I know that most of us in non-mls towns would like to see a large team. What are some ideas for creating or catering to a larger market to expand the MLS? I attend Portland Timber games and with about 5k or less fans in the stands we will never get an MLS team.
If Portland had an MLS team they'd draw more than 5K a game. There's nothing especially magical about KC, Denver or San Jose when it comes to soccer and they all drew over 10K this year. With a good stadium situation most any city of size has the potential to be a good soccer market.
I dare say if Seattle had MLS as well as Portland you would have sellouts anytime they played each other.
Actually, only Rochester's attendance has been over 10,000 per game. Portland has been number 2 in A-League attendance since it was added as an expansion franchise. They also had an NASL franchise in the 70s and early 80s with the same Portland Timbers name. Check: www.kenn.com Kenn's soccer site has A-League attendance figures.
I agree that the next expansion team or teams must be geographic rivalries. I personally think an MLS team in Salt Lake City would be GANG BUSTERS because they basically have ONE pro team and are STARVING for more, it's also a very large metropolitan area. Seattle would also be a great expansion city as that city has a TON of white suburbs and could easily support a team. A stadium on the water, or Seahawks stadium would both work to bring the fans in. There is PLENTY of land near the ocean for an SSS though which is what I think we all agree will really bolster attendence. You could not expand into two markets without current MLS teams near them though: IE Potland and Seattle. That is asking a lot, and might cannibalize fans. Potland is about a 3 hour drive from Seattle and so is Vancouver, and both of those cities have soccer diehards that would travel to Seattle.
How can you put Colorado with the likes of San Jose and KC? if you havent heard we have the best attendence in all of MLS with a avg. of more then 20,000 and you say there is nothing special about colorado? didnt see any other MLS team pull of those kind of numbers.
true the stadium might have played a part in it, but just about every team in MLS has the same type of special games and giveaways and didnt pull off the kind of numbers Colorado did.
well that is true too... but we can think that the NE team sucked a lot in the first games.. so that can affect things...
Boston is a great sports town, I won't dispute that. But it's not as good as Denver. We will support our teams with a VENGEANCE. I think that the Raps attendance will only continue to climb as management figures out how to better get hispanic attendance up.
I would love to see an MLS team here in Portland. I dont think the MLS is currently doing all it can to market the product to the largest market. Maybe someone has the stats but I would think that the MLS is going for the "soccer mom" crowd because they already know soccer fans like us will attend. Recently we had 2 teams from mexico play here (Pumas and some other well know team I cant think of right now) and the game sold out. Granted, smaller stadium then MLS teams. But Why cant MLS bring out people like that, there was a lot of excitment behind it?
Tell that to Nugget fans. I don't think (I could be wrong) they've sold out the Pepsi Center once. Isn't Rockies attendence going down too? As for the Revolution, well... First, as Nacional has already pointed out, the Revs were horrible for most of this year. Second, again in the vein of Nacional's post, the Rapids had two NT doubleheaders and fireworks. And while one of those doubleheaders was against Mexico and drew a large, and for that matter largely Mexican, crowd, our's was against the Netherlands. Also, the capacity was intentionally kept down. Third, never go out in public and make the outlandish claim that Denver is a better sports town than Boston. You might as well try to make the claim that Denver is a greater center of higher education. "By the way, the Boston gig is... cancelled. I wouldn't worry about it though. It's not a big college town."
Puget Sound is hardly "the ocean." Yeah, there IS planty of land near the Pacific Ocean, but you'd have to drive a few hours from Seattle to get to it. Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver all have A-League teams. This hardly cannibalizes fans.
Groups of 1K-5K fans can hardly cannabilize each other. However MLS needs averages near 20K if it wants to survive and assuredly Portland and Seattle could NOT each provide 20K fans per game if both teams were initialized in the same year.
The claim that Denver is a better sports town than Boston is no more outlandish than Boston being better than Denver. I guess you might as well say that Boston has better outdoor recreation than Denver, with its 300 days of sunshine a year and Rocky Mountains on the doorstep. Yes, the Rockies attendence slid this year to 2.7 million, based ill feeling about the possible strike and having to sit through yet another crappy year on the field. This decreased total is still higher than Boston's record setting year of 2.56 million. The Nuggets attendence is horrible, but the team has stunk for so long, people are sick to death of it. One good year and attendance goes back up. The Avalanche sell out every game, as do the Broncos. The Broncos fans are about as nuts as any you can find. The Rapids attendance is increasing because of the ONE national team double header, a double header with a WUSA match, a fireworks game, and a lot of giveaways. This is good marketing by a front office that has kicked it up a couple of gears in getting butts in the seats. They are starting to develop a solid base of fans and use many of the same tactics as are available to every other team. Not every team can have a 4th of July game and there are only so many national team games to go around, but the Rapids get the rest of the games well attended by working hard in the community and jersey, ball, lunch box, and other sponsor driven give aways that pump up the numbers. By investing in this strategy, they are hopefully creating a lot of fans. In the past they brought in Mexican American music groups that had the same affect. So the Rapids are taking the steps they need to in order to succeed. I don't know if the other MLS franchises are doing this and not succeeding or just not doing it. Finally, the metropolitan population of Denver is approximately 2.4 million to 5.6 for Boston (taken from the US Census) Denver does all this on half the size. So I don't know which is better but it is a tough argument to say that Denver is not at least one of the best sports towns in the US, at least on par with Boston.
