Whoa, wait, why's he starting now?? It's not even December yet! I would not be surprised if this thread goes dormant, but I found something that might be worth dropping off here. I know CHI doesn't have many seats to begin with, but it's still worth pointing out this happened, I think: 519594786353709059 is not a valid tweet id Has any other team sold out a section yet?
Good news... but they are just some 4 tops along one side of the field.... maybe I could look at a picture and say more precisely, but it is perhaps 10-15 4 tops? Expensive though - so maybe some good income for the team. I have seen Cheryl Bailey (and family) sitting at one. Guess that kind of confirms Benedictine for next year - which realistically I don't think was in doubt.
Sorry, just pulled out my paperwork.... 2 grand/table was the "early bird" price which would still be in effect.
So $2000 per table, that works out to be $500 per seat? (and with 6 tables, that's $12,000 total) Not bad. But still it's only a small part of the entire attendance pie.
The good news...that might cover two players salaries The bad news...that might cover two players salaries.
What the twitter was talking about was the tables that are placed behind the chairs and benches on the track. There are only a few of them, 3 or 4 that I remember. And the Whisler family sits at one of them. So I don't take much stock in that twitter message. IMO, it's a ploy to get more people to start buying season tickets early, which is all good. Let's see how soon they sell out the field side benches and seats. They are lined up all along the near sideline from one end to the other. They aren't cheap. I had a bench seat last season and was very close to the play on the field. In fact those of you who know me could see me in some videos when the ball comes near me. But it's selling the regular seating for Season Tickets that, IMO will be the crucial thing. I do however believe that the Red Stars attendance will grow next season, even though the National Team players will be missing for a large period of time.
Happy they sold out the tables, but it still kind of annoys me that they will still be playing at Benedictine.
so it goes.... at least the players don't have to train for world cup qualifiers on a Comfort Inn complimentary breakfast.
Other then just liking a team because it happens to play in Chicago, there will need to be a lot more steps taken by management to have any hopes of increasing the attendance for next season. It looks like the stadium issue will still be a problem effecting attendance. The other issue is Chicago's style of play. Is it an exiting and creative enough style to build any kind of strong fan base.
Hmm, I'm not sure "exciting and creative" is necessary to building a fan base. I think having a distinct style is, and I think Chicago has one. I know that here in Portland, I've always enjoyed watching them play. I think of their style as blue collar with persistence. (I haven't seen them in person that I recall since Press arrived, so I don't know if their style changed after that.)
I've thought about this "style of play" in comparison to "where they play". IMO, Benedictine from sideline to sideline is short. It is a college football field first and foremost. There is not much room to work east and west, thus north and south is the only room to work at Benedictine. Also, because of the football short turf, the ball goes out of bounds A LOT. As long as the Red Stars play at Benedictine, you won't see the beautiful soccer that many here are thinking of where the ball is passed all around from sideline to sideline, tika-taka style. Not enough room. Thus getting the ball upfield and then putting it into space to Press or Hoy or anyone fast enough to track it down toward goal before it goes out of bounds seems like the only viable game plan for Rory Dames at this time.
So I just got an e-mail from the Spirit, and here's an interesting tidbit that I had missed when the schedule originally came out: (underline mine) All Saturday night games, save one - I'd have to dig into the old data to see how Saturday night compares Sunday night/Sunday afternoon/Saturday afternoon, but for a team that already draws rather well, I have to think this will be a big boost in attendance to have nailed down Saturday night all the time!
I don't have day/night differences, but over two seasons, Saturday average is 3971.2, Sunday average is 3273.5, and Weds average is 2708.1. So just playing on Saturday alone is a pretty big boost. Actually, looking through all their Saturday home games: in 2013 all games started at 7 PM, in 2014 all games started at 6:30 PM. So we can't really do a day/night comparison.
To say the Dash are making a strong push to get butts in the seat for their opener is an understatement. With a target of 10k, I wonder how many tickets have been sold yet?
According to this article, they've sold 2500 as of March 27th. That means their season ticket holder base is even lower than that...
Here I saw that and that number is really strange for some reason. Least of which is that during their lowest point last season they were easily getting 4000 fans and now they can't sell more than 3000 tickets for opening match? Even if most people don't renew their season tickets, they usually buy a single ticket for the opening match especially with all the new and popular faces that will be around. Something is just not right.
Some people would argue that the 4k from last season was exaggerated to begin with... Not sure if I believe that or not. But in terms of that article, March 27th was well over a week ago, especially if the players have been helping sell tickets since then.
I don't believe they did, but for the sake of argument, if they had exaggerated last season, why wouldn't they be doing it now? What benefit does announcing that you're only pulling in 2500 for opening night do? Sure it might spur on a few of the previous season ticket holders to come back based on guilt, but counteract that with all the others who may think, "Well I can't make it to all the games but the number is so small, I don't have to worry about getting season tickets as I can always get individual game tickets." And creating a sense of demand would probably do much more to bring in the casual fan than a sense of desperation. I think the players only did it for a day, I don't think they've been constantly in there selling tickets... they still gotta train and stuff.
Someone on EQ mentioned that their FCKC ticket rep said they're currently at under 3k tickets sold for Sporting Park, too...