Story time, children! I'd argue the best thing this team ever did was a charity called Bald is Beautiful. It wasn't the invention of some corporate executive or a dream child of a room full of interns or anything like that. It was two players of middling renown (at the time) using their free time, on their own initiative, to spend time with kids. Specifically the kids at the cancer center at Texas Children's. They did it because they cared and wanted to help. They didn't invite cameras or anything. They just did it. It got back to the team and they wanted to support the players. So they asked what to do and the guys came up with Bald is Beautiful. Ask the fans to raise money and shave their heads. Bring a bunch of the kids out and treat them to A ++ service for a game. That was Craig Waibel and Stuart Holden (this was way before Holden blossomed). It grew into an amazing event, year after year. We used to have a poster here who was president of a local charity that did a lot of business with the Dynamo and she could tell you all about the decline in their giving a **** about helping the community. I'd argue that them letting BiB, and other initiatives, go hurt as much as what happened on the field. This team is disconnected from the community and fans. Why should they pack the stadium for someone who doesn't care about them?
I love this take, thank you for sharing. Maybe we can get Stu and Pat to bring this back? It would be winning all around!
I don't know if Stu and the others have forgiven the team. They may be willing to give new ownership a chance but honestly...why is it on hometown kid Stu to do this? Heck, it's not even Pat's job to do this. All it took last time was a player who cared and an organization that wanted to help. Where is that energy? Who on the team cares that much? Looking them over....I honestly don't know who is that connected into the community. Maybe someone is.
I was thinking about this the other day. Don't know when it went away, but first time I had my head shaved was at a Bald is Beautiful event in maybe 2014 or so. Liked the end result so much that I've kept my dome shaved ever since.
Stu was the host of the program where they introduced the new logo. This was well before Segal and Onstad entered the picture so I think at least he still feels generally alright about the team. It seems like they’ve been doing more outreach, legends alley is a good touch. Prior to this weekend who knows the last time Brad Davis was in town for game. your overall point about it being down to current players is a solid one. The most active player in these sorts of endeavors right now is Zarek, but given how he’s playing this year (not) it’s not that impactful. I will say though, Pat has at least given lip service to connecting with the community. We’ll see if that plays any sort of role in recruitment.
I wholeheartedly agree with this take. I had a similar experience in 2013, back when I was a season ticket-holder. My neighbors were in the throes of divorce, and each one pressured their then 6-year-old son to speak ill of the other to gain a courtroom edge. He was crying all the time and stopped playing outside. When the boy was at his lowest, I decided to take him to a match and called the Dynamo to request an additional ticket. I told my ticket rep, Kimberly Sutton, of the situation in passing. Well, she asked if the Dynamo could help, but wouldn't say what was in the cards other than to arrive early. At the time, I was expecting a Diesel meet-and-greet at most. To my surprise, she caught us at the gate, took him into the bowels of the stadium to meet the players, and let him walk out on the field for warm-ups. Then goalkeepers coach Tim Hanley asked him kick balls to then backup keeper Tyler Deric, who let the weak shots trickle past and into the net. He acted it out well, diving and all. He got up, shaking fists and scowling. Then Dom asked the boy who should start the match. Of course, the boy picked Davis so there was no fear a backup would play. Come game time, Diesel came and sat with him for a long while. Diesel also gave him a shirt, ball and stadium paperweight. Ching then came afterward and signed the shirt. The boy's spirits brightened from then on out. He now is a teenager in Dallas, but still has that Ching-signed shirt. Today's Dynamo may have charitable initiatives, but I doubt they're as localized as years' past. My story was not an official event, just some off-the-cuff, no media-involved good-will gesture by a ticket rep, players, and coaches.
first off, as someone who lived in london for a bit, all they have to make is the sport "sell" -- to very amenable people brought up on soccer -- and let the fans get creative. they don't have to sell "come watch games in 90F heat at noon." one reason i have pushed reliant is removing weather from the equation. our stadium is hot, minimal measures are in place to make it more pleasant, we allow day games when we shouldn't, and when it went from rob to PNC the cooling seabreeze got blocked. second, they also have relegation where your underspending ("thrifty") team eventually (peter principle) finds a level where it's awesome, where that spending is competitive and the attendance good (for that division), setting aside the harshness of the process, you have fewer teams year after year flailing in the surf. you get relegated and either sort out what's needed to be first division, or you get used to being lower rung. third, european soccer supporting is a cardboard cutout stereotype. for starters, where i lived in london you had QPR, Fulham, and Chelsea each within a mile walk. like most americans you understate the role of proximity in attendance. that and the fact the league games for your team are likely not on TV (except europe or the cups) so it's either radio, the pub, or in person. and it's not 100 out. and it's usually a pleasant 50F walk or short tube ride. there are a few teams with endless wait lists but hmmm they are also often the ones who have almost without fail won for decades, barely if ever been relegated. and they tend to cluster in wealthy areas where bunches of fans have money to spend. no one talks about, say, leyton orient on the east end of london. the most racist fans i have ever heard, dingy stadium, struggling team. they don't have 40k at games. likewise, what we don't talk about is, say, wimbledon for years before they moved. there are plenty of teams like that where they quit trying and the fans check out and next thing you know the team is in administration or milton keynes. fourth, i might agree that not all MLS fans everywhere are driven by winning alone. we had this discussion before. i explained how the organization had many early stumbles, which it continues to have, but overcame them early on because they were good. you could one hand other hand that your wife got stuck in will call when the team wins the franchise opener 5-2. when they are still dunderheads and suck, where is the goodwill coming from? what are you being loyal "to?" how are the dynamo special? fifth, we feel stuck in what i call MLS 2.0, the SG in a SSS model. most teams come up with new chants in 20 years. most teams come up with new traditions in that period of time. and MLS 3.0 that came in with seattle is full stadium participation, and not necessarily in a SSS. an SG is a quarter baked version of that. in a full fan participation model SGs would be closer to aggie standleaders. the enthusiasts among the enthusiasts. we simply got left behind. to be fair, some of this is the team, they need to staff and spend like they mean it, hire enough employees to run the show right, make the experience as good as can be, but some of it is the fans. not in some masochistic show up and have fun in hell sense, but in the sense that if the dynamo ever really start trying, can we get more creative and evolve the thing? but i kind of think the team needs to give a sh*t first. we have not yet reached mild levels of 2017 giving a sh*t yet. we spent money, so did they. they did a more thorough rebuild. meh. last point, i see plenty of photos on my social media feed with STH hugging current and former players for a photo op. if you're talking a more metaphorical tight embrace, this needs work and trust building. i want elite like it used to be but we can barely manage halfway competitive which is like pro sports bare minimum, that the fans believe you're spending competitive payroll and will compete for a very lenient postseason. and if you want us to hug the rest of the team besides soccer, it needs to be loveable. i mean, i have appreciated that houston, while fairly conservative, is not as cash and carry as, say, vegas. what we run is a little too vegas. some fun for a price. not too fun because they suck and they don't focus enough on the softer aspects of presenting this. the constant money grubbing when they don't want to spend themselves is weird. like i said, one reason i dislike vegas is it's a big dollar bill sucking machine. don't make me feel that way. needs work. does us no good to place the onus on us first.
Kimberly was great. She was my rep from day one. Did everything she could to get my kids engaged and having fun. When I dropped my season tickets, it was in no way related to her. She was always top notch. Coming back this year, my rep is doing pretty well - we had a bad experience at the Austin game so she got my daughter down in the tunnel for the Dash game Sunday. Takes time, obviously, to build the rapport to the level of Kimberly, though, where she knew everything about my kids, always happy to chit chat for a long time, never seem to be pressed