Earthquakes vs. New York Cosmos, 2/27/16, Avaya Stadium

NASL trying to plant a flag in our territory (SF), and we're helping them out by advertising their league with a Cosmos friendly.

 

Goodsport probably just creamed himself.

 

Something seems not right about this. Tickets are supposed to be available tomorrow, but no press release announcing anything, no season ticket presale, . . .

 

Anything that promotes soccer is a good thing.

If we get a bunch of fans for a pre-season warm up game, and we make money off of that game, it's good.

If people who know almost nothing about soccer hear that we are playing the Cosmos and it garners us more attention, that's good.

I don't see any downside to this, at all. We advertise friendlies between two non-Quakes teams. I don't see you or anyone else complaining about that? (Maybe I haven't looked closely enough?)

Go Quakes!!
Rip the Cosmos!!

- Mark

 

Sac is poised to be a legitimate competitor in the same league, but we still see formal relations with them. Cosmos promote themselves alone, so a future SF team is hardly part of the equation. That franchise won't even kick a ball 'til a year after this match, if they find a patch of grass on which to do it.

 

I just received a promo code from the FO in an email. The general sale is $50 for general admission to the club seats and $25 for general admission to the bowl. The code bring it down to $45/$20 for season ticket holders.

 

Cosmos played at Sacramento earlier this year. Not going to read into the whole story as the NASL planting a flag--separate matter and they're going to have to deal with SF politics. If they get a team 50 miles north that's fine--just the issue of red tape. Just pre-season nostalgia and a chance for both teams to warm up for 2016.

 

It is good for exposure, yes, but to your second point about people "who know almost nothing about soccer" coming to the game and the Cosmos peaking their interest, so they look into the league structure and hear NASL is getting an SF team, that can pull people there instead of supporting the Quakes, especially if they fall victim to the whole "MLS is evil and keeping American soccer down" line I see propagated by many active NASL fans these days.

 

Where is this fictional SF team going to play? Kezar? How is Kezar, with its arctic winds and bleachers far from the field, going to induce "people 'who know almost nothing about soccer'" to gravitate to NASL in SF "instead of supporting the Quakes" in the latter's brand new stadium with North America's longest outdoor bar right behind the goal?

San Francisco failed at minor league soccer at Kezar as recently as 2007. Meanwhile everyone who knows almost nothing about soccer whom I've brought to games at Avaya raves about the place.

 

Not saying I support the SF team, or think it's a good idea, far from it. I'm just seeing the threat of a team in The City from a league directly competing with/hostile to MLS. Like I said, people whose interest is peaked can look into professional soccer in the US and see the soccer wars going on and pick a side if so. I'm sure you're well aware there are NASL evangelists prowling every sector of social media and doing their damndest 24/7 to demonize MLS and promote the virtuous cult of anti-MLS - I mean, NASL.

 

Those would be active (partisan) NASL fans. I'm talking about fans who are not plugged into soccer, but might hear about this match. They won't know from spit about new NASL, much less that they might (<5% chance) get a team in SF. And even so, that would only be of interest to people who were much closer to SF than SJ.

Again, we might very get more press and more exposure in the general public because of this game, and we certainly won't get less. We need to reach those fans who we have not yet reached. Hardcore NASL fans (two or three dozen in the Bay Area?) have already been reached by NASL. So they don't really matter.

Go Quakes!!

- Mark

 

Actually, that's news to me. "Prowling every sector of social media," huh?

 

Don't spend much time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, comments sections of various news/media outlets, etc. these days?

 

Nope.

 

These people "who know almost nothing about soccer", even if their interest is piqued by the Cosmos/NASL, are also likely not going to spend a lot of time perusing those social media sites and finding anti-MLS rhetoric.

 

They don't find it. It finds them.

 

Heh, the NASL fanboy spin:

Can't wait 'til the Cosmos make us famous!

 

The cohort of people for whom the name "NY Cosmos" is meaningful is small and decreasing every day. Sorry, Falvo -- that's the way demographics work!

Seriously, though -- MLS is currently orders of magnitude more influential in US soccer circles than the shades of a league whose glory days sputtered out in the 80s. The only thing about the current NASL that has any attachment to the NASL of old is the name.

 

We have only been in the club section visiting people, and thought it would be fun to sit in the front row at reduced prices. I hope we get a decent game out of it. These February preseason games aren't always crackers.

 

Pre-season game against a minor league team. I will pass.

 

yup.

 

Everyone knows that when the Cosmos played Sac Republic in a friendly last year that's what put Sacramento on the map. Duh!