This is very true. Of course like with players, some hirings don’t work out. But the effort is in and the benefits are following.
Any STHs know what's going on with the vouchers that showed up in my account? I assume they're for the seat geek games but how do they work?
It's not *ever* going to be any different for us in this venue. We will always be at the bottom of the totem pole, even if the Bears leave. It's one of the predicted results of moving there.
it's not so much having to move as it is the late and poor communication around it the concerts were announced before the season schedule was announced -- this isn't new, surprising information
See, I don’t understand why people think we will have all this power after the bears leave…we’re behind concerts, college football, maybe even high school football (dead serious). We just don’t bring in numbers
I think we’ll end up as the major tenant and get great treatment once the Bears move. I have no data to back that up.
We bring the inventory, so we’ll be in a better negotiating position as far as rescheduling is concerned. This most recent one was the league’s choice, and not necessarily related to the Bears getting first pick of dates. Once the Bears are gone, of course we’re not going to have run of the place, but we’ll have a little more sway, likely baked into the contract, and we will have more available dates so any games we have to reschedule can likely be played in Soldier Field still.
One of the moving pieces of this is if ownership/managements goal of averaging in the neighborhood of 40,000 a match can be happening by the time the time the Bears clear out. Then they'd have proper leverage to have first call on scheduling. That's a notable if
We have a lot of ground to make up on the Bears. Even if we generously peg our attendance at 20,000 for 17 games, that's only 340,000, while the Bears, at 61,000 per game for 8 games, pull in 488,000. I get that there are other tradeoffs (preseason, US Open Cup, more dates = more people employed vs higher prices and suites for less wear & tear), but the Fire at this point just aren't as valuable to Soldier Field.
I don’t think that will matter much- the rent is the rent either way, and there’s no scenario where they’ll have right of first refusal on dates that I can think of outside of them selling the whole place out every match. What they will have is, what, 10-11 more dates (mostly weekends) available between the Bears preseason and regular season games to schedule games and avoid conflicts, which will be great. The two big changes will be not having to reschedule because of the Bears and most likely not having move games to SeatGeek. It’s addition by subtraction and that’s going to be awesome, even knowing that we won’t ever get to tell Solider Field “sorry, no Taylor Swift concert this summer, we play Montreal that weekend”.
I saw a report that said the attendance Saturday for the double-header was just shy of 24,000. But agreed that it's a hard to find statistic and I can't find this year's average.
Inventory? Cold Play had 2 shows in May that brought in more people than ~5-6 Fire games. Elton John plays tonight and I'm sure he will bring in more people than ~3-4 Fire games. If the Bears leave I think the city will be pushing for more concerts and college football games to make up the lost revenue and the Fire will just be there in the same spot.
Inventory - dates the stadium would otherwise sit empty that the Park District can collect rent on thanks to the Fire. The Fire will be in a better spot because they won’t have to schedule around the Bears and won’t have to move to SeatGeek. They’ll be able to negotiate slightly better terms because they have an inventory of ~17 dates where the Park District can collect rent from someone that they otherwise wouldn’t, but again, they’re never going to have right of first refusal, and that’s okay. Maybe they are able to limit the number of times the park district reschedules their games, or have certain dates “locked” where the PD can’t reschedule the game (would’ve been great for the Anniversary game this season) once the Bears are gone. That’s could be the extent of the leverage they’ll have and it’ll make a huge difference, especially if they can just move games to another date at Soldier Field instead of all of the way out in Bridgeview. Even at 40k a game (which won’t happen soon) they likely won’t have that much more pull - it’s Soldier Field so of course there’s going to be summer concerts and other events that will be scheduled there but it’ll be a lot easier to account for those once the Bears ******** off to Arlington Park.
https://soccerstadiumdigest.com/2022-mls-attendance/ Fire are averaging 16k There is some value to the park district in having a stable tenet who can reliably give dates, rather than one off Elton John concerts that aren’t repeatable year after year. Miami Fusion at 12k :-/ pathetic
Almost every other event that is looking to book soldier field is looking to sell *the majority if not all* the seats there. The Fire are not going to be doing that while anyone reading this today is still breathing. We will *never* be the "primary" tenant, even if we're the *only* guaranteed business in a year. Everyone else that wants to come along is *bigger* than us and will push us out. That is how money works. I have had a side hustle booking events at facilities for two decades now and I promise you the way to get yourself twisted it to have it in your head that you're big money when really you aren't. When big money shows up, everything else moves.
Nobody is really disputing this though. The Fire will be in a much better position with the Bears gone, and will likely have a lot more say over how often they get moved, and where they get moved to. They will also still have to change dates on their games occasionally when the rare truly big events that are scheduled without much advance warning warrant it. The two statements are not mutually exclusive or collectively exhaustive, and it doesn't seem like anyone is pretending they are.
See, you saw one thing in one sentence and they you (and other folks, it's not just you) contradict yourself. The Fire's position is not materially better with the Bears gone. With the Bears gone, the park district will be actively seeking more things to fill the stadium and those more things are mostly going to be on shorter lead times and that means moving because the things they find are going to pay more than we do. Things. Will. Not. Get. Better.