So, I went to the MJ/Beat game on Sunday. It was a nice night but a rather one sided match. Attendance was primarily locals from Boca. Other then myself there where few miamians to be found. I have to say that while FAU has nice facilities I personally think Magicjack could get a lot more seating and draw a significantly larger fan base with a similar overhead by moving the team to miami, and more specifically the Miami-Dade county owned tropical park. The stadium seats 10,000 and just the population in a 10 mile area around the park would probably draw larger numbers then up in boca. The park can offer the same support in terms of ticket sales, venders etc. The park is easily accessed from anywhere in dade county as it sits just off a major freeway. Plus it has tons and tons of parking and its free which is great. http://www.stadiumsusa.com/stadium/tropical-park-stadium-33155/None I just do not see a lot of miamians willing to drive an hour north on a regular basis. While some would be equally as reluctant to come south from Palm Beach County, the population of Miami-Dade is 2,496,435 versus Palm Beach County which is only 1,320,134. Not to mention that soccer is a religion down here. Either way if they want more people showing up they need to start promoting the team down here. Aside from the standard media, they need to also contact the spanish/Portuguese/creole populations who are strong soccer followers. Telemundo, univision, and island tv are a must. No one knows about the magicjack here in miami. I have talked to a lot of people who are very interested in going, but the distance is an issue.
magicDan wont do it, because that's a football field with a track around it he was already offered a 10000+ seat stadium and turned it down because of the football lines - if you only need 3500-4500 at a wps then you can find that many in a population of 1.3M as you could in a population of 2.5M i don't think attendance matters to him this season, think it's more marketing his product via the team. his product is a telemarketing type thingy so it's more TV and website spots than gate walk thru unless you're talking nfl type crowds his training faculty and club in BR, so he'd have to do a Sahlen thingy. Dont think it will happen FAU president has pretty much said in print he wants the ladies and will build a 4000+ soccer staduim. i think mj/wny is probably the max drawing for a wps game but you need an event like Abby Day to pull it off, so you dont need a sahlen staduim week in and out. the draw in fL is brasilians, but they dont follow women's soccer like you think. they wont put abby numbers in a stadium for marta. boston has one of the largest brasilian population, and they didn't bother when marta came to town. ask boston's GM. note: if you brought in the ladies of Santos vs MJ, i think you could possibly draw abby numbers in a stadium. problem is santos doesnt draw that in brasil with marta on the roster unless they are attached to a men's game maybe i'm wrong and magicDan plays in a 20000 seat football stadium infront of 2000 people.
The stadium is first and foremost a soccer field. I am willing to bet the lines could be permanently drawn for soccer. It was sufficient enough for Miami FC. The difference is not just population but density. Also there is a different population dynamic up in boca. That population is not going to be able to sustain the team alone. What marketing? There has been NOTHING in south florida. What are you talking about? Brazilians are not the only sector of south Florida that likes soccer and they are not the largest ethnic group. People from all over south and central America and the Caribbean in Miami and most groups love soccer (think Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay Ecuador, Chile, Columbia, Honduras Jamaica, Costa Rica, Haiti, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda panama, Venezuela, peru...). This doesn't even take into account all the Europeans. Miamians like the best. If you are not playing well they will not show up. In soccer, its difficult to get interest in the mens game (i.e. MLS) because everyone is following their own leagues be it in Europe or South America. However if you brought in the women's game with some of the top female players in the world, they will show up. This is the only city I have ever been in where there are pick up soccer games everyday after work, in every single park. They bring in the mini goals and just play. There is also a massive youth football network here that would dwarf anything from palm beach alone. Without making a commitment I would challenge MJ to invest in some advertising and play a pair of matches down in Miami. At a minimum it would spread the word about the team.
