The Hantz Group is the company that owns the Ignition. They are a financial consulting firm. They have 800+ corporate clients and 25,000 household clients. I'm excited to see an owner that understands how to run a business.
How many sports franchises have they run? With ticket prices of $40 and $22, I would not attend an Ignition game if I lived in the Detroit area and I am an indoor soccer fan. Maybe they should check out the ticket price scale of the Lansing Lugnuts, a very successful minor league baseball franchise in Michigan. The range is $7 to $9, not $22 to $40. http://www.lansinglugnuts.com/tickets/singlegametix.html
Too bad the Lugs are financed by their affiliate the Chicago Cubs which is part of the Tribune. Thats a ton of money there for a minor league team. Indoor Soccer is not the minor leagues it needs to be a Major sport, so Detroit is figuring HEY! lets make some money if people are willing to pay for it. Hell if they can make a profit with camps and less than 4K people a game then thats good. They can get a great product on the field (hopefully, cause thats the only way I see people paying that much $$$) I bet they will have SRO aswell if they are really good. Wouldn't this improve indoor soccer? Maybe if they have enough funding they can expand the arena(doubt it) or build another one in a few years.
Like other minor league baseball teams, the Lugnuts are not owned by the major league affiliate. Their primary owner is a man named Tom Dickson. I think their ticket prices are appallingly high and I will be surprised if they draw well. I think a family of four should be able to attend any MISL game for $50. It's $88 in Detroit, and I think that's ridiculous, just as the Steamers exorbitant playoff ticket prices are ridiculous.
Mark my words. Do a sticky or whatever. They are more likely to not sellout a single game than to sellout the entire season. They are in for a shock.
You are right. MLB teams only lend talent to those teams in exchange for developing them. Then, when those guys are developed, the MLB team pays them off. ~King
Yet, you can't even spell Cougars. And, how do you know that they're a poorly run franchise? They just started!
Yes, but if you're an affiliated minor league team, the big club pays the salaries of their guys that are down on the farm. That helps the finances quite a bit. Either they're going to have some really empty houses, or they'll be making it really easy to get a free or cheap ticket.
That logo is likely an indication as to why team management has to charge so much for tickets. It was designed by SME Branding, one of the top branding and graphic design firms in the country. They've worked for countless Fortune 500 companies and major sports entities... and their services don't come cheap. The fact that Detroit Ignition ownership went out and spent top-dollar on an identity package is a sign that they're not likely to skimp on management of the team. Then again, it's also a sign that they're going to have to generate the revenue to cover top-dollar expenses... with ticket prices apparently being one of the areas in which they intend to do just that. Well... they either know of a lot of deep-pocketed Detroit area indoor soccer fanatics, or the Detroit Ignition is going to be the highest-budgeted MISL team to fold after just one season.
https://www.hantzgroup.com/HantzBenefitsv2/PublicHome.htm We are not speaking of someone "short" on ca$h
They are spending a lot of money except on one of the most important things: the arena. Besides the logo they are spending on TV. they bought Brian Finnerty's soccer camps and they bought the naming rights to some youth soccer tournaments or something. They might have sold out the arena easy with these youth initiatives (you can do 5,000 a game being a romper-room-SpongeBob outfit like the Blast, but you'll never do more than that or have any relevance) BUT they're also pricing those same kids out. The whole thing is upside-down.
Go Figure. I guess this is new for this season because I know they were a Cubs affiliate for many years. Funny thing on the lugnuts site at the top: Home of the 2003 Midwest League Champs Way to keep hold of those glory days like the Baltimore Blast.
True but the big club only pays about fifteen of those contracts, which are the remaining guys of the 40-man roster. That's what "purchasing" a player's contract means. ~King
Oz, grow up and have some respect for others. Obviously you have none for yourself. You are a disgrace.
I think Viktor in Chicago is very solid financially, too, but if no one comes to the games there's only so much someone will endure.
Maybe if you stopped being so offensive he wouldn't have to delete your posts, which are way out of line. You have no class.
Hello. I have been checking in on this board from time to time since I learned that the MISL was coming to Detroit, but now that the Ignition have formally announced theirselves, I decided to register. This is my first post. I am here in Metro Detroit. I just looked over the Ignition ticket brochure and was wondering how the prices compared to other MISL teams. After reading through this thread, I assume they are way out of whack with the other teams. I was looking forward to seeing quite a few games next season. Now, they have priced me out. It's not really that I can't afford it. It's that I simply refuse to pay that. I will probably see at least one game, just to say I had been. $22 for the cheapest seats in the house?!? I can't see me being there more than once or twice at the most. I try to support all pro sports in the area, especially the minor leagues. I am on the east side and Compuware is on the far west side so, once I knew that they would play there I knew I probably wouldn't buy season tickets. Now I know I wouldn't even if they were next door. I am a season ticket holder of the Motor City Mechanics (United Hockey League) and the Macomb County Mustangs (International Basketball League). For comparision purposes, I have put my down payment on my 06/07 Mechanics tickets. They will cost me $273.60 a ticket for end seats to 38 home games. That includes pretty much all of the perks that the Ignition arena bowl seating includes, plus free VIP parking, which the Ignition reserves for only the "premier" seating. Because I got in early, my Mustangs tickets were only $35 per seat, general admission to 10 home games. Ignition season tickets, comparable to my Mechanics tickets would be $340 for what, 16 or 17 home games? So, they expect more than $65 more per seat for less than half of the games the Mechanics play? Not gonna happen. The cheapest ticket to a Mechanics game is $5 for general admission bleacher seating. After they revised their pricing structure in January, the most expensive seat in the house is $15. I had expected the Ignition to at least be in the same ballpark. I would have been OK with $22 at the top of the pricing scale, not the bottom. A while back on the Mechanics message board, we were discussing the Mechanics need for a better arena than where they play in Fraser. I had suggested the idea of the Mechanics and the then unnamed MISL team getting together to build an arena that they could both use and would suit both of their needs. Heck, they could have even shared the Mechanics mascot, Sparky! I knew it was just a fantasy but now seeing how out of whack they are with each other on their pricing scale, I know it never could have happened. Next season is probably a make or break season for the Mechanics (year 3 of a 3 year lease on the arena). I just hope if the current ownership pulls the plug after next year that they can get sold to someone other than the Ignition ownership (assuming they continue past next season as well). The Mechanics are lucky to draw more than 1,500 with their current pricing. They would be hard pressed to draw anyone with a pricing structure comparable to the Ignition. I suspect that the Ignition will be an even tougher draw than the Mechanics are. Anyways, I'm rambling....... BTW, I believe the Lugnuts are in year 3 of their affiliation with Toronto. They were with the Cubs for several years before that and with Kansas City for their first few years.