You recall incorrectly. There have never been fewer than six D3 teams in a season, and then only in 2010 (http://www.kenn.com/the_blog/?page_id=5469). As for Orlando, one would do better making the case of what other MLS teams draw (which is substantial) and how recent MLS expansion teams have done than trying to say the D3 numbers are this and THEREFORE build us a stadium. And, as mentioned, the stadium is contingent on MLS expansion, which is not necessarily tied merely to Orlando's D3 crowds.
You'll have to do better than this. I mean, our team could give away thousands of tickets as well and start telling everyone we're going to get MLS in order to increase interest. So I think what you meant to say was "apples to oranges". Everyone in soccer reports distributed tickets. Orlando City just appears to be taking it to the extreme and/or handing out huge amounts of comps to pump up the crowds.
2010 is exactly what I was referring to. How did they end up with only 7 home games on one of your attendance charts? A point we have been making. Portland doubled (limited by capacity), Vancouver tripled, and Montreal went up significantly as well. If you count Seattle (3500 --> over 30,000), there's almost a reverse trend between final pre-MLS crowd and initial MLS crowd.
I thought you did not care about what happens in Orlando? I get it now, you only pretend to not care about Orlando when we beat the shit out of the Rowdies on the pitch or when good things happen in Orlando but are quick to come out and troll when something you perceive as 'negative' happens. The only regret I have about our Tampa trip is not chugging a glass bottle directly at your head. I seriously mean that. Your team in worthless and frankly I hope we never play your shit club ever again. You don't deserve it and it only validates the existence of a 'professional' soccer club that resides in a city where the sport has failed time and time again. You are a dumb ******** troll who literally does not know what he is talking about. Read the whole article you stupid POS. The turnstiles don't count the countless kids that get into the stadium early with their families to greet the players, VIPS, special guest or supporter section tickets (as per http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-soccer-stadium-attendance-20130903,0,11622.story). Come out to a game and see for yourself how much we fluff our numbers. Don't wear a Ralphs Mob hat though or it will get jacked just like what happened to your boy two weeks ago. Come out to Orlando and we will make sure you give you a big lump of Cole...
One has to be subscribed to their newspaper in order to read the actual article. So here are screen shots of the article that a subscriber took: http://i.imgur.com/r9smUxi.jpg http://i.imgur.com/2gHv2Av.jpg
Seriously, Jesus. You guys have gotta stop with all this wannabe "hooligan" nonsense. It really doesn't help with your club's image. It makes the ILF seem like a bunch of juvenile delinquents than a real supporters group. If you guys actually get MLS, all this ain't gonna fly with them. Just ask the 1906 Ultras in San Jose.
We were unable to find attendances for three of Real Maryland's games. True, it was their last season in the league, but we do have an attendance for their final game, so they did complete the season. So, Kenn's correct. 2010 was the season with the fewest teams, at six. I was going to point you to the USL website page, but it looks like they've yanked those links, so there's no links to historic data now. I really have no idea why organizations do that. I hope someone managed to download it, or the league at least held onto it somewhere. As to Kenn's response to me... I guess I'm getting a little carried away, watching MLS and the NASL expanding and having a solid number of teams. I, too, am guilty of forgetting how bad things were, and failing to imagine that a small bus league is quite acceptable, and can survive for a very long time quite nicely.
Missing data. They didn't fold. I'm missing data. Real Maryland didn't publish three home attendance numbers. Standings. Not attendance charts. Standings. Everybody played 20 games in 2010.
I got your wanna be right here brah. You must be confusing our group with the family section of our fanbase. We have no issues with any other fanbase in the USL or MLS outside of yours because you little b*tches act like c*nts online and in person. You have constantly put down Orlando and only come out of your St. Pete cesspools to troll yet can't take your medicine when you get beat down on the pitch. If you genuinely did not care about Orlando, that would be one thing. Problem is you do care and care a lot. This is a free country and you are welcome to come troll all you want. Just be prepared to be called out for the worthless sack of s*it pathetic franchise that you are. Enjoy playing the 'Cosmos' and living in the 70's.
True. But in fairness most of the people jumping on board with the article here have probably never been to a game at the Citrus bowl, so they have no way of knowing how wrong the turnstile numbers are.
And some fans don't seem to realize how padded the announced numbers are since what they've seen at the games and thought the attendances were have been inflated so much. Like its been said, Orlando isn't the only pro team to do it, but their previously seemingly impressive attendance is now jaded with the truth of the real numbers.
Those of you old enough to remember the WFL's opening week back in 1974 will recall that as an actual scandal. This, not so much. They still sell more tickets than anybody in the league, they still have a shot to win their second league championship in three years, they've still got a very good shot at having MLS in their market and they don't freeze their asses off in the winter. So I think, on the whole, they'll be okay.