again, what is he going to do with a 20k seat stadium with just 3000 at a game? it's looks empty for TV. MLS folded twice in FL, so what makes you think they'll die for WPS? either way, magicDan's team is a lose-leader. it doesn't make money. 2000, 3000, 4000 or whatever at 8-10$ a ticket isn't going to end the season in the black i know exactly what is in FL, given i'm half Dominican and parts of my family migrated from there you really think think he is going to sell his soccer fields and club house in boca and move to miami when he is pretty much getting a FREE lunch ride with FAU. what's the pt? boca will draw the same as miami. in the end he'll put about 2500-4000 a game in the stadium depending on the weekly draw. the consensus is that marta would be the draw for the wps. women's soccer is not big in LA, CA or the Caribbean. where are you getting these mess followings from? they won't follow a mls team in miami loaded with latin and central american men players, so what makes you think they'll follow a women's team with mostly american girls to the tune of 5000 or more a game because that is what it would take for him to move them to miami. it's a waste of time if they just got 3000 a game, can do that in boca once set up with a stadium. and his little phn device on the jersey pays for the team because the ticket sales and beer cant. nothing negative but that's how the business model goes.
Tropical Park is the last place any soccer team needs. It is primarily around for HS Football (as in "throwball") with a secondary use for soccer. Miami FC drew crowds in the hundreds there. Their tenure there was not the success that everyone hoped it would be. Sadly, no pro soccer team has ever had any success in Miami. Now, as the FT Lauderdale Strikers, they've been averaging 5K at Ft Lauderdale's Lockhart Stadium. It, too, is a HS football stadium, the primary tenant is the Broward County Schools Activities Association, with a secondary use as a soccer stadium, but, because of it's prior use as a venue for pro soccer, it is something of a mecca for the sport in SE Florida. It is my understanding that the Strikers have tried to contact magicDan about some sort of co-operation in the use of Lockhart, double headers when the teams have a direct scheduling conflict like they did on Saturday night for instance, but they are getting no response from magicDan. He's obviously marching to the beat of his own drummer on stadium selections, along with everything else. It is of note that magicJack drew under 1K Saturday. The Strikers drew 4,700. Yet, as has been noted above, magicDan does not seem to be all that interested in attendance figures. Be that as it may be, IMO magicJack is far better off where it is than moving to Miami's Tropical Park. If you think their attendance figures are low now they'll be much lower at TP. Much lower.
Currently, the only way MJ will survive, will be as long as Borislow wants to dump money onto it. The team used have a following with 3-4K attendees at home games. Currently, they can't find more than 1000. Ticket prices were a reasonable $25 to $100.00. Now the max price is $15.00, which even if he got 1000 attendees, wouldn't even make payroll. It's pretty obvious that he didn't purchase the team to make money, and at this rate, I doubt he will ever post a profit. This is one thing that will set him apart from any other owner. I don't see his motive as helping the league, but more as wanting to purchase a championship trophy, and being able to pay for it at any cost.
Miamians are huge soccer fans. The problem with the mens game is that they all follow their own national teams and international leagues which are of a caliber mls or any other US league cannot match. The look at it like a joke. I think bringing in the TOP women in the world could generate a different interest and I think with advertising you could generate very large local support. Also the US (and Miami) is potentially back in the 2022 world cup host race as it comes to light that Qatar may have bought their selection. If the US gets the slot Miami will be investing big time all the soccer specific facilities.
Yeah, that's the rub. Pretty much no WPS team has real advertising money. Even the ones that draw the best (ie Boston) don't have marketing/advertising budgets of any consequence. Clearly, magicmysteryJack is doing even less on the trying to sell tickets front than the others but Dan says he has a plan that keeps the team alive w/o hustling for ticket sales. Jury is very much out on that...
i guess the question is, if magicDan advertised, where is he going to put the people with seating maxed at 1500? he won't play football lines, so LH is out of the questions. yeah, i heard the double header thing, and no one can get in contact with him. remember if the wps is around 2012 and beyond he has a 4k stadium deal with FAU. why would he go? why would he spend money to promote this yr when really he can only seat 750-1000 comfortably since everyone else beyond that range has to hit the grass? it would be nice if he moved to a big venue esp for the wny rematch. on another note, this guy had to dump his race horses because of issues with the IRS, so i guess he is using that play money for his football club.
