Boy, is there any lower class of troll than the attendance troll? I mean, the usual "your players are donkeys, your coach molests children, etc. etc." sort of troll have the potential to be interesting, but there's never been a single interesting attendance troll. I mean, what's the friggin' point? "Your team didn't sell very many tickets last night." Well, no friggin' joke, Sparky. I guess I hadn't noticed all those empty seats around me last night. What the hell do you want us to do about it?
Dustin, how many people were at Giants stadium last night? Oh yea none, becuase a certain team that promised an MLS cup, didn't even make the playoffs! pathetic
On the other hand, you got some pretty good face time on camera last night - even a close up. I'll be bringing at least 5 with me for Game 3 - so you can make that 6,365 for next week.
That's going way out on a limb. I am almost hoping for one - or otherwise I'll have to wait until LA meanders into town.
In a related story, a dozen or so people showed up at the Meadowlands parking lot to do some really rad board tricks in the parking lot.... More on this story this spring.....
I probably had more to drink than you at that point - you looked very calm, I think it was a half-time cameo. Course, since Segroves usually starts drinking around 10:00 a.m. on weekdays, I'm surprised he could see his TV.
Sorry about that. Maybe it would help to start again. 6,300 was a big disappointment, as much, I'm sure, to the Burn and their fans as to anyone else, and especially given how well they (and MLS in general) had drawn toward the end of the season. Rather than just dismissing it, the better thing to do is ask a question: What are the reasons that only 6,300 turned out to see a good Burn team at home against a closely-matched opponent in an important playoff game? Theories?
lack of publication. Would it kill them to put some kind of ad in the sports day (DMN)? I saw it for everyone from Cowboys to Sidekicks, but no Burn. Make the public aware of the fact that we are in the post season now. Sure it's gonna be low given it's a wednesday, but better public notice would have got us at least 10,000. A saturday game with good publication (hopefully next series vs L.A.) will probably draw 17,000 (stick that in your pipe and smoke it falcon 6) But unlike the jack ass metro fan said earlier, it isn't pathedic that we don't have fans (because we odviously do) it's pathedic we can't make the public aware of a big game in the metroplex. Just think what it would have been like if 10,000+ showed up and saw that exciting game, it would have brought us more fans to the Burn and soccer in general. But the main problem with the publications, is that it's such short notice on when/where the games are played. Thats MLS' fault not the Burn's. What MLS needs to do is start the playoffs a week after the season ends, have the higher seeded team play on Saturday and have game 2 the following wednesday and then the *if necessary* game on the following saturday and start the process over the following saturday. What's the deal with wanting to end the season so fast, in 1999 we were in a semifinal series with L.A. that started on Halloween and the MLS cup was in November. sigh when will MLS learn?....
Since it's sooo expensive to institute high-profile marketing campaigns for a 'fifth major sport'; the only viable option becomes 'wooing' local media. This, however, takes a concerted effort that starts a the management level... and that can get a little 'sticky' from the get-go. I went to broadcasting school and work in the promotional products field. I've seen LOTS of promotions, and most of them are rendered ineffective if top management doesn't have the support of the local media. Just the simple 'regualar mentioning' of Dallas Burn 'goings-on' from local media is a MAJOR hurdle that needs to be addressed in a methodical manner. Not every 'front office' can achieve this.
It's pretty easy to explain: The Burn, as a league-run team, have much less to spend on marketing and promotion than the other teams in this league. What attendance they do get during the regular season is a result of many weeks and months' worth of hard work in grass-roots marketing. Considering that Wednesday night's game didn't appear on the schedule until last Friday night about 10 o'clock, it's a pretty tough job doing that sort of marketing in that short period of time.
Man I had a great time at the game. The 6K that were there were definitely the most fanatical lot. It was as noisy in GA as I remember for most games. People were banging the seats up and down from the get go, and some guys in GA even brought these surprisingly loud noisemakers that were kind of a rectangular box that spun on a stick. And man what a game. I can tell you that I certainly wasn't paying attention to the makeup of the crowd like some poor fans. A good time was definitely had by all.
