People would definitely try to cheat the system, but that's a given. At least kids would get to have a very memorable experience.
Well, I'd think the Haslam family might have some experience there. Maybe @kgilbert78 could shed some light on how the CBJ do similar events. Are all player autographs near-guaranteed or is it basically "popular players OR everyone else?" I think @Crew Chuck35 is right. Crew fans have to realize there's a ton more season ticket holders now than at any time in team history...and it's gonna be like this for a good while. But this is what we wanted back in 2004, right? Nobody said the price of popularity is ALWAYS a good thing.
Nothing new to me. In all seriousness, giving priority to kids would give me reason to actually go to one of these events. I've never gone because I already hate waiting in lines, and doing it with a 6-year-old is worse than having a toenail ripped off.
Ive only gone to Bengals training camp and it’s even worse but my kids got autographs from lots of guys. Including Carson Palmer haven’t gone in quite a few years obviously.
A night like Meet The Team is, well it should be about the kids. I totally agree with the sentiment about adults hamming it up with the players is odd.
I have tons of tips for parents going to the second Meet The Team night. Like last year, we were underprepared. Perhaps the third year is our charm! Last night, we committed to the Cucho line. We stood in line for two hours and fifteen minutes. We scored priceless memories for our kids. In all honesty, we have six adult STMs in our family. We could have “divided and conquered” to get all the autographs - each group takes a kiddo. We wanted last night to be more about family than collecting all autographs. Because who cares? Geeg and his girlfriend used the event to walk around and take in the museum for “free” and many rooms were empty (thankfully they also brought our kids snacks and cotton candy). My kiddos wanted Cucho’s autograph. They got his autograph. Priceless memory for them. And as I posted with our photos on Facebook: [Seeing our kiddos’ faces is my favorite part of the Meet the Team events. As we finally reached the “Cucho room” after an absurdly long time, Carigan exclaimed, “I am so proud of us. This was worth it!” They were troopers last night. Huge parenting moment of pride to take the kids to the event again this year. .. and we ended our Meet the Team night just like we did last year… pickup order at Swensons.]
more or less 2-3 players are set up at tables throughout NWA. You can maybe hit up 3 tables in 2 hours, maybe 1 or 2 more if they are less popular players. Maybe. Wife and I went last year, I got to 2 tables, wife got to an extra 1 because we split up at the start.
But also maybe don't put Cucho and Christian Ramirez at the same table. Spread the top-tier starters out around the venue and put them with a relatively unknown rookie. ...just an idea.
Cucho's line would be equally long no matter who he was paired with. He's the star of the team. I have a hard time believing anyone jumped in that line for the sole purpose of seeing Ramirez as opposed to Cucho.
For the Bengals, they have open practices during training camp but the stands only hold a few thousand people so that limits the crowds. Most but not all players will sign autographs after practice and go down a rope line signing on their way back to the locker room. If you want Joe Burrow or Ja'Marr Chase's autograph, they aren't that hard to get.
I was in the Cucho line ~15 minutes before start time. Got through the autograph line with maybe 10 min to spare. Wouldn't be shocked if some people hot in the cucho line at/before 6 and did not get anything.
The simple thing is to measure the line and put a last person allowed based on estimate for how long it will take. If it takes 10-15 extra minutes the players stick around that little bit. The problem Is letting people wait 2 hours and then having a hard cutoff. I don't have a way to fix it, but you either need like an intentional line holder mechanism, or don't let 1 person hold a spot for 8 people while those other 7 go around to the other tables.
So the Reds do Redfest at the Duke Energy Convention Center every December (except this year as the convention center will be under renovation). I went to my first one last year and would love to see something like this. Move it to the offseason, get a bigger venue and bring in former players. They have a main stage with player/panel interviews going on, and it is over two days. Current and former player autographs are staggered at various times and some lines are for kids only. The short time frame for the Crew event limits what they and the top players are going to leave some missing out and unhappy. That would happen if you give Cucho 2 hours no matter what. At least with a longer event they can go get other players throughout.
Wow, that's so simple. I'm sure it would be a piece of cake to know exactly how far the line can stretch while still allowing everyone in line to get to the front before the end of the event.
I don't think doing something in the offseason is a reasonable solution. These guys hardly get any offseason as it is, and many of them are from completely different continents. I don't think we should force take any of their offseason away from them just so they can be paraded around for people to ask them to scribble their name down and smile for a picture. It would be cool to do a former player event in the offseason though. Bring in some retired guys, have a meet and greet sessions, maybe a panel/interview type of thing. I think it would be interesting. They could give some behind the scenes stories of when they were on the team, do a Q&A, stuff like that. There are a ton of Crew Alumni that live in the city/region, so it would probably be easy enough to get a good number of guys each offseason.
It's actually pretty much SOP for things of this nature (i'm not sure about player meet and greets, but similar type things do that all the time)
the 8 people may have been an exageration, but definately saw quite a number of cases of 1 person holding a spot in the Cucho line while 2-4(/5/6) people would keep coming and going and getting other autographs
Oh, I had forgotten about some of the absurdities of last year. Thankfully, Timo has a good memory. Reaching the Morris line about thirty minutes into an event to be told - “anyone behind this point is not guaranteed anything.” Then they fast-tracked everything to autographs only. I was surprised that was not the policy this year to get more fans through the lines. That caused me to laugh so hard. Thanks! I am conflicted because while I am not a ham with the players and the event is purely for my kids, I am reluctant to pass judgment on adults who genuinely take joy out of “meeting” the players. I have no clue how my kiddos did not have meltdowns. Not one. Screen time, MLSF talk, checking out art, charades on the iPhone, a small bit of snacks, waiting, waiting, and more waiting plus no kid drinks/water - I thought the waiting would be a recipe for disaster. Especially since we drive so long to reach Columbus. A few thoughts for other parents: 1 - Bags were not checked. I left all our snacks in the van. First mistake. 2 - Have a plan of attack and GO! 3 - The “posters” this year were.. underwhelming. I was going to bring last year’s poster, but I thought this year’s poster would be equally cool. Second mistake. Wow. You must have been near us?
How is it possible when you have groups of people with various numbers of people in each group waiting in line? If you have of individual people waiting for something, yea it's pretty easy to estimate the length of the line. But when you have different size groups waiting, it's virtually impossible.
Why does that matter though? Whether all of those people were standing in front of you the entire time or not didn't have any effect on the amount of time you were standing there.
Not sure of best practice or how other sports teams do it, but this was my thought after last night: The Matan/Taha/Mrowka table was immediately before the Cucho/Ramirez table, so they didn't even have separate lines. My first thought was that they should have had the Matan/Taha/Mrowka table when you first enter the room, then you proceed with the rest of the line to Cucho. That way your breaking it up a bit for those waiting in line, especially with (young) kids. Which then led me to expanding on that possibility. But honestly, my kid only wanted Cucho, Nagbe, and Morris, in that order. Morris, obviously couldn't happen. So in the end, it was relatively successful. If they didn't have such a hard cutoff, we probably would have gotten Nagbe too, i think we were told 10-15 minutes for that line when we went in that room a few minutes before 8