Kenn, they call it sarcasm. Frankly, OKC backers have been prattling on about how ripe their city is for MLS. They have a single MLS exhibition and they can't fill the stadium? To me the lack of fannies in seats bodes a lot worse than having a synthetic field in a part of the country that only has a four month growing season.
We have a sarcasm font now. I'm not sure there's a huge more correlation between how many people you can get to come to a one-off exhibition between two "foreign" MLS teams and how many people you can get to come on a week-in, week-out basis to watch a team that actually represents the city in question. Any more than the correlation between those who will sell out Manchester United against the local YMCA and those who will come on a week-in, week-out basis to watch a team that actually represents the city in question. I'm on record as saying I'd rather have Rochester and their braintrust and their fan base (or even OKC, if they have good ownership and a good stadium situation) than some place like Philadelphia or Atlanta where you're basically just taking a flyer, just so you can have a "sexy" name on the front of the team's shirts and expand your almighty footprint just for the sake of doing it.
Frank DuRoss (the lead owner) is on the 1370 Connection from 12:00-1:00 today. Tune in now, call in now. If you miss it, you can tune it at 9:00 tonight. You just won't be able to call in. The show streams live at http://wxxi.org/talk1370/index.htm for folks outside of the 1370-AM listening area.
Good stuff from DuRoss. I didn't get on until just a couple minutes ago. DuRoss said he didn't anticipate charging more than an average of $2 more per seat above his A-League prices if they were in MLS. If anyone's been listening since the beginning, or listens tonight, a recap would be useful for posterity and to clear up some of the misconceptions that we've heard a lot lately.
Playing surface question from Pittsburgh. Other events at PaeTec Park (which I always thought was pronounced "Pie-Teck-Park" but I now hear as "Pay-Teck-Park"): Minimum of 42 events at PTP. About 20 are Rhinos games. The others will be pro lacrosse, drum and bugle corps competitions, Section 5 high school football, soccer and lacrosse championships, Buffalo Bills play an intrasquad game there, 4-6 concerts a year, and some community events. Because of that number of events, he says they'd love to have grass but say it's going to be hard to meet the mandate of a multi-purpose stadium with natural grass. Also, that they're still waiting for cost information. But the reality is they are "leaning towards FieldTurf." Says FIFA has approved FieldTurf. Says it's his belief that the 2010 World Cup will have some games played on it. Says EPL teams are training on it, and it's only a matter of time before "the majority of stadiums" will have an artificial surface. MLS has two teams on turf, he says? What's the other one?
Says it's more "when" they'll get in MLS, not so much "if". "We'd love to be an MLS team in 2006," he said. On additional players if they went to MLS: "We certainly believe that we have a strong base to compete in MLS. We also understand that we would be looking to bring in some additional high-end talent like most teams have. At our salary structure we can't attract the best of the best to come play in Rochester." "There are players in the A-League who can compete at the MLS level. There will be an expansion draft, so we would have the possibility of drafting players from current MLS teams. Certainly the college ranks. And the fourth piece would be the international players that we could sign."
Just the Metros, this year on AT. Like I said, I hope he's not being conditioned with all that "FIFA-approved" and "plays just like grass" crap. Listen to the salesmen, Frank. They know what's best for you. Hopefully the numbers work out for grass.
Q: What is the progress at this time? Update on the progress of the stadium...a lot going on behind the scenes. Over last 6 or 7 weeks they have been relocating water, gas, sewer, telecom lines have been disconnected and rerouted. Empire Precision Plastics are still operating and the Rhinos will take over that administrative space. Construction fence should go up this week and be completed next week. The following week they will remove any remaining refuse. The bowl dig will start in June. Mid-June you will see where the stadium will be situated on the 16 acre site. Q: When do you expect to open? May 1st. Construction will be evident through November. Work won't be quite as obvious until the thaw. Construction will resume in March where they will be installing the seats. Parking lot will be finished in May (asphalt plants need to be open) The Rhinos may be taking an extended road trip if there is a delay. Q: What delays do you see? None, except construction delays. All the political, permit and bureaucratic hoops have been completed. Q: What was the big delay? Paraphrase: "Useless" Jack Doyle and his cronies on the Sports Authority pulled out and that put us back two years. The county pulled $7 mil and then we need to make it up. Q: Caller, John. Why do the Rhinos deserve my tax money and can I expect to pay more? The Rhinos have been held to a higher standard than the Red Wings and Amerks in lining up the funding and planning due to the bad experiences they had with Frontier and Blue Cross Arena. There will be no more subsidies aside from the 15 mill and a waiver on sales tax on construction materials. Q: Capacity of the stadium We have decided to take a phased approach. We are still going to have a stadium that will be 17 to 20K. Q: What is the future of MLS? Could it go the way of the NASL? No. MLS is sustainable, it's single entity and it's backed by four multi-billionaires. MLS has secured the rights for the World Cup broadcasts in the U.S. Q: What is the major attraction of going MLS after having a successful A-League franchises? You always want to move up to the best competition. The community support and fans would like to see the best level of competition possible. The best players the country has to offer would be here at least three times a year. Adu will be here. Q: How is the attendance compared to MLS? The Rhinos would be in the middle of the pack at 10K. With the advent of SSS we believe that the attendance will go up. We project 15K per game in MLS. Q: How could the Rhinos field a competitive team? MLS is single entity and there is a salary cap that is identical for each team. Given the cost of living Rochester should be a great alternative for many players. Even if MLS would fold, the Rhinos would strive to be division I soccer. Over to you Kenn...
We had a pair of power outages while I was writing some of what he said, but that's basically the jist, I only heard about the last 20 minutes. But it sounds to me like I came in where you left off.
err...I guess this year it'd be better than SJ, Dal & Colorado but generally speaking that just ain't correct.
If they project 15k, that's going to take some work, to expect 67% more people to come out of the woodwork because of the stadium and the rise in league. I would imagine they'd do quite well the first year with those things combined, but I just think they'd really have to work at it to get 15k a game long-term. But at least that's more realistic than some folks who've said they'd do 18-20k. I don't think that would happen even if they had the seats for it. They'd better get 15k, though. If he's saying they'd only raise ticket prices an average of $2 a seat across the board, they'll need to really hustle tickets to make their revenue numbers and generate the funds to pay off the deferred construction bills. That might mean they'd have to book some serious events into the stadium to pay the bills, which might mean your hope of a grass field ain't gonna happen.
I don't know why 15k would be too difficult when you're talking about the first "Major League" team in Rochester since 1950. For one the season ticket number should jump by 1k-2k. And I think upstate NY in general would support the only summer Major League team. In 2000 we averaged 11,600 in a baseball stadium for a "minor league" team. I do hope that they get a bigger marketing vision than they have now though. I do think 15k as a 5year goal is solid.
It might be do-able. I don't think it'll be easy. First year, they should do fine. But they can't get all giddy and think they can just throw open the doors and get 300,000 people a year in there without devoting the resources necessary to keep it going.
No, like marketing and customer service. The Rhinos have great customer service...When I checked my voicemail after lunch today, I picked up a message that was from the Rhinos front office staff. My message was that I am supposed to use ticket #16 for the game with the Fire. That's how to run a local franchise. Anybody have a story about an MLS team going to lengths to serve their fans. I'm all ears. BTW, MLS could probably learn something from the Rhinos.