no as a new england season ticket holder this year i received some 30 cent keychair, nothing else. no bobblehead, no t shirt, nothing other than stupid 3 inch flashlight keychain. haha denver as good as boston, ahaha thats a good one
ok im not the only one who thinks boston is #1 http://www.sportingnews.com/bestsportscities2002/boston.html
Man, you do know that Fenway Park only holds 33,993, right? And the Red Sox set a new record this year at 2.65 million. This is the best part though; not one game at Fenway drew less than 30,000 this year. 97.7% of capacity for the season. If Boston had a park the size of Coors, the Red Sox would draw 4 million easily. The only other city I've ever seen wherein no team suffered for attention among its neighbors was St. Louis. The Cardinals, Rams, and Blues all play to consistently good crowds. But the Revs outdraw the league average without promotions, without big double headers (I mean, the Netherlands? Come on.), and without fireworks. Fireworks? What are they, a minor league baseball team?
Maybe if they did some of that minor league stuff, they would draw even more. And all those promotions are aimed at kids. The games usually have a lot of kids at them, often in their uniforms from their league teams. These kids with their parents are hopefully going to grow up and take their kids to the games. Plus, I have seen a lot of the giveaway jersey's worn by kids in the community, increasing the profile of the team. Major League teams give away stuff at games all the time. I had bats, hats, baseballs and other stuff from going to games as a kid in Cincinnati. I can't imagine that intellegent marketing should somehow detract from the Rapids front office's achievement, especially when it is aimed at families that can solidify its standing as a franchise.
Boston is a different market. These types of promotions would, I think, be seen as patronizing gimmicks...though it is true that Revs support is starting to decline, though the reason for that I think has to do with the management of the club and of Gillette stadium. They are not particularly soccer-friendly there, and the solution has nothing to do with giveaways and fuzzy mascots.
Originally posted by HalfManHalfAmazing Groups of 1K-5K fans can hardly cannabilize each other. However MLS needs averages near 20K if it wants to survive and assuredly Portland and Seattle could NOT each provide 20K fans per game if both teams were initialized in the same year. [/QUOTE] Okay, this is gettin goofy. Portland and Seattle have NBA franchises and nobody gets bent out of shape. I seriously doubt "cannabalization" was the prime reason the Grizzlies weren't successful in Vancouver. If it weren't for some political problems with the Bradley Center people, MLS could very well be in Milwaukee which is only a couple of hours from Chicago... OKC is about a 3 hour drive to Dallas... Houston to Dallas is a shorter drive than Portland to Seattle. That factor in any of the above situations would be highly unlikely to affect attendance more than a couple of hundred fans per game at the most. How do you know that Portland and Seattle couldn't provide around 20,000 fans per game in the next 7 years. After all, that's how long it took Denver. And when MLS first announced Denver as having a franchise, I thought both Portland and Seattle were much more likely to get to that 20K mark than Denver. If both have O/Is and good stadiums, let 'em in... Right now, that's an awfully big "if"...
Wow, a completely %100 subjective article with absolutely no criteria. Way to go Sporting News. Well that settles it, I'm in. :eyeroll: I don't, but I do know that when you are trying to expand a burdgeoning league that you don't give them too much of a good thing. If you were trying to expand a fast food franchise, would you put two McDonalds next to each other? That's the equivalent of putting two MLS franchises in markets which haven't established themselves as big players in the attendence realm. If Portland is such a GREAT sports town then they would have more than one pro sports franchise. The Blazers have drawn CONSISTENTLY well and been successful for over 30 years, I believe that is because they are the only pro draw in town there. The NHL, NBA, and MLB have expanded NUMEROUS times into other regions which HAVEN'T even shown they will support pro sports (HOW Tampa and Atlanta EVER get expansion teams is MIND boggling to me). Seattle is a very laid back community that barely supports the Seahawks, they aren't football crazy, or baseball crazy (Before the Mariners became world beaters they weren't exactly a great draw) and the sonics do marginally well. There are a lot of ingredients to the Seattle Sports scene but I believe that if one is going to pick Portland or Seattle you have to go Seattle. I HARDLY think either one of those cities is the number one choice for expansion though. If I was MLS I would be looking to develop someplace in the south as there is almost NO pro sports down there, the Nashville Predators have done CRAP though, so what do you do? Expand in an OKC market which is tiny and may not be sophisticated enough to come out and support soccer?