BIG announcement coming from the LA Blues…i

What's so Blues about it is this....

They show www.ocbluesfc.com on their labluesprosoccer.net site.

Apparently www.ocbluesfc.com will be their new website.

Eventually.

Go to www.ocbluesfc.com. See what happens.

 

They will play at Cal-Irvine as well, apparently.

So they are moving 22 miles south.

 

http://www.uslsoccer.com/home/785709.html

“Our relocation and name change reflect a deeper transition within the team organization to a new level of seriousness about the future of the club,” said General Manager Jon Spencer.

 

Wow that logo is a mess. And no big surprise about the name change. We already knew that. Only remotely interesting news is that they're moving to Irvine for good. Anteater stadium is smaller than most NPSL and PDL venues. surprised it even qualifies as a USL stadium.

 

Playing at Anteater Stadium- UC Irvine. It has natural grass with a track around it. UC Irvine website says seating for 2500. It appears there are seats only on one side.

 

Yep. it's basically a cookie cutter high school field on a college campus. It is about as bare bones as you can get short of it having fake grass and football lines.

 

No they're 6 miles further away from Carson actually. But they're 22 miles south of where they used to play. They basically went from the extreme north of Orange County to the southern half of the county where the "LA" metroplex starts to thin out where I-405 and I-5 meet. It also is a more affluent area in general (Not that Fullerton is poor either).

 

My first thought was that they moved pretty far south, but after giving it some thought, can't think of an alternative location more central for OC (Anaheim). Not that it will matter if they don't drastically step up their marketing.

 

Personally, I think they should've stayed at Fullerton. Better stadium, ~better location in OC(?)

 

No it was and is their PDL side that plays in the Palisades. LA Blues always played in Fullerton.

 

Definitely a better stadium, albeit somewhat big for a USL Pro side. But it also lacked the track that they now have to suffer with at Anteater Stadium. Downside was their typical 3 digit crowds were swallowed up by it. And while Fullerton was closer to the center of the overall LA area, it wasn't necessarily working for them. And Irvine has some advantages straddling the divide between the heart of Orange County and the south county areas like San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente which while in OC are much more distant from central OC and LA proper. So it's not a terrible move in that regard.

 

Also their women's team plays in Palisades. They merged with another team and rebranded to the LA Blues just a few months ago. So I guess there will still be an LA Blues around drawing tens of fans.

 

It's an excellent location right off the 57 freeway and a couple miles north of the 91. It's an easy drive for people from the L.A. and San Bernardino County border cities (Pomona, Chino, Chino Hills, Diamond Bar, etc. and not too bad for Corona and Riverside since they'd be weekend games.

But for stadium rent and if they want to promote specifically to the never wander outside the Orange Curtain crowd, Irvine is a good spot.

 

"Want to promote." That's funny.

 

Was, not is.

As I noted last week, the PDL team will play almost all of its games this year in Costa Mesa, at Vanguard University. The W-League team may still play in Pali, I don't know.

(And the PDL team played in Huntington Beach last year.)

 

I stand corrected. I don't keep as up on PDL happenings as I do the other 4 nationwide leagues so you'd know more than I do about it.

 

Well Anteater Stadium is right off the 405 and 73 and very close to the 55, so it's not exactly inaccessible. But yeah moving does cut off any possibility that they could market to the western part of the Inland Empire (not that Blues had done any marketing to date). On the plus side it does make them a more realistic option to market to the more affluent folks along the coast and in southern OC. I mean heck, I could get there now bypassing where the majority of the bad "LA" traffic starts on 5 as you approach 405.

 

I know its hard to get support for a USL club. Especially when there are two MLS clubs in the area. But the Blues really didn't understand how to run a pro soccer club. When they decided to go pro and rebrand from Pali Blues to LA Blues their first mistake was playing in OC. When you're a tier 3 soccer club you don't name yourself LA and play in the OC. How do you identify with local soccer fans in the OC when you call yourself LA? Not only that their outreach and marketing was horrible. My friend goes to Cal State Fullerton and he had never heard of the LA Blues.

Lower division soccer clubs can have success if they follow a more community oriented plan. You're not the LA Galaxy, you're not going to be on ESPN or have your games mentioned in the LA Times. You're not going to get much media coverage at all. So, you have to lay down roots in a community. Open up an academy in that community (pay to play first but eventually a free academy). Sign players from the community. Hold charity events in that community. Brand your club so that it identifies with that community. Do market research on the community your in. Will local soccer fans in Fullerton identify with a team called LA?

The OC re-brand is the first sensible thing the Blues have done since they became a pro club. Playing at UC Irvine is not though. When I think of Irvine I think of lots of office buildings and warehouses. It's not a city with a high suburban population. How do you lay down roots in a community when you play in a community where nobody lives? Also, the demographics aren't in their favor. Irvine is 9% Latino for one.

Santa Ana? Anaheim? Much better options.

 

You may only think of office buildings, but you're forgetting Irvine is home to almost a quarter of a million people. Yes it's not as big as Anaheim or Santa Ana, but it's still more that large enough for a team at the D3 level. And as for demographics, why does it have to be Latino to suddenly be a good demographic for soccer? I thought soccer interest was on the rise nationwide?

 

Cause A68, don't you know, only Latinos attend soccer games. Last Quakes game, I was like the only white guy there.

Silly me, I thought soccer (and most all other USA sports) were supported primarily by the melting pot middle class with disposable income.

Stick, meet dead horse.

 

You expected the Blues to spend money actually designing their own uniforms rather than using an existing template?