Yes, obviously, no one here is that dumb. In case you haven't been keeping up with attendance, Miami has had a remarkable turnaround in attendance over the course of the season. The question is what are they doing differently than what they did before?
From Miami FC's site: "The Miami FC fell 1-0 to Puerto Rico FC in front of the second-biggest crowd in team history on Friday night. The game was delayed two hours due to lightning in the area. Despite the weather, over 10,000 fans enjoyed a night of celebration featuring an appearance by Puerto Rican Championship boxer Miguel Cotto, followed by a post-match concert by Grammy Award-winning artist Elvis Crespo." They have a special promotion for every game during fall season http://www.miamifc.com/match-themes This strategy obviously works in getting people to the games, but with all the discounted tickets and extra costs for artists and promotions the revenue must be pretty low even at 10 000 att. I am not saying Miami FC are doing it wrong, when they started they had no idea how to run and promote a minor league franschise and it hurt them both on the field and in the stands during spring season so something had to be done. Now they are throwing money at both players and potential spectators and they are getting results. But while Miami's owner have the money to lose, I have a feeling they are over doing it. with all this ethnic pandering, human foosball, free t-shirts/flags/caps, cheap beer, music shows etc going on, the soccer game almost looks like a distraction. The whole point of these match themes must be to introduce new potential customers to the club and get them to come back for regular games, to see how this will work out there must be some regular games but guess we have to wait for 2017 for those.
Yeah, I feel for the ticket reps trying to sell season ticket package renewals when the folks that actually paid a fair price are watching everybody else get in for $1/game.
Yeah many Chicago Fire fans would complain about this when you can pick up fire tickets for 3 bucks at stubhub, It never bothered me, but it seems like many people did not like it. Same for my Red star season tickets, I pay hundreds of dollars for them, and I am sure there are a lot of people in the stadium that get in for free, fvck it, my money helps the team and the more people in the stadium to support the NWSL the better, but I am probably a minority in feeling this way.
This is interesting, you guys want people to watch the game but are hating at how it's done. Again, $1 tickets are for a certain group of people. You think you are going to get 5,000 college students on Wednesday to go to Miami FC when you can't get 500 students to go to FIU football? It's ridiculous to put all of the increase in attendance on $1 tickets. Is it a factor, probably, but at most it brings in 500 people. The team found a marketing strategy in special events that works. How is soccer a sideshow when everything happens before/after a game. AND, if it was secondary, why would people even stay for the game itself? Clearly from the photos shown, the people are there, they stay for the game and create a good atmosphere. If all I cared about was a concert held after a game, I would come in 2 hours later and watch the concert, why subject myself to something I'm not interested in. Instead of being celebrated for having success, everyone seems to try and find a reason to hate on them. Last year, FTL was giving away tickets as well (the reason, according to them, why their attendance has fallen precipitously) and they never got close to the numbers Miami FC has achieved recently.
Attendance and sold tickets ''According to the NASL figures, Rayo OKC’s total announced attendance for the 11 home games between April 2 and July 30 was 48,545. That gives an average attendance of 4,413 per game. According to the contract between the club and the school district that owns the stadium, Rayo OKC must pay a “ticket surcharge” to Yukon Public Schools (YPS) of $1 per ticket sold. Payment is due on the last day of the calendar month. On August 9 – after the current management had assumed direct control of the club – a payment was made in the amount of $13,302 for ticket fees for April 2 through July 30. This payment was for all tickets sold during the season so far. Average announced attendance per game: 4,413 Average charged attendance per game: 1,209 So, with simple math: Average attendance not charged per game: 3,203'' http://midfieldpress.com/2016/09/27/desolation-row-a-final-post-on-the-off-field-drama-at-rayo-okc/
Talk about burying the lede. Strange, strange article, but credit to them for digging up some numbers. Not sure anything else bears scrutiny however.
1 hour out, they're not opening the gates at Carolina (for Cosmos) due to lightning. Could be a long night.
Code: Team Season Average(2015) Weekly Total Minnesota United 8746(8767) N/A Indy Eleven 8366(9809) 9157 Tampa Bay Rowdies 5779(5649) N/A Ottawa Fury 5751(5164) 6274 Miami FC 5461 10012 Carolina Railhawks 5157(4539) 4746 Jacksonville Armada 3907(7927) 3472 Puerto Rico FC 3738 N/A Rayo OKC 3704 N/A New York Cosmos 3703(5062) N/A FC Edmonton 2131(2889) N/A Ft. Lauderdale Strikers 1457(4471) 1509 Season Average (Mean-Median) Week Average NASL 2016 4821-4519 5861 NASL 2015 5909-5295 Difference -1088 -776 NASL Fall2016 4667 NASL Fall2015 5606 Difference -939 League Total 2016 698980(145 games) League Total 2015 975000(165 games)
weekday nights are killer, they need to get rid of them. Without Champions League and later rounds of US Open Cup games or Canadian Championship, no reason to have Wednesday night games.
Good news coming out of St Pete Under 1,000 tickets left for tonight's game vs @TheMiamiFC! Sellout = $10K donation to @allchildrens.TICKETS: https://t.co/ixxQPj4PQv pic.twitter.com/0Lh086IcK6— Tampa Bay Rowdies (@TampaBayRowdies) October 1, 2016
Thanks to the amazing crowd tonight, we're donating $10K to @allchildrens. Even though we didn't win, Edwards will donate another $5k. pic.twitter.com/Pyw8cdEyKQ— Tampa Bay Rowdies (@TampaBayRowdies) October 2, 2016
******** you. "Tampa Bay" is fair. It's "Tampa" that's not fair. They don't play in Tampa. The team isn't called Tampa. Again, ******** you.
Wednesday average: 3,796 Friday-Sunday average: 4,998 Sundays are actually worse than Wednesdays (3,099), and part of that is because Edmonton plays at home on Sundays, but no one seems to be saying "Sundays are killer."
I also made a point of saying "for" Tampa Bay and not "in" Tampa Bay as they don't play in a body of water.
The thing about Sundays is not everyone has home Sunday games to get an accurate data set for all clubs. Hard to make an apples to apples comparison when Edmonton and New York make up the majority of Sunday games.