Not bad...except they call him the GM, not president and CEO... and too much focus on the Metros...The Metro Playoff Failure question was amusing...
Must have been a typ-o when he said they were pretty sure they'd be ready for the test event on June 11th and the Grand Opening on the 25th.....didn't he mean 24th? Just kidding, I'm SURE he meant the Fire's Grand Opening, not the stadium's.
So the biggest challenge is just operating the club? No regrets about implementing MPF?! So much for the response earlier that calling it "soccer and event stadium" was due to the interview being for a business magazine.
ESPNsoccernet: One of the most maligned and criticized components of your time with the team was "Metro Playoff Fever," an advertising campaign utilizing local figures and background shots that were graphically edited. Please take us inside how the process was originally spawned and brought to development. How involved were you in "MPF"? JG: "Maligned and criticized" is not too far from "memorable and discussed"!... This response gives you a clue of the way this man thinks: Something he orchestrated was bad, but it's ok because it got people talking. And if you had any illusions that the Fire is going to be the primary tenant of this building, check out his last quote: "...many of the learnings from the Home Depot Center have been kept in mind. The most obvious difference is the fact that the concert stage is built into the southend of the stadium. This means that concerts do not need to be set up on the actual field, allowing soccer games and concerts to be held 24 hours apart. This is a tremendous benefit for the scheduling of soccer games. A tremendous benefit for the scheduling of soccer games?!! I think what all Fire fans who had lived through the Chicago Park District's machinations with the Fire's schedule had hoped to hear just the opposite; that it's a benefit in scheduling other events. The Fire schedule should be set in stone and everything else around it. But I guess that's not to be.
He's the head of the front office. Why wouldn't this be one of his biggest challenges, if not his biggest?
Name any other team or sport in the world that gets priority scheduling despite the fact that it's a lower revenue team/sport.
I think it WILL be, the 24 hour turnaround is saying that it will allow for Friday night or Sunday night concerts when the Fire play on Saturday. AEG as booking agent will owe it to Bridgeview to get the most out of the stadium, if they can sell 28,000 tickets @ $50 a pop for a concert on a Friday night and turn around host a game the next day, it would be stupid not to.
I sincerely think all this talk is assumes there is a second team in Bridgeview stadium within a few years. Most concerts could pretty easily be when the team is on the road. This season is different because of our early season road trip.
Without the concerts, AEG wouldn't have spent the first nickel on building new showpiece stadiums. Seeing as yours is the best looking one, why complain?
The trouble is that guppy said if a band wanted a saturday night that they would be willing to switch a fire game to accomodate the band. I think that to maximize profits that saturdays are best for concerts and with the money they can charge for concerts that they will get priority.
We all know the concerts are a necessity but to answer your point AEG didn't spend any of it's nickel's in Bridgeview. It's funded 100 percent by the Village of Bridgeview as is stated by JG at the end of the article.
Show me an another anchor tenant that can't bring in as much revenue as other tenants of the same area or building can.
I'd be willing to bet in 2006, the Fire home matches will outearn any act that appears at BV, unless Dave Mathews manages to sell out 20 dates.
I'd hope that the Fire would outearn as well. After all, all that you're saying is that the Fire will out-earn a concert, by playing at least 16 dates at the stadium versus the concert's 1 date. That's not exactly something to write home about. Now, tell me that 1 single Fire game, any game you choose, will outdraw 1 night of Dave Matthews or anyone else you want to have come play at the stadium, and then you'd have a point. Or, put the revenue from 16 Fire home games up against 16 concert dates.
I not sure that a sold out Fire match doesn't net as much or more than a sold out DMB show, considering what DMBs cut must be. Even if this is not true, to negate the value of the Fires 16-20 appearances a year is a mistake, because they draw the *same consistant fan base* for every game. This is why Fire consumers deserve preference; a season ticket holder means way more dollars to the organization than a concert goer, and they should be treated accordingly. Multiply the value of a season ticket holder over years, and the argument only gets stronger.
Again though, it seems as if you're glossing over the expense of running the stadium for the Fire games, times 16-20 per year, while only looking at the expense of bringing in a concert like Dave Matthews. You have to look at both sides. You'd also have to look at the cost of payroll for the team and front office for the entire year, something that isn't as much of an expense on the concert side. In addition, even with a larger cut of the gate going to the concert act, off the top of my head it would seem like concert ticket revenue would be greater than Fire game revenue, as the same seats that go for $ 16-20 in Section8 would start at $ 40 or more for the concert, with incremental increases to follow.
Those were some of the worst interview questions I've ever heard. Is the Kristian dude Brandi's understudy?
We're the primary tennant, we signed a 30 year lease, and they wouldn't have had the stadium without us. A concert will be there for one night. Your average concert-goer will probably attend fewer events at Bview stadium in their whole life than a season ticket holder attends in a season or two. If you're going to inconvenience a group of fans, it makes sense not to piss off the group that will be coming back hundreds of times. The village is hinging their economic development plan on people spending money in and around the stadium. The village needs to recognize who will be spending, or not spending, that money. A Fire fan is a more valuable asset to the community than Joe Concertboy.
you may be right about all this, and I really am only speaking from gut feeling because I don't know the particulars of the cost to run a Fire match vs cost to stage a concert, what arrangement the stadium has with concert acts compared to the Fire. I'm also not an accountant, but I don't think you can hit stadium revenue for front office overhead directly anymore than you could count a concert acts management costs, crew expenses, promotions etc. It's difficult to compare without knowing all this, but we do know that the Fire and it's fans are going to be the stadium's most frequent customers, where the average DMB fan might be back for 1 or 2 more shows in the next year, two or three. I don't doubt that the presence of concerts makes the stadium possible as much as the presence of the Fire makes the concerts possible, but if they treat Fire season ticket holders like a captive audience, running games on Sundays so they can bring in shows on Saturdays, it will likely have a negative effect in the long run.
Too many MetroStars questions, but what can you expect when a New York fan is conducting the interview?
When did anyone say that the Fire fans were unwanted or unimportant. I must have missed all that. I imagine that concerts will be scheduled well in advance and that there will be plenty of Saturday nights to go around. We'll see though. Another example of something not to get too worked up about until you see what actually happens. If it were something anyone had control over I might say lets get worked up over it but obviously there is nothing you can do about it. Other then whine of course. Which unfortunately is becoming a favorite past time of Fire fans.
Of course, you're right. We don't know what's going to happen, we don't know that the plastic field condom thing won't work to protect the pitch, and we don't know that AEG is going to bump games for concerts. All we can do is wait and see how it goes. I have to say though, I'm almost out of wait-and-see attitude.
It's just as easy to expect the best as it is to expect the worst and it feels better too. In the end you will be equally as happy and equally as dissapointed whichever way it goes. You have no choice but to wait and see. It hasn't happened yet.