Well put counter Ben and I agree with you...I think the ultimate product (on field) is fine and always improving
No offense taken. I don't think you really addressed the points in my post though. I said soccer has a negative stereotype in the US. This isn't my perception, I love it. It's how most people feel about it, the same way a lot of rednecks hate France for no reason. Denying this serves no purpose, it's real and is something that needs to be dealt with if the sport is going to grow. Obviously, people's impression of soccer will likely be different if their family came from Mexico where it's normal to love soccer, but that doesn't solve the fire's problem of trying to convince the other 90% of chicagoland dewllers that it isn't a boring sport for wimps were 0-0 is an acceptable scoreline. And, at a risk of being accused of being racist, the people in the "lilly white" areas are often the people with disposable income, who will buy $2000/person club seats, who will pay $90 for a jersey or 2. They are also the people that sponsors want to target. If the Fire can pack 19995 Latinos in there with me and my friends, that'd be great, and I can pracice my spanish, but chances are you are going to need some of the lilly whites.
That whole area is full of middle-class latinos who have disposable income (well enough of them to actually target). Jeez, illegal immigrants only make up a percentage of us, most of us are legal. We're not all mowing lawns and sweeping floors you know or in gangs/jail. Theres 1 million mexicans in Chicago and rising, you'd think they'd be able to at least find 5k (eventually more of them) of them willing to pony up season tickets every year. Some of you guys know Tony and Miriam right? Well......in 10-15 years there be more and more families like them. Theres some now, but in 10-15 years it's definitely one of the fastest growing demographics in Chicago (and especially the South burbs). Theres going to be a lot of mixed families with one hispanic spouse too. So yeah, suburban-latino middle-class families. Cultivate that market! It's like having your cake and eating it too.
We're close to crossing a thin line here, but I think you're both right. The problem, as I see it anyway, is that a great deal of the latino community still has strong feelings for Mexican soccer- they can watch a TON of games every weekend on the spanish language networks. I think the Fire have always seen the "lilly white" areas like La Grange (awesome place to live by the way) as an easier target because a lot of those soccer players, and their families, don't have existing affiliations to other teams. Yeah, you've got a lot of EPL or other European league fans, but it is still difficult to follow those teams on a regular basis, unless you're pretty committed to it financially. Also, why am I the only one that doesn't have an issue with the Fire not playing up how close Bridgeview is to the city? Right or wrong, whether we all like it or not, the Fire need to get groups to games, and those groups primarily come from the suburbs- it's just where more families live. From having spent 5 years trying to get suburbanites to drive to the city on a regular basis to go to games, I can tell you it's better that they think of Bridgeview as a suburb and not part of downtown.
Getting back to Greeley - it just seems so painfully obvious that his starting point is simply all wrong. I get this image in my head of him being hired, and he says to himself, "OK, now I have to try to sell this crap sport to a hostile public." Instead of, "OK, this sport really means something to many, many people. How do I figure out what that is and turn that into butts in seats?"
Wonder if he expensed all that. It's definitely interesting that he tried the Brubaker approach. An an outsider who went to his first game at Bridgeview Friday, my son and I had a very good time and I agree with most of what he said, though I had no issues with my seats. I know he isn't that popular with Fire fans, but I imagine you have to appreciate the effort, honesty and thinking outside the box.
I do, at least. hey, if it gets him into the Club as a fan, excellent. If it lets him look at things from outside the organization looking in, cool. I woner if he should fill out one of those customer cards and see how long it takes aticket rep to contact him, and how often? Ya know, fake name and all. Kudos to Mr. Greeley.
Because I'm guessing you live in the suburbs. They need both groups to thrive (well more groups actually, but those are the key ones), they're not mutually exclusive.
Re: Incognito Greeley As much as I like his taking this approach, why not have a roundtable with various fans (a couple single game attendees, some 20-ticket plans, some season ticket holders, some club seat hodlers). If he really wants to better the product, why not go straight to the consumer - online surveys don't get to the bottom of some problems.
I agree that the Fire front office could do a better job at talking with the fans about improvements, but I like that he's taking outside the box steps at making a better product. That's one of the signs of good management. Now let's see some more.