I also find the Stars attendance hard to believe and it’s difficult to corroborate because there is no photographic evidence of actual human beings there. Stumptown gets a pass this week as there were thunderstorms in Charlotte all day on Saturday. 04 definitely wasn’t 0, you can hear drumming in the stream, but who knows, could be just that one person with the drum. LA Force was “invitation only”, which.. whatever.
I'm guessing 1904's second home match had sub-250 people attending. Maybe 200 attendees. Rain or shine, Stumptown never really had great attendance.
Updated NISA Fall Season Attendance as of 8/25/21: 15 matches played Detroit City: 6,076/4,664 Chattanooga FC: 2,916/2,008 Michigan Stars: 1,628/1,857 Chicago House: 1,183 California United: 653 New Amsterdam: 278/333 1904 FC: 237/182 Stumptown: 167 Los Angeles Force: 0/0 Average attendance: 1,478 1904's second home match was posted as 182 people attending. I blame the taco stand for the low attendance. Just kidding...mostly. Chicago's attendance wasn't good. Not sure if the shutout loss is going to help fill more people in a 20,000 seater soccer stadium. I assume with New Amsterdam's hot winning streak, their next home match will have more than 400 people showing up? Los Angeles still doesn't have a permanent place to play.
All Fall 2021 Home Games are at Hofstra Soccer Stadium. All Hofstra Students & Staff can save $5 per ticket. Be on the lookout for email tomorrow with your Promo Code to save $5 per Ticket All season long at Hofstra. pic.twitter.com/YieZ0pbp3g— NEW AMSTERDAM FC (@nafcnyc) August 26, 2021 Can’t hurt.
Of course I’m not sure how many people will see that, since NAFC has 2 Twitter accounts: @nafcnyc and @NAFCNY. And they seem to randomly post to either. Which is just so NISA.
⚪️Atención San Diego⚫️The Outsiders welcome you to join us for 1904 FC’s home games this season. Use code Porra1904 at checkout to save money on tickets and support the porra this season.We can’t wait to cheer on @1904_FC and San Diego with you! #Vamos1904 pic.twitter.com/CyNMfixAXU— ALBION//1904 (@ALBION1904) August 26, 2021 1904's Supporters Group twitter account with 9 followers desperately asking people to attend a third division soccer match at a high school stadium with no alcohol zones
San Francisco Deltas 2.0 going smoothly folks! @ChicagoHouse_AC @NGSDetroit where are your supporters? pic.twitter.com/1RbFEY2zFN— Evie Kraynak (@EvelynK34783389) August 29, 2021
Updated NISA Fall Season Attendance as of 8/30/21: 20 matches played Detroit City: 6,076/4,664 Chattanooga FC: 2,916/2,008/2,158 Michigan Stars: 1,628/1,857 Chicago House: 1,183/1,013 California United: 653 New Amsterdam: 278/333/404 Maryland Bobcats: 305 1904 FC: 237/182 Stumptown: 167/189 Los Angeles Force: 0/0 Total attendance: 26,251 Average attendance: 1,312 New Amsterdam did cross over 400 people attending by four more bodies. The bottom half is really dragging the average attendance of the 10 team-league down some more. Chicago would've had under 1,000 attending had it been not the hundreds of traveling Detroit City fans.
Well one thing would be operating expenses during a 2 year period where no one is able to get much revenue from ticket sales, which seems like a much better use of the money.
At one point, the owner of the Kingston Stockade was publishing his books for the club so that other owners could learn/improve. Also, before they imploded, the owners of the SF Deltas talked about their loses. If you're interested, they might worth a looking up online.
This is Crowley's article but he has never run a professional soccer club. https://medium.com/stockadefc/stockade-fc-end-of-season-recap-2016-c2e4d318b364 But operating expenses are also covered by clubs that have paid an expansion fee. In fact an expansion fee is like an expensive gym membership, where you're more likely to show up based on the amount of money you've committed.
I’m not sure what kind of argument this is: “these other guys who started $1 million in the hole have to pay their bills too” doesn’t seem like strongest take.
I look at Detroit City and I look at Louisville City and I knew which one looks like the model lower division football club.
Just because the guy down the street’s payments to keep his Escalade are the same as my car that cost half as much, it doesn’t mean I would be comfortable paying that much overall for a car.
You’re going to have to flesh this one out a little better if you’re comparing a grassroots D3 club to a team that has been built and financed to be ready to take a call from Don Garber. If your bar is Louisville, then we might as well shut down all of USL, too.
Thanks Paul ... that provides a very good insight into the probable expenses for an NISA club. The exceptions would be player payroll and much higher travel costs. Unfortunately, with a high percentage of revenue coming from ticket sales, that doesn't bode well for the lower end teams. The only variables seem to be concessions and field costs. Not owning their stadium eliminated revenue ($20 stadium beers) and, had they owned their own fields, they would have been close to breaking even. This was a big issue for MLS early on. Hopefully these clubs can find a way to make it work.
Oh please, there's several clubs in "all of USL" that, even with LCFC as the bar meet the standard even if they look a bit different.
Sure - but you'd need 12 of them to keep sanctioning and... that would be a real stretch, honestly. But it's also beside the point: if the "model club" is one that is MLS-caliber and can afford to build a $65 million stadium and that's what we're setting expectations to, the sport is doomed. That's simply not scalable. And it's super unrealistic for D3, which is why I'm not even sure why they were used as an example. I think Phoenix Rising is a "model lower division club". I think the Rowdies are a "model lower division club" - both of these much more of a realistic D2 model than Louisville, honestly. I think Forward Madison is a "model lower division club". And, yes, I think Detroit City is a "model lower division club": it's foolish to pass up the model that DCFC has created to hold out for more Louisvilles. But it's not the "best" or "only" way to build a lower division team. But Detroit shows that you don't have to be bankrolled by a billionaire to build a successful, sustainable, and competitive lower division soccer team. Madison does, too. But there's a hell of a lot of sweat equity involved.