I doubt all of this very much. Especially the expense involved in SSS. The Marlins bit of trickery and financial magic has soured all of SE Florida on spending public money to finance private ventures. If any cash would be spent it would be on the Stadium of many names that the Dolphins play in to help attract World Cup & Super Bowl games. I'll grant you that the woman's game is top notch, but it is struggling right now. While the FAU "stadiium" is not the best it is head and shoulders above Tropical Park. No one has maintained that old dump since horse racing was stopped there in the 70s. As I've noted above, I do not see anything replacing it, or any other stadium in Miami-Dade in the future, unless Mr Claure decides to resurrect his MLS bid & builds his own 18K to 20K facility somewhere in the County. He still seems to be fixated on any team he has playing at FIU Stadium, so I don't expect that to happen.
MagicJack will do just fine. It seems his objective of survival is to lose as little money as possible. DB will probably end up losing less money then all the other owners because he isn't paying for anything except player salary. When I was at the game in South Florida a few weeks ago I heard that the school is looking to make the stadium bigger and even try to get the women's and men's Final Four at FAU. Why not stay there if his costs are going to be minimal?
Why not, indeed? My understanding after talking with some of the FAU people is that FAU wants magicDan to build the stadium for them. That may not be what he has in mind though. Eventually we'll see what comes of all this. If nothing else magicDan and the reintroduction of the Strikers has made the local soccer scene interesting. Confusing, but interesting....
Before the season even started, Borislow was complaining about the costs to actually put on WPS games. He thinks the way the league does business is broken. Borislow is also taking care of the players room and board. There is a lot more to running a team than just salaries. There are tons of costs even when you don't spend anything on promotion, coaches, staff, or a website like DB. Magicjack should have among the highest loses in the league given their player budget combined with minuscule gate receipts. This is a money pit if there ever was one. Even by WPS standards where every team is a money pit. Magicjack only exists because Borislow is willing to throw money away to amuse himself with a toy. The club will never "do just fine" or be solvent. As soon as he loses interest or becomes too frustrated with WPS, the club folds. Whether the WPS is even around at that point is another matter.
You are right that this is a toy for him. It is my opinion as well. Once he loses interest, it's all over. But as long as he's willing to play, they will be fine. What has absolutely been proven over the last 3 years of the WPS is that it is a money pit and finding owners that are willing to throw their money away is hard to find. Just ask the Chicago Red Stars.
sorry, i have to disagree with you on this one. andy, boston's GM, said, based on research by an ad and marketing agency in boston, placement of a company name on a wps jersey (sponsorship) was equal to about $4M worth of ad views or eyeballs. now, in magicDan's case, it's a triple threat, the name of the team, the jersey and the fsc tv spots and webcasts. how much advertising impact is magicjack getting for the 1.5M or whatever he is spending on the team? and as most have noted, looks like his only real billhis salaries because he either owns or got a deal on those condos in a shot fL real estate market. i'd say he has the perfect model to own a team to date, even slightly better than sahlen who needs more market penetration with his sales reps. and yes, the IRS forced him to get rid of the race horses, so Senior Jacks are a nice compliment to the 13-14 yr old Jr Jacks. There was also a survey of where most of his MJ units were being sold. Come to find out it was a large percentage of people from south and central america. yep, that unit $20-$90 a yr works better than a bunch of international cards. so, putting them in S. FL is a hell of a lot better than keeping them in washington in his case, given his target audience for his company. Promotion? he's getting the ad runs via the wps. that's all the promotion he needs til he gets a stadium. i wouldn't spend money to try and get 3000-4000 people to FAU with no seating, esp this season. 800-1200 seems fine given the university can only get 1500 seating from the football team at this pt. now, will he keep the team? whats the pt of the club house and fields if he is just going to own and run U13-14s? looks like a good move to me, so long as he doesn't have to pay all the excess expenditures that even sahlen has said are going on with the wps