I called the NYRB office. They said the only available tickets for the Galaxy match are part of deals that including also buying a ticket for the game against the Union, the last game of the regular season and there are very few of these. It doesn't surprise me if there are some individual tickets still available because NYRB has a resale program for season ticket holders. In this case, these tickets are already sold as far as NYRB is concerned. Whether the season ticket holder who wants to sell their tickets has a buyer or not is a different story. I think we'll see the attendance be listed as 25,000, but as usual at RBA, a large number of no shows for this game would not surprise me.
I hope you enjoy it -- it will be interesting to see what you think of how he measures the league's evolution.
http://www.newyorkredbulls.com/news/2010/07/los-angeles-galaxy-match-sold-out For the purposes of this thread it doesn't matter anyway... the number is going to be very big.
Resales are different from tickets sold by red bull. We'll see what they say the number is but here's hoping the stadium is full. It's awesome when it is.
If you keep reading the thread you will see there are still seats available. Like you said though, it won't matter, the number will be huge and probably listed as a full sell out.
There may be something else going on here -- the nature of the markets themselves. Coenen makes one more observation that may apply here too -- MLS teams may mean less to people in bigger markets. He notes, "Despite their communities size and having teams play in bigger stadiums, [in the early years] large-city [NFL] teams rarely exceeded the paid attendance of those clubs in smaller cities. In fact, large city franchises had higher stadium rent and just to break even needed to draw more paying customers than those in smaller cities. As in medium-sized cities, larger communities offered residents many entertainment options, and pro football, with a bad reputation, an unexciting game and no civic meaning, was at a competitive disadvantage." In short, in smaller cities an NFL team was often a bigger deal -- the subject of civic boosterism and local pride. And it wasn't just the NFL. Kuper and Szymanski make the same point in Soccernomics: "Capitals -- Especially London, Paris, and Moscow -- tend to have the greatest concentrations of natural resources. It's therefore striking how badly their clubs seem to [historically] underperform . . . In capital cities, no soccer club can matter all that much . . . Capitals simply have less to prove than provincial cities. They have bigger sources of pride than their soccer teams . . . London, Paris, and Moscow don't need to win the Champions League. It is a different type of city where a soccer club can mean everything: the provincial industrial town." (pages 136-137.) They're not exactly industrial towns, but for purposes of civic pride, I submit that perhaps an MLS team simply may mean more in places like Portland, Salt Lake City, Seattle or Vancouver -- most of these rapidly developing cities without NFL teams that are very conscious of their civic image -- than it does in Chicago, greater Boston, Washington D.C. or Dallas. Or perhaps more accurately, it could be that focus of civic pride in those older MLS markets is already occupied by teams like the Bears, Cubs, Red Sox, Celtics, Pats, Redskins, Cowboys -- teams that are embedded deep in the consciousness of those communities. Admittedly, that doesn't explain Columbus (which does have OSU), but remember Columbus boosters sold a lot of tickets to get an MLS team in the first place; it may just be a case of fatigue in the local community that must really actively booster the team so it can thrive. Now, things can change over time. The NFL Bears and Giants were some of the league's wealthiest, best supported teams by the 1940s, but they required years of subsidy to achieve that. (Ironically, Bill Bidwell subsidized the Bears as well as his own Chicago Cardinals, which I hadn't known.) The NFL conquered its largest markets with patience and wealthy owners who subsidized their teams for years until the fanbases came of age. I think MLS might have to do something similar.
I received this email from the Red Bulls a few hours ago (which also includes some season ticket info for next season).
If you'll keep reading the thread you'll see i've commented on the situation repeatedly. I'm not sure why you're looking for info that's already been discussed here at length.
DC claims it needs 26000 fans to break even. They should renegotiate rfk stadium deal to make a tenable situation at 16500 fans per game. They can also persuade the Don to allow them to offer upper deck tickets on the cheap(say $12 a ticket). this could boost there attendance above 20000 per game( the ) cheap seats would probably get them $20 bucks per head). Then money would be available to get DPs that could get them over 26000.
How much are they getting charged in rent? They're paying something like $3.4 million in player salaries, right? $20 (average ticket cost) x 17 (games) x 26000 = $8,840,000. That of course doesn't include any big ticket international club teams coming for a visit, nor does it include advertising/sponsorships.
Where did that number come from? That is significantly higher than any business plan breakeven ranges I have seen all the way back to 96.
I am not looking for info. Gears stated the game was sold out and I showed him the link where you could still buy tickets and other people have provided some useful current info. Who knows, maybe some one reading this thread even got a chance to get a ticket instead of assuming they were all sold out. Not the worst thing in the world.
26k? If that is true, the team might be bleeding $5-10 million a year in losses. That number can't be right. I wonder if DC is fibbing a bit to make their case for needing a new stadium better?
Where did you hear the 26k number? Also, if fans won't come out for $20 seats, I doubt they'll come out in droves for $12 seats...
Wow, why didn't DC think of this? Oh yeah, because they can't just wave their magic wand and renegotiate something, the other side has to agree.
DC United really has no leverage. They can't really negotiate a better lease with the DC government, because at that rate, DC might just decide it's better off leaving RFK empty and rotting rather than pay maintenance costs and receiving rent that barely covers it. And it seems like the city council has long term plans of demolishing RFK and building a new stadium there to bring the Redskins back.
I don't know if the number is accurate, but Payne has said this: "The bottom line is, we cannot continue in RFK Stadium. We have lost millions of dollars each year we have operated there." Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/02/17/DI2009021702025.html
Not that I want this in any way shape or form, but I wonder why JKC stadium hasn't been considered. I know its a huge football stadium and perhaps its just as bad to rent as RFK is, but it could be better than moving to Baltimore I think.
In an interview that Sam Pierron and I had with Curt Johnson back in 04 or 05 for the Emerald City Gazette, Johnson told me that they needed something like a bare minimum of 18,000 sold tickets (not including comps and handouts) to break even at Arrowhead Stadium. And that's with the fact that the Wizards rent was set by the guy that owned the team - much more favorable than what DC United has. It also shows the difference between renting and owning, and the average ticket price when supply isn't 5-10 times the demand that Sporting Kansas City only built a stadium that barely holds that number while now having to pay off the construction notes. It tells me that not only is paid attendance in Kansas City up, but that the average paid per ticket is up substantially.
Of the various teams that have had government help in building their stadiums, do any of them have to pay it off in one form or another (revenue sharing or something like a small % of every gate goes back to the government)?
Amazing when you read that article they have been looking for a stadium for over 10 years already. I wonder how much longer before they dont throw in the towel there.
It's amazing how this formula worked at KC and kind of scary at the same time. The blueprint for this must be followed by every MLS team in the future, hack even right now. Poor DCU was such a jewel in MLS crown, but the team suffered a great deal when the real estate dude came in and bought the team and thought he could cash in on the deal at Poplar Point, which went south very quickly and he left his partner holding the bag. The owner right now is a small time businessman walking on egg shells.