From the Rochester local cable 24-hours news station...RNews sez... http://rnews.com/TopStory.cfm?cmd=top&rnews_story_type=18
Can some Rhinos fan give me some information about what the population base to support the Rhinos is ? My tough defination for that will be the people living within 35 minutes drive from the Stadium.
From the 2000 US Census: http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t3/tab03.txt 1 Million in Rochester 1 Million in Buffalo --60 miles to the West .7Million in Syracuse --70 miles to the East
Thanks. that should be enough. We will have first soccer town of united states in Rochester and then in Columbus. I hope some kind of crazy rivalry is born between Rhinos and Metros.
Also consider that the Syracuse Salty Dogs had an average attendance of 6,885 (8,046 for the ten games in P&C Stadium). For a first year franchise, that's very good. Will Salty Dogs fans travel to Rochester to see the MLS Rhinos? I'd have to let those from the area speculate on that one.
sams_soldier....browse through this thread to see the numbers thing and facts like the number of people who live in Buffalo/Rochester that make the 1hr commute everyday to work in the opposite city.
Concerning Rochester's fan base: Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse definitely will all contribute and make up a majority of the fan base, but there are also many people along the Southern Tier (the area along the southern edge of NYS). I live about 1 1/2 hrs from Rochester, directly south of Buffalo. It is still closer to Rochester than it is to Pitt, Cleveland, etc. I, along with many others will make the trek to Pae-Tec Park if Rochester lands an MLS team. Besides the Bills and the Sabres there is nothing else, especially in the summer! Oh, wait we have the Buffalo Bisons - AAA baseball. Like I said, there is nothing in the summer!
I heard today on National Public Radio ( beleive it or not) that the Rhinos were breaking ground on a new stadium. The main topic of the story was that even though it was 20 below they were still out there at the ground breaking, saying that it took them 5 years and they weren't going to miss out on it because of some cold weather. Now that's a hardcore fan. Hopefully it's a fast track project and they can finish it up in a couple of months.
With virtual expansion candidates like Chivas "somewhere-in-the" USA and "did I say 2005?" Cleveland, I'd say that Rochester has a strong chance of being in the next expansion round, be it 2005, '06 or whenever (2005 expansion is an iffy proposition, let's face facts). I mean, you have a club already, a proven (if not quite as large as MLS would like it to be) fan base, investors (if not quite as deep pocketed as MLS would like them to be) and a stadium (if not quite as large as MLS would like it to be). Despite the blemishes, Rochester is light years beyond anything I've heard coming out of any of the other expansion candidates.
Hey, I don't know how to put the "quote" thing on here, but I am an Oleander. Olean graduatin', Bonnies backin', snow-shovelin' Southern Tierite. I know the Bisons are a draw, but I am just sick of baseball!
Do you still live in Olean? I think people will be surprised to see how far the MLS Rhinos will draw from. Even now you see kids with their jackets and sweatshirts from h.s.'s all over WNY.
I live in Binghamton and I've traveled to watch the Rhinos. Seeing an MLS team in Rochester would be great.
So have the Rhinos started stadium construction yet? I know groundbreaking took place on Jan. 15, but has much happened since then?
Not much. Rochester just completed its second snowiest January on record (29 straight days with snow activity). When I drove through there was backhoe digging out the fire hydrants. I'll try to get over there today to see if there have been any changes. We've actually been above freezing some days this week.
Cleveland is dead, you guys are in. So says Chris Bergin, at least. So why hasn't there been a peep of activity here in 2 weeks? The Rochester board should be jumpin'.
Except that Bergin never said that Rochester is "in", just that MLS is turning its attention that way now that Cleveland is apparently dead. Sheesh, you guys are as bad with quotes as you think he is.