Hey Lou, here's some ways to boost attendance (constructive comments only please)

Two ideas:
1) Really push season ticket sales. I bought season tickets last year for one reason only: to make sure I'd be at that first 'sold out' game. I have not heard from a ticket rep since and have no intention on buying my tickets again this year. I'll go when the wife wants to go, but I'll probably just watch the rest of games on TV. (Also, not that this will affect attendance, but PLEASE let Flex ticket holders use the empty Center Circle window when exchanging tickets so that they don't miss half a game against Colorado waiting in line for 45 minutes at the regular window.)

2) Work out a deal with the enemy - MAPLE. As part of MAPLE's membership, players get 1 ticket to a REV's game. Hopefully those players will bring family and who knows, maybe they'll buy more tickets down the line. Even if they don't, the Revs will at least make some money on concession/parking.

 

1. youth season discounts (like 7 other mls teams)
2. tix exchangability (like the other 9 mls teams)
3. show home games on "tape delay"

 

This is a hard problem. Here are some ideas that are probably well known, but I'll throw them out anyway. I don't know how to make them work, but they need to be done.

1. Advertising -- the Rev Management wants to spend little or no money on advertising, so a full TV ad campaign is out. Find ways to do creative advertising that cost little or nothing and bring in many people. Anyone have ideas for this?

2. Winning team -- the Revs have been better this past year, but to bring people in they have to keep winning. Managment should do everything possible to help the team win. This means best coaching, best facilities, incentives, or anything else that would help.

3. Media coverage -- news coverage should be a way for the Revolution to get on the mind of the average New Englander. People who don't know about the team won't come, and this is a good way to get people to know about it. I'm not sure how to increase coverage, but management should do everything in its power to encourage this, including using its leverage as the owners of the Pats.

4. Publicity -- the players and organization should be out doing all the right things to make the Revolution seem like a great bunch of guys that should be supported. Attend and get involved with charity stuff -- that sort of thing. Get in the news as much as possible in a positive way. This ties in with #3 above, but in another direction.

5. Tourism -- Boston is a huge tourist destination. Get in the loop and make the Revolution a part of that tourism. Sell a group package: bus them in, watch a great game with some good food and beer, get autographs, bus back to Boston.

6. Free tickets -- Give away free tickets all over the place to bring in your target markets. Once they come, they see how fun it is and they come back, and tell their friends. This works well with winning team idea.

7. Cheap seats -- everybody has a variation on this. Get people in on the cheap and you make the stadium more exciting, and eventually sell more tickets at full price. Until you are selling out at full price you are losing money by not having the cheap seats.

8. Promote Season Tickets -- Bigger discounts or more incentives on season tickets. These must be the bread and butter of the income, so concentrate on figuring out how to get more people buying. Give a current season ticket holder a discount (5%) if they can bring in another, for as long as that season ticket holder still holds tickets. No limit on number of season ticket holders you can add. If you bring in 20, you get free season tickets.

9. Doubleheaders with Breakers -- at least twice a year. And make it so they same city is playing. Ie, NY vs. NE/Boston twice. You might lose some cash on this setup, but you will bring in more potential customers.

 

Media - As a part-time assistant sports editor for a small (12-15K circulation) daily newspaper, I can say this would help US a lot. When there are no local sports to report on, we just go with AP stories, local ones if available. Since Sunday is my "regular" work day and schools don't typically play on Sunday, I am almost always searching for stories. Also, since school is out all summer, we often have to search out whatever we can. If there's a soccer story, I put it in. However, that is really rare.

I wish the Rev's media relations department could come up with one or two stories a week and e-mail them out WITH a photo. If you write it, it will be printed. We are the sister paper of the Herald News in Fall River which is a MUCH larger paper. And every Sunday (since they lay out two of our pages and our paper is printed there) I call them and discuss what stories are going where so that we don't duplicate stories. You'd be surprised at the number of times we laugh about the relative crap that we agree to put in. Why can't that crap be REV's crap instead of tennis, senior golf, or the CART racing series? We seem to get an endless stream of AP stories about those 'minor' sports but almost NOTHING about soccer.

Unfortunately, our parent company won't spend money on having a Rev's beat writer. It has nothing to do with the sports department, this edict is from high above. We are limited to printing stories that come from AP or the Revs thermselves.

(As an aside, I used to cover the Revs regularly as a writer and my stories would almost always be printed in BOTH newspapers on the cover with a photo. Unfortunately, I have graduated from college and no longer write on a regular basis. My limited time is spent 95% on pagination and now that I rarely write about the REV's, our MLS content has gone from about 1-2 full-length stories a week during the season to the tiny 6-7 inch article that AP sends after a game. The only exceptions are events like the stadium opening, playoffs, etc.)

 

two words: student discount

 

The Galaxy does this with teams that are probably U-10 and younger, and the crowd DOES love it.

 

Keepah: Check your PMs

 

I don't understand why watching a bunch of ten year olds chasing a ball around the field is entertaining, but maybe it's just me.

 

that is the beauty of the idea... the ones that don't love it just do what eveyone else does at halftime... go to the John... get a brew... whatever... meanwhile there are usually paying family members and many others who are loving it...

I remember the WC in France '98 when they always ran two games across the fields (small goals on the sidelines) before each game... it was a lot of fun...


rand

 

This is only half the equation. There are a TON of international students in Boston who would go see the Revs to get there football fix (I know because I have asked them). But they have no way to get to the games. Gotta figure out a way to get that soccer train runnin' more often. Especially after school starts back and all those internationals are back in the city.

