Expected Attendence Tomorrow? I'll be making the trip from South Bend to celebrate my 23rd birthday...and I will be doing with my fellow Fire Fans. Whats the crowd looking like tomorrow...it's supposed to be a beautiful evening I hear!
Re: Expected Attendence Tomorrow? Maybe it will be a good walkup crowd. From what I hear only 18,000.
Re: attendance I don't get this. After our DC fans, I kind of look to the Fire's fans among the very best in the League. Was this a delayed Spring Break???
Re: attendance No excuse, but I think that the fact that it was Opening Day was lost. Didn't see that much promotion out there. You kind of had to be a soccer fan to know. Cubs and Sox played today. Again, no excuse. I personally could not make it down for family reasons, but my season tickets are ready to be used starting with Wed.
Re: attendance i really dont get how that happened. what a bad night. lets hope this is the worst night of the year.
Re: attendance Maybe since the 2004 F*re don't seem to be as strong as every year since their inception, you're seeing the front-running posers scatter. What you had last night was your hardcore fan base, perhaps. And don't complain about promotion, Chicago is probably the best in MLS when it comes to that.
Re: attendance Hard core fan base was right I think. With the team looking basically boring so far this season (0 goals in MLS), and the HUGE let down from MLS Cup '03 you are seeing some people say "Hmm, I will go to some games, but not this one." Also, Promotion was weak. The Fire is relying heavily on email, so they will have to get that marketing medium right. I am in charge of 50 youth players and about 3 parents knew the home opener was last night before I told them. But I have already gotten emails from EACH of my team managers about tickets to the ManU/Bayern Munich double-header and also the USA/Poland double-header. I think the bright side is that we can probably count on 12,000 hard core fans. That is a damn good thing. The boys are going to have to produce something if we want the 20's. Give a little, get a little.
Re: attendance I'm inclined to agree with you, except for the fact that the only reason I knew it was opening night was because I get the Fire Insider, I read BS, I check out MLSnet.com religiously, etc. Joe Average Sportsfan, I don't think, had a clue. Usually the Fire are very good about promotion, but the ball was dropped regarding last night's game...but the way they played, I'm glad there wasn't a crowd to see that performance.
Re: attendance Hmm, very surprising. I thought the crowd looked a little sparse, but figured we probably had at least 20k. Weather was pretty nice, though a tad on the cool side.
Re: attendance That was painful to read. I'm encouraged to know they're interested in the USA/Poland match, but the ManU/Bayern things just hurts.
Re: attendance How could there have been at least 20k when there wasn't more than 2k on the west side of the stadium?
Re: attendance What is really funny was that in the Trib article today, they described the attendance as the "highest home opener since 2001."
Re: attendance Sounds like it might server the Fire better if you tell your youth players about the game a little earlier. Just a thought. The Fire promoted the game as best they could. I saw print adds, billboards and heard radio and tv promotion of the game. Lack of promotion doesn't explain why nobody came. Could be because the opponent was the worst team in the league last year. Who knows. The brimstone cup doesn't mean anything to the public so that is not a reason to say people should be flocking out to see that match. Who knows though. Attendance sucked.
Re: attendance As someone that's worked in promotion for years, this is truer than true. Sometimes we've taken out TV, radio and print ads in every publication in the city and people will invariably complain that they've seen no advertising.
Re: attendance Funny, I saw none of this. Other than the billboards with Coz bigger than life, and the occasional small Trib article, there was no promotion that reached me. No tv ads, no radio ads, and very little print media.
Re: attendance The weather reports didn't help the walk-up at all. If course, none of the predicted thunderstorms panned out.
Re: attendance Two words why the crowd was so small: Freddy. Adu. In addtion to all the other big events this summer (US v Poland; Man U Bayern) to which group tickets are typically sold, Adu is coming here twice. Groups are buying tickets for those matches, not the opener. And yes, it would make about a 5,000+ attendance difference. so the home opener, usually a big event, doesn't really qualify as a big event this year. Sucks, but it's the reality of things. The weather forecst didn't help walkup either. 12k+ is pathetic, and should have been better regardless, but there are legit if maybe not completely likable reasons why.
Re: attendance As much as I would like to come up with an excuse, I'm not buying this. I am on all the Fire email/mailing lists, and they really haven't pumped the Freddy thing that much yet other than listing it as a big game in season ticket promotions. The Fire busted their collective asses to sell the first two games back at SF and it worked. For opening night, I just don't see the "Freddy" thing being much of a reason. If they were already running tv and print ads for the game 6/5 then I would put more stock in this -- and if the sales staff is focusing on group sales for 6/5 to the detriment of the early games (particularly opening night) then I think that is a mistake. As fans, we can come up with excuses, but I hope the front office just recognizes that it didn't get done Saturday, and they have to do better.