What the 6K+ represents is the hard core fan that will show up for any game outside the Open Cup (I have given up trying to decide why they are so poorly attended everywhere). No youth soccer groups, no boy scouts, just the hard core fans and supporters. What you won't notice is a drop in volume of the fans because these are the ones who mostly make all the atmosphere at all the games. The others just sit and watch.
yes, one was me hmm our last home regular season game drew 17,000+, that was no dream. Granted it was a lot of free ticket night, but we can still pull crowds of around that number, whereas the Metrohacks are just watching it on T.V., jackass. ___________________________________________ ~Ryan BURN TO BURN
[The Burn, as a league-run team, have much less to spend on marketing and promotion than the other teams in this league. What attendance they do get during the regular season is a result of many weeks and months' worth of hard work in grass-roots marketing. Considering that Wednesday night's game didn't appear on the schedule until last Friday night about 10 o'clock, it's a pretty tough job doing that sort of marketing in that short period of time. [/QUOTE] Grass roots marketing: i bought an extra $200 flexi pass in July so I'd have extra tickets to hand out to friends. Our situation in Dallas requires the core fans to help as well. I paid for 3 extra people to come to the game on Wednesday. If 100 people paid for 3 extra tickets to drag friends to a game who otherwise would not go...... And as far as Wednesday night's game not appearing on the schedule until Friday, it's actually worse than that. The Dallas Morning News has a chart on Page 2 of the Sport Section which shows all of the upcoming matches for all the local teams. BOTH the Saturday morning, and Sunday morning, page2 charts in the DaMN did _NOT_ have the Wednesday game listed.... they only showed "Burn Playoff Game TBD" listed 7 days out. CW does not like to proactively contact Belo to harrass for accuracy and bandwidth. Steve Davis is ascending the ranks..... so he gets to write a "color" column in the Today section instead of riding herd on the numbskulls in the Sports department. Rick Alonzo..... enough said. Thus, we have Belo's stupdity, indifference, arrogance and amateur execution combining with either ego, lack of resources or laziness (on the part of CW/his.'team') which delivers bad data to 400,000 potential customers who, if they obtained their info from the DaMN, were not even aware of the upcoming Wednesday fixture until the Monday morning Sports Section, more than 60 hours after confirmation. Combine this with the arrogant hostility on the part of the most powerful on-air figure in the market (lead sportscaster for WFAA who is starting to resemble Hastur in more ways than one) and you have a bad brew. Last Tuesday, WFAA ran an interview segment from BlueSky. Hastur prefaced the segment by saying "people say I never cover soccer, so here's a story" and then at the conclusion with a smirk (i want to eviscerate from his face with nukeulur weppons of mass destruction) he laughed off the segment like it was some kind of joke and then said "see you next year". GAWD would I love to shove MLS Cup down Hastur's throat at the Doak luncheon on 12 nov. -bs
I gave up watching Ch 8 several years ago. Their anchors, weatherman, etc are fine, but Hansen is such an egotistical jerk that I switched over to Ch 5. If enough people who are fed up with Hansen switch to another newscast, maybe we'll eventually see Ch. 8 jettison Hansen. And to help speed up that process, I recommend we all periodically send emails or letters to Ch. 8 telling them why we've switched to watching news on Ch 5. (or Ch. 4, etc) and that we won't go back to watching Ch. 8 news until they get rid of Hansen.
Sorry for 'quoting' myself, but I think we might want to make this a 'Sticky'. Surely we need to do this in a methodical manner.... right?
I'm not sure if we need a "sticky" for this -- I think it might work better if someone posts a reminder every few months. Ch. 8 can be emailed at www.wfaa.com. There's a contact us link at the bottom of the page. Unfortunately, I have a feeling we're probably stuck with Hansen for the foreseeable future. But who knows. The ratings for Ch. 8's newscasts have been sliding the last few years. And if their ratings continue to drop and enough folks complain about Hansen, they might just get rid of him.
ever notice Hansen is never on his own sports special on sunday nights. Ha, I came back home Wednesday night (I live in Coppell so it only takes like 20-30 mins to get home) to catch all the sports parts of Ch. 5, 8, & 11's news casts. Well you'd think Game 1 of the playoffs on a wednesday night when not much else is goin on would get good coverage. Nope, lets see... Ch.11- Wow, something about Quincy Carter and baseball and some s hit no one cares about, then on the dumb f u c k's last sentence "oh yea, the Burn wins tonight 4-2". Jackasses. Ch. 8- Hmm, sounds familiar Quincy Carter crap, then you said it, baseball. Dale Hansen's last sentece..."and the Colorado Burn...hahahaha...excuse me the Dallas Burn beat colorado tonight in game one of the playoffs" a little better, but still jack asses. Ch. 5- Well well well, Quincy Carter, baseball and OMG they actually show Valderama's goal and Morrow's goal and the black dude (no racisim intended) said his hair looked like Valderama's when he was in high school, and everyone laughed. Not so good.. ___________________________________________ ~Ryan BURN TO BURN
The problem is that here in America (and especially here in Texas) american football is king. So even if there is nothing else going on that night, more people are interested in anything to do with football than how the Burn did in a playoff game. The networks know that, and since their interest is making money, soccer will continue to get lower billing in the fall.