Hell i would come to a few more games if I didn't have to drive.

 

Exchange

Not sure if this threads intent is to accumulate as many unique ideas as possible or build consensus on the top 5?

Anywho, I manage a little group of friends sharing 16 season tickets. Having the option of ticket exchange would halt most if not all of the groups yearly turnover.

Every season end, folks run the numbers and calc out how many tickets they had, how many games they missed, and given their particular threshold, decide not to reup for next season.

Having the opportunity to take x number of unused tickets to a single game and sit "somewhere" in our largely unsold-out sterile horseshoe would be a major objection killer at reup time.

2c
Alan

Other idea: funnel a portion of the profits from our in stadium oil rig and purchase a greater level of in season advertising. How many barrels a day is that thing up to anyway?

 

Re: Exchange

instead of seeing the glass half full version of this concept...the revs continue to see it as half empty. i can tell you from first hand experience with them that they'll ask you something like "well, what's to stop someone who has 4 season tix from trying to bring 16 to 1 game instead of 4 to 4 games". all they're are looking at is how people will abuse the system. they think that some people will avoid the lesser quality games (like a k.c.) and try to get a bunch of people to come to a d.c. or ny match and not use it as an "out" when you ocassionally get stuck. therefore, they don't want the crowd to look "feast or famine-ish". they really could compromise at the very least and put a cap on the number of tix you can reuse, make it be a "before-the-fact" exchange of tix, or any number of other things. the fact is....they won't and they'll continue to say that they have "logistical" concerns that don't make this concept im-possible.

still, the other 9 teams seem to have found a way to incorporate it....and there's no excuse for this organization not to make it happen here too.

 

Have Pj Stock fight Stephan Peat at halftime.

 

More exhibition or tournament games in outlying cities like Providence, Hartford, Worcester, Nashua.
Player visits to local soccer events, sports stores, malls, etc.

 

Re: Exchange

Alan, I assume you mention this when they ask you why you now have 16 tickets when last year you had 20. (I am part of Alan's group) It would be a nice perk, but it seems that the "revenue-driven" Revs management thinks it's more important to get the penny-wise income of the tickets sold in advance, even if people can't always make it (and they end up buying extra tickets to a future game), than the pound-foolish lost revenue of 4 Category 1 season tickets, in this case.

Anectdoally, this would be a huge benefit for this group, and I know for a fact that there would be lots of instances of people swapping tickets here and there, rather than the inevitable eating of tickets. This also would help in bringing new fans as guests, and there are a ton of instances where those people become hooked and buy tickets on their own and even start bringing their friends along.

Forest? Where? I can't see it because there are so many damn trees in the way....

Tom

 

Soccer trains for more games, please! I live in Cambridge and don't have a car, so it's a pain in the ass to get out to Foxboro when a train isn't running.

 

How's this for an idea:

Rapids to Introduce New Supporters Seating Section at INVESCO for 2003

http://www.coloradorapids.com/site/goal.asp?cid=252

The Magpie

 

Rapids New Supporter Section will include:

I can only hope more pressure will be brought to bear on this by existing season ticket holders. To know that only 1 team (Revs) out of 10 does not offer this benefit is very disappointing.

It would seem if the Revs have issues with this program, such as those mentioned by Rev-eler, they could simply give any of the nine teams a call and ask how the program plays out in their market and model the expected results in the Razor?

There must be tons of data that make the case for not only doing this, but in the case of nine other teams ... CONTINUING to do this, as a win-win for both team and ticketholder.

Alan

 

A Pro Shop with Revolution Inventory

It's amazing to think how much free advertising a professional team receives by simply having people walk around wearing clothes with their logo on it. What's more, these teams get their customers to PAY for the privilege!

Stock your Pro Shop with a variety of Rev t-shirts, kits, etc. Make lower-cost clothing available to larger clothing chains. People buy and public awareness goes up.

The Revs have missing this opportunity for two years now....

 

I agree. The fact that there is an on-field kid's zone and kiddie games at my local club's home matches (Greenville Lions USL D3) is the reason half the fans go. There kids can't wait for halftime so they can go down onto the field and mimic the moves they just saw (aside from the hacks), on the sidelines or in their inflatable cage, while a chosen few get to play on the ACTUAL FIELD!

The kids and moms are much happier to go to the game and even the dads get a kick out of watching their kids dream about being big time.

 

KenP is spot on re. Revs stuff in the shops. I remember when Reebok sponsored the kit there were Rev shirts in a lot of local stores and as far away as suburban NYC. Now? nothing! I also remember that there were five or six levels of shirts that you could get from t-shirts with the logo to t-shirts with the players names and numbers, to warmup t shirts, to full kits. In other words every price range. Then there were sweatshirts, rain jackets, warmups and fuzzys. Plus socks, stocking hats, caps, keepers shirts, the lot.

In the middle of last season, when I was as down on the team as I could possibly be, I mused about burning all my accumulated Rev stuff in front of Mark Brigg's office so I might be arrested for being a terrorist. I counted six proper kit shirts, six t shirts, 3 scarves, a rainjacket, three sweatshirts and two caps. With the exception of one 01 Umbro shirt ALL of the other stuff was Reebok or Atletica. PATHETIC!

There is no question that if there was good stuff in the shop people would buy it and wear it in the bargain.

JIM DOW