Per the attached from Reddit MLS ... 86% of MLS's revenue is local: 39% Tickets 16% Concessions/Parking 31% from Local Sponsorships. No local media revenue. 14% National revenue. In short ... without a lot of fans in the stands every game, there is no business model that works. And its the suites and club seats that need sold out more than the cheapest seats. Rushing to price out newer fans since LDC opened and some diehards/veteran fans does not seem wise. There isn't an endless pool of ticket buyers in Central Ohio to watch expensive mediocre soccer.
You and I have different definitions of expensive and mediocre. And they aren’t adding more premium seating due to a lack of demand, right?
Some of that premium seating is displacing existing season ticket holders, including someone here. That is some kind of arrogance and greed. I was a STH for the Cleveland Browns. The Haslams are treating the Crew like the Browns. Squeeze the fans relentlessly... assuming they will always attend the number one team in town. The Crew locally arent in the same universe of relevance to the Browns. FAFO.
I guess so. Most of the casual fans I know don't think going to LDC is cheap. I don't either, but I love going.
Those season ticket holders can relocate. My sister and her boyfriend are also unable to renew because of the new premium section. They were offered tickets elsewhere. Premium sections are sold out for years, not just this season or next.
Your compassion for other Crew fans is truly inspirational. Something to pass on to your kids for sure.
No. I know it goes directly against the "soccer for everyone" (which is definitely true in one sense) and "how can the game grow when tickets are so expensive" lines but it's a business with a bottom line. Nor should the Nordecke be for everyone, especially with the difference in atmosphere. As we all know, it's a standing section with cheering, smoke, flags, etc. The last thing we need is a bunch of Karens going in there complaining they can't see the game because someone in front of them is jumping, waving a flag or whatever. (IMO, flag-waving goes both ways. Try not to wave it during the run of play, but also try not to complain that someone is. A blocked view is a gamble.) Regarding the affordability: I know I can't afford the player box seats and I'm not complaining about that. (With that said, if anyone wins some, hook me up!) The Nordecke should be for people who can obtain a ticket (notice I didn't say "afford it" because maybe someone has an extra) and who are willing to tolerate the atmosphere.
Already passed on the love of the game and the Crew to my daughter. She has probably been attending games with me in the Nordecke more than most posters in here. Enjoy your complaining.
Now you are making shit up to argue. I reached out in May to my rep about moving out of the Nordecke. My rep replied that they could move me to the Bread Financial Club section ... immediately, if I wanted. There is no multi-year commitment there or in Patio 96.
You will be among the first here to call others out when LDC stops being full ... not being a "real fan" like you. The warning signs are very clear. You apparantly like to live in your universe and ignore them.
I actually looked at moving to Patio 96 for 2026 and by "looked at", I mean "I let the thought crossed my mind for about 24 hours". My rep actually mentioned the Bread Financial Club as the least-expensive premium option. (This isn't true for 2026. It's Patio 96 at something like $3100. The BFC is more expensive and apparently doesn't include unlimited beer, whereas Patio 96 does.)
Moving past the incredibly dismissive "they should just buy somewhere else" part of your post, you are an anomaly. You do not set any expectations or conditions on the team and the organization. 95% of ticket buyers do. Sports tickets at this point are a luxury product, and Columbus is a market is generally fickle. We're not Chicago Cubs fans. Winning is expected to get casual fans to continue to show up at steepening prices. It is setting up for a perfect storm if the Crew do not hit a home run with this Abou Ali signing or make another couple major signings ASAP. When LDC opened, they were selling all of the original premium seating (field club, suites, etc) with seven-year terms. That means a lot of these deals will be up in two years, which means negotiations for new deals likely start next off-season. It's very possible that Nagbe, Moreira, Rossi, Arfsten, and Farsi are all gone in the next 16 months when those negotiations are set to happen. It's a major rebuild on the near horizon and the Crew have to this point done a miserable job of preparing for it proactively. MLS may be switching to a European calendar at the same time too. The Haslams are going to want to lock in these premium buyers for another 5-7 years at much more than the $90,000 per year they offered coming out of COVID. I am not sure how much appetite those people will have to pay $125,000 or more for multiple years if the team's performance continues to decline, crowds become less consistent, and the season ticket base continues to shrink due to all of these things. I think certain elements of this fanbase have gotten too comfortable with the ideas of sellouts being routine and Nancy being a cure-all for any roster. We laughed at all the empty seats in Austin after they did what the Crew are doing with their price increases. It's about to happen here. If the Crew are going to raise prices by 10% every year - which is wholly inadvisable based on every research study ever done on consumers' ticket-buying behavior - then the soccer product needs to be world class and incrementally better each year. I don't want to go back to the Crew being a footnote in local sports coverage and a fringe topic in the public consciousness. It could happen very quickly if the entire organization doesn't start getting serious about the soccer side of the business and getting this team back to being among the elites in MLS and North America. The weakening ticket demand we're seeing lately is usually the first step of the cycle that leads back into irrelevancy.
"I couldn't care less about the Columbus Crew being a healthy and viable club" is such a wild statement. It's even crazier when the team was nearly lost a few years ago because of that exact attitude.
Yes. Because we should have been eternally grateful to suck the peanuts from Precourt's puckered @sshole. The fans showing that Columbus is a shit soccer town with horrible business metrics is one of the best things that's ever happened in all sport.
Except--some of those folks had really good seats which are no longer even close to replicable in other sections, because comparable seats are no longer available (already occupied). For some it's like getting moved from A Deck to D Deck at the shoe.
Someone in this sub is pissed that he and his large group are being moved from that spot in the stadium. Those are potentially some of the best seats in the stadium for viewing, and now they are no longer for the common folk. I would be incredibly pissed. I thought about moving to that section once I get older or get tired of the Nordecke's crap.
That said, that happened to me when we moved to the new stadium We were in 124, row 10 at HCS. In the new stadium. there were no regular seats in that part of the stadium. Yes, you could get seats like that on the east side (then)--but then one had to deal with the sun. We'd always been on the west side to avoid that (Mrs KG is not stupid). Now? We ended up in upper south, in the SE corner. We were in the SW corner, but moved as we were too close to the visiting fan area. Not that we had any major trouble there, but we did not want to take the chance in future as I am almost 70. But we did at least have our choice then. These folks don't as a lot of the seats are now taken.
Nah, real OGs have gotten kicked out of HCS and then arrested for trespassing when trying to sneak their way back in!
I had season tickets to OSU before the renovation. Really good seats, section 13 A. Then the renovation moved me to 15A. Then the premium seating moved me to 17A. I get the seats are different, but it’s still a seat, you are still attending the game.
I mean any kind of infighting or drama that I just dont feel I want any part of anymore when I get older and grumpier. It has been better this year, with the tradeoff that leadership seems less competent.