There will be a friendly between Real Madrid and Juventus played on August 5, 2012 at Sam Boyd Stadium: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/may/08/real-madrid-will-play-game-las-vegas-against-juven/ What will it take to be considered "successful" in promoting expansion to Vegas - a sellout at 36,800 seats? Anyone planning on going to the game? Has anyone considered starting a supporters' group to make some noise and hoist some "Las Vegas to MLS" banners, etc?
[deleted my previous post] Wait it's in August? Balls, that's around my wedding. I'll be out of the country.
As a Las Vegas resident and avid soccer fan I'd love to see a MLS franchise here. Being realistic though, I don't see this city as having a rabid appetite for soccer. You certainly are not going to get the kind of passionate support you see in Portland and Seattle. Most of Vegas are transplants. We come from all over and are pretty disorganized. Hard to see any kind of "ultras" group like the Timbers Army forming and taking root. A lot of residents are the kind of people who care nothing for soccer. Many huge sports fans and junkies live here so they can wager on sports and hang out at the casinos sports book all day. But these people are NFL, basketball and baseball fans mainly. They lift their noses at "boring" soccer. Having a legit franchise here would be the trendy thing for a couple years. You have lots of high to do rich people in the suburbs in the city and many of those soccer mom types would go to games initially. Not sure it would stick though. Again, people here are mostly transplants with loyalties to the place they grew up and not Vegas. They don't get very excited about local sports unless they are winners like UNLV basketball in the 90s. UNLV crowds are decent. They almost sell out the arena most nights and the fans make a good amount of noise. The location of Henderson is interesting. The city has the Strip in the middle and then two very large suburb communities on the south/north sides of the city. Henderson is the southern one. It's a pretty long commute to this stadium for the north suburb folks, Summerlin. I don't believe for a second the NBA would dare bring a franchise to Vegas. When the All Star game was here 5ish years ago is was an absolute disaster. The Strip was a war zone that nobody could police. There were random crimes being committed all over. So many dangerous things happened that the media swept under the rug. David Stern knows unleashing a team of NBA players in Vegas is a recipe for disaster and destroying the leagues image. I could see the NHL being more viable from an owners perspective. You still have several franchises desperate for a move and dangling a new stadium out there in a city that has never had a major sports team could be a big selling point. The idea that they are considering building a NFL size stadium and attracting a NFL team is ludicrous. I don't see ow or why the NFL would ever come to Vegas.
^ I agree that Las Vegas wouldn't be a good place, especially when matched against some of the other potential candidates, but I do disagree on a few unrelated notes. "You certainly are not going to get the kind of passionate support you see in Portland and Seattle." - Not necessary. Why would Las Vegas be expected to provide that when most of the league doesn't? "A lot of residents are the kind of people who care nothing for soccer. ...But these people are NFL, basketball and baseball fans mainly. They lift their noses at "boring" soccer." - So, no different to the rest of the country then?
The next expansion city SHOULD be expected to provide fanatical support. Why would we want to introduce another Chivas USA and take a step back in support? (I'm not saying it would be anything like Chivas seeing as they started with odd business practices... but as far as attendance goes, we don't need more of that.) This is very true. But there are outliers. For instance, Miami had the 3rd largest viewership of the LA vs NY ESPN match, after LA and NY. This is a good sign. Not sure where Vegas stands on that list but I'd be willing to be it was in the top 10.
MLS, USMNT and high profile international club games all perform very well in the TV ratings for the Las Vegas market, consistently top 10. South Florida does very well also - better than us, unfortunately. I wouldn't be shocked if Miami or Orlando got team #20. But after that it seems pretty wide open. The Cosmos have been saber rattling recently, but they're probably on equal footing to us right now. We have an early-stage stadium project and no team, and they have a team and no stadium project. I suppose the best litmus test will be the upcoming friendly. A sellout would be promising. I wonder if the group who organized the World Football Challenge game will be collecting any sort of survey data about the feasibility of hosting MLS, USMNT, or more international club games.
I found this market analysis to be quite interesting. According to their methodology, the most under-served markets with the best capacity for pro sports (summing the scores for MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLS) are Riverside, Stamford-Bridgeport, Vegas, and Austin, though there are many many more who could support just MLS and not all the other sports as well. Most under-served US sports markets based on average disposable income (Rank) (City) (Capacity Index) / (Disp. Income [$] ) #1 Riverside, Ca 500 / 119.43 #2 Stamford-Bridgeport, CT 485 / 73.63 #3 Las Vegas, NV 484 / 73.27 #4 Providence, RI 475 / 64.71 #5 Austin, TX 473 / 62.49 http://www.portfolio.com/resources/SportsChart.pdf It seems to make a very strong case for Chivas moving a city over to find the best long term home. Also, it appears that NY, LA, Chicago, and Houston might be able to support more franchises than they currently have. Beyond that, Riverside, Stamford, and Vegas, in that order, should be good markets. Surprisingly, Phoenix, Miami, and San Antonio appear to be, by this analysis's methodology, much worse candidates to host additional top tier sports teams than Vegas. PS - Sorry about the formatting. The forum does not seem to allow me to upload tables.
