http://uslsoccer.com/home/54852.html Mariners 3 Cincinnati 2 New signing Dante Washington with 2 goals. Tongihts games: 7:00 PM Charleston Battery at Richmond Kickers University of Richmond Stadium 7:30 PM Cincinnati Riverhawks at Charlotte Eagles Providence HS
Pathetic attendance. I thought they were supposed to be doing something right in Virginia beach this year? Oh well , so much for their televised games onf Fox Sports World this year looking professional.
It boggles the mind how the stations decide which games to air... we've discussed ESPN/2 many times... to Fox Sports World only giving one game in Rochester this season.
The stations didn't pick which games to air. There are joint production costs which are shared by the teams and the network. The teams had to bid for the right to air the games, and the teams had to pay $15,000 for the production costs. Some teams decided it was not worth the costs to show their games. Thus, spending the money on other marketing.
attendance you can only wonder what in the world the mariners did to promote this game... obviously close to nothing as it would seem The rhinos have never been below 11k for a home opener [ except in 96 when we had to open at a small college stadium ]... 895, wow...
Whooooa I thought the game was in Cincinnati. I thought VA Beach was supposed to get good attendence this year?
Also, I've heard that Virginia Beach has 12 sales people in the front office, which would be nearly unprecedented for an A-League team (and is likely very close to the number of actual players Cincinnati has on its team). The only explanation/spin I can possibly come up with for drawing 843 for your home opener is this: the Mariners have something like four games on Fox Sports World. I'd make darn sure my sales people were pushing tickets to those games first and foremost, and trying very hard to make them big events. It may be that a priority was not placed on the home opener. Many clubs like to do well for their home opener because it's a "big event" and they want to look good and start things off on a good foot. But if what you wanted to do was make sure that what the FSW audience showed was a good crowd, I'd be pushing those games like crazy and taking my chances with the others, because you can get a lot of mileage out of a tape showing a good, festive crowd at a home game when it comes to selling stuff for the future. Or, it could just be that a beach community full of transients isn't the best soccer market. We'll see.
Sorry, but there is no excuse for a crowd that small on a Friday night home opener. Just because the team has a new owner with bucks to go get aging named players doesn't mean the franchise is any better than it was last year when the league had to bail it out. Even if they are putting all their efforts into the FSW games their crowds are going to look sad and reflect poorly on the league.
Lots of things reflect badly on the league. This will not be the only bad crowd of the year. It's bad, yes, but at the end of the day, it's money in versus money out and perception be damned. I don't think Virginia Beach can ever be a good market, or that they can make money there, but I was just offering one possible explanation. Two, actually, since the other could be that they just don't know what they're doing.
Re: attendance There were articles in the local newspaper and a blurb on one of the local TV stations.
As I posted on USL discussions, in response to Mariner1 (who I assume is the gm or owner of V. Beach) who said they were quite happy with the attendance considering the weather, that one shouldn't be happy with crowds under 1000 regardless of excuses. Vancouver played an exhibition last saturday in the middle of nowhere (90 minute drive out of Vancouver), in a place where public transportation shuts down at 9.00 pm. Not only was there hardly any promotion, it rained all day, and the game was up against a Vancouver Canucks NHL playoff game in Vancouver and on TV (which if you live here you'd understand how big it NHL playof games are). Yet they still drew over 1000 more people to the game than Virginia Beach did. If I were with V. Beach I certainly wouldn't be happy with the turnout.
Goal scores for the Battery: Headed in by Kevin Jackson in the 38th minute from a Ryan Trout cross Josh Henderson from about 18 yards out in the 59th. From the webcast and most reports from people at the match, it sounded like Charleston controlled the match with Simmonds having a terrible match for the Kickers. I didn't hear the official attendance but the announcer said it looked lower than last year. He did anounce that the Battery could be looking at a sell-out (Blackbaud stadium seats more than 5,100) for our opening night match v. Montreal on 4/26.
Charleston could have won 3-0 having many chances after going up 2-0 including one shot being fired off the crossbar. Seems to me that those that argued that teams wouldn't have any incentive to score goals without the bonus point being available were wrong.
We're hardly a transient beach community. We're the largest city in VA. The Norfolk/VA Bch area is the largest metropolitan area without a major league franchise. I wouldn't let one game be an indicator of what the season will be like. As the weather gets better, there'll be more folks at the games.
I apologize for the mis-characterization. The one time I was there (A-League All-Star Game in 1999), that's what it appeared to be to me. The market has had seasons when it has done all right by A-League standards (2,500 a game, or nearly that, a couple of times). But I'm not sold on it, and we'll see what happens the rest of the way.