Picture of Supporters Section (end zone) from this past Friday night's game https://mobile.twitter.com/RuckusPR/media/grid?idx=0&tid=374319780221972480
FWIW, the same reporter did an article about the Orlando Predators (Arena Football) about their low turnstile numbers and how because of that it defaulted on it's lease agreement with the City of Orlando. Orlando Predators lose their Amway Center lease "The team's lease requires attendance, as measured by ticket-scanners and turnstile counts, to average at least 6,000 per home game. The Predators fell just short, averaging 5,878, according to city records. In a statement Wednesday, David Pearsall, the team's managing partner, said the city's attendance numbers are wrong: "The Orlando Predators have disputed the city's calculation of the scanner/turnstile count." According to Arenafan.com the Preds led the league in attendance with 11,838.
That post has been screen cap'd for antiquity. The mods can do something about his threats of violence now. Anyway, I think many people are missing the point regarding the fact that more people seem to be at the games than the turnstile numbers are indicating. Many of those people are there, but how they got in is now in question. How many comps is OCSC giving out? Apparently a very large amount. Yes, every team and league reports tickets distributed. But a 100% difference between the two? That is difficult to explain, and if you don't think the team SHOULD explain when they are asking for significant amounts of money then you'll be sadly mistaken. I doubt this will put a lid on the stadium effort, but it won't help any. I also wasn't impressed with OCSC's official response. Not because I'm Tampa Bay, but because they didn't answer anything or refute anything. At all. They basically just said "lol believe us not the media because we say so!"
[Note: I'm not barking at you, I'm discussing the topic picking up from your comment.] If this were even remotely accurate I'd agree and discuss it, but one of two things is happening here. Either: 1) lots of people believe the Sentinel article but have never been to or seen an OC match and therefore have no idea what they're talking about; or 2) lots of people are badly conflating two different figures: that very low turnstile number quoted in now two different poorly reported Sentinel articles, with the figure from total tickets sold/distributed. These are two different figures and two different conversations. If the criticism is made that OC are announcing attendance of 10,000 but that that 10,000 figure was accomplished by giving away 5,000 of those tickets, then fine, make that argument. But that discussion is materially different from saying no, there were not 10,000 people in attendance at a recent match, there were only 3,987. Because that is so comprehensively false as to be impossible. As stated elsewhere on these boards in the past 24 hours, the bottom level of the Citrus Bowl holds about 13,000 or 14,000 permanent seats, and on most matchnights this season, that bottom level was at minimum 2/3 full, and on several recent matches it was at least 3/4 full. As Obama has said several times in the past couple of years, it's just math. Even if 1 in 3 or perhaps 2 of 5 of those 10,000 people did get in with comped tickets or some such, nothing changes the fact that that bottom level of the stadium has been largely full for most of these three seasons in Orlando. Hell, even if the bottom level was half empty this past season, that'd still be comfortably higher than the b.s. "3,987" number in the Sentinel article. So be very clear with the criticism: Is it that the actual attendance is in fact only 3,000 or 4,000 living souls physically present in the stadium on matchnight instead of what the club announces? Or is the criticism that the club are not being specific enough to state whether or not they sold or gave away most or all of the tickets corresponding to the announced attendance? One way or another the bottom line is that that bottom level of the stadium has had large crowds this season, no matter how those 8,000-average people got into the stadium. After that, this whole conversation degrades to how ridiculously obsolete the city government's turnstile counting methodology is, and whether or not the team actually has as many willlingly paying customers as people have assumed, but again, those are two distinct details.
I am going to posit that there is a third possibility: that a decent number of folks aren't interested in either of the arguments above, but instead merely saw that a newspaper article reports that the heretofore believed-to-be impressive attendance numbers put up by Orlando City could be - for either or both of those reasons, or other ones - not what they have been made out to be, and got wood because it enabled them to advance their own agendas. Now for the joke I originally intended to make: "We were in the pool!"
Well played, sir. And just when I was all set to get really pissed... ...because when it comes to those naysayer nimrods with agendas who care not one whit about any facts---well, I just think OCSC gets short-changed. And if those naysayers think that's OC attendance, they're under a complete misapprehension. That was not us (Jerry), that was not us.
I would say if Phoenix's 1,500 a game announced were shown to be 300 a game, that would be a bigger issue than Orlando's 8,000 a game being alleged to be half that. Orlando doesn't really have to worry they're going to go out of business over the revelation. (To be fair, there was a bit of hubris on the OCSC side when, a week into 2011's preseason training, whatever college sophomore it was who was their #2 PR guy started in on the MLS Is Inevitable bit, and that may justifiably have turned some folks off. Also, to be fair, Seattle invented hubris so you'd have a ways to go to be even be anywhere in their league.)
Basically same story, right? Cool that he blogs about it based on the Sentinel story, then puts that blog post in the printed weekly newspaper. Synergy.
Cut-&-paste "journalism." Why investigate and report when you can re-appropriate some other paper's crap. I sincerely hope that Orlando City SC takes some kind of action against the Sentinel, although very likely not legal action I hope they demand a retraction and admission of guilt and apology. ManuSooner, if you're interested, browse through this thread and discover how this non-story has been completely taken apart.