Supporters group? for no team? in las vegas? highly doubtful. 36,800 is nothing, even in Las Vegas for a real madrid-juventus game. they'll sell out.
Am I just a jaded bastard? I have 0 interest in that friendly. The tickets are over priced for a meaningless match. Why would I pay $120 bucks for a summer kick yawn fest. I'm sure it doesn't help I hate both those clubs. I guess for the glory hunting folks who have no clue about soccer outside names like Ronaldo it is a draw. Thats 90% of fans though, sadly.
If you're not interested in this game as a market-test, what would be an alternative that gets you more excited? Often the summer friendlies are a lot more fun than it would be if the two teams met in the Uefa CL - its just a friendly, so teams will never employ 'negative tactics', attackers pull out all the stops and try dumb crap they'd never pull in a game that counts (evidence A: Mario Balotelli vs. LA Galaxy) and new transfers usually make their debuts for their new clubs. Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer an LA Galaxy league game 95% of the time, but as a fan of soccer in general its so, so hard to pass up the chance to see the best player in the world, with your own eyes, without having to travel half way across the globe. Yeah, tickets are expensive. The cheap seats start at $70. However, if you've ever been to a game at Sam Boyd Stadium, you'd know there's not a bad seat in the house. Selling out a 35000-seater stadium should be no problem, even without a Vegas team to rally behind. There are soccer fans in Vegas. Some of them are glory hunter Euro-snobs, others are gamblers who only care about the big games, others still are immigrants that brought their love of a local team with them, some are children who inherited a love of team, and the rest - like me - adopted an MLS team because that's what we have kind of close by in LA. Having a Vegas team wouldn't instantly capture every single one of those groups, but over time it would eventually capture most of them.
I think a supporters' group might work. I've been discussing it privately with a few close friends, and it seems viable. The Sons of Ben did it before Philly had a team - and they made so many waves in doing so that they were the impetus to get a team to spring up around them.
I'm in.... I was thinking about drafting letters to the competitng stadium projects about MLS feasibility. In particular Milam to get some answers about what exactly his plan is.
OK. For a supporters' group: I've got a logo, a name, a code of conduct, a potential list of songs that could serve as the group's anthem, a facebook page, and a bookmarked application for 501(c) non-profit status for organizations fostering amateur sports. Send me a message for the details. Now comes the hard part: securing sponsors, networking to new members, raising money, drafting bylaws, attaining state and national legal recognition, and creating a website from which the whole thing can be run. All of which is complicated by the fact that I'm not actually in Vegas; I'm currently finishing the last year of my degree in Reno, NV.
Do you think it would be worth it to do like the Rapids and go for an all-encompassing state club or supporters club? I'd be into something like "Battle Born Supporters Club." "Silver State FC" for a club name isn't bad either... it would help steer club monikers away from the typical American nomenclature of [Location] [Mascot]
I've said this before, I just don't want it to be something hokey Vegas. I fear it's going to be something Casino cheesy. Maybe we should go with the Desert angle? I always thought an interesting marking move for a club from the South is to give it a southern name, like Southern FC, or Dixie FC, etc. Maybe if we tried to appeal to the whole Southwest region and Las Vegas it would make the club more marketable. If you look at the map besides Phoenix there aren't many potential cities beyond Las Vegas in the Southwest. The area isn't as significant as the South but it encompasses areas with little Professional team footprint.
This. A million time, this! If they ever get a club and make their goal song "Viva Las Vegas" I will destroy whoever made it so. I'm pretty sure every minor league sports team in Vegas has used that song, including the current hockey team The Wranglers. (But I think what bothers me more is when they announce a "Nevada Power-Play" ) Just as long as the mascot isn't a snake or something like my highschool in Vegas.... no thanks. Desert angle names: "FC Mojave" "Great Basin FC" "$3.99 All-You-Can-Eat Buffet.... FC" Okay, I admit that last one is a bit of a stretch....
Hell I'm a Galaxy fan and I'd make the Las Vegas club my second favorite. Belive me if you can get a stadium especially an indoor venue you will get tons of traveling fans. Lets face it your town is a destination anyway, I am still hoping they can get the deal done for the UNLV domed stadium. I"d vote to have the All Star game there every year. Foreign teams would beg to come to play that game in Vegas
I am in full agreement with you on that one. Its probably inescapable that it will be played though. I will be quite outspoken in opposition to any suggestion of a supporters' club taking it on. While I like the enthusiasm and the concept, I doubt input from a supporters' club would be taken seriously by a wealthy owners' group who will eventually be putting up $25m+ for the expansion fee, let alone an indoor/domed stadium. I'd be stoked to see what a group of motivated like minded individuals would come up with, but that's a bridge to cross another time. As far as names and thematic elements of supporters' clubs go, the fans who start it are going to be the ones who control it. That's where we should focus our creative efforts. The supporters' club would likely field a team in the local amateur league as a means of outreach and promotion, so there will be plenty of opportunity for team name/crest/colors design there as well.