering that it’s their first game.
Inaugural games are actually when you would expect to see something like that, for a few reasons: Teams (those with clues and resources, anyway), understand that a solid start is critical, so they put a lot of resources into building an inaugural game crowd. (Because, again, tickets do not simply sell themselves.) There is the inevitable/standard heightened excitement level by fans and the general populace about the "new thing" and about being part of the "first time." And you can hype that way easier than "come to our third game ever!" In this case, they have a decent date, which is often what teams look for when scheduling the first one. It's much more impressive and a better indicator when the second and third games have good crowds. It's not that the first one is "easy," by any means, but it has some advantages.
I mean at this rate 5k for the San Diego side would be a miracle. And it wouldn’t look good like the Roots will at Laney. 5k at SDCCU Stadium would look like the place was empty.
Oh, I just realized Oakland only HAS one other home game in this thing and it's October 19. It'll be interesting to see if they are able to make their trip to Miami in late October.
The stadium itself is just one stand on one side. With temporary bleachers added and SRO, 5,000 might be a legit number.
They also have two friendlies, starting with one against FC Juarez next Sunday. I will try to get to that one. The friendlies are there to fulfill the promise of four home games that they were supposed to have under the original Founders Cup plan. Do you think they are going to fold?
I am always skeptical of expensive trips late in a first season with few revenue opportunities. There is no reason at this moment to believe anybody (except Philadelphia, lest they shockingly draw a crowd) is in danger of folding. It will just be interesting to see, is all.
Oakland, of all the California teams seems the most interesting and potentially well situated. The other 3 are in direct competition with D1 and/or D2 sides that are far better situated for success (or already have a multi year/decade history of success).
Looks like I accidentally outed myself. Yes, I was being mostly rhetorical. DCFC and FCC were big fish in small ponds that figured out a way to make it work at that level. How does joining a league with higher overhead with similar on and off field competiton move them forward?
Sources: Philadelphia Fury players yet to be paidvia @NipunChopra7 | #NISA https://t.co/xMpSLsee5N— Soc Takes (@SocTakes) September 4, 2019
Yeah I bought tickets to the SD 1904FC game next Saturday fully expecting to eat my ticket cost. They’ve not sold enough online to fill one section of SDCCU Stadium, and the place looks pitiful even with what would be a stellar turnout for a NISA game (9000 people) This is from an America v Portsmouth exhibition a few weeks after the latter had been relegated.
They have 3 more home games but 1 is a friendly against FC Juarez from League MXN. I believe the other two are NISA.
To be fair, they can't exactly change the schedule now and they were just guessing when they did draw it up. Remember too that Laney has a (very good) football team with first dibs on the facility. Despite the cool videos they did when they signed guys, I would venture they didn't exactly say, "Oh, Oakland is going to be our flagship franchise, let's give them five home games." And that's funny about the Fury. High six figures in wages is a canard.
Also Oakland joined NISA very late. When they pulled out of the Founders Cup, they stated they would play four home friendlies and apply for membership in NISA for the spring. Then sometime in the summer they ended up as NISA members now. Last weekend's game against SoCal United was originally announced as a friendly and then later was added to the NISA schedule without changing the date/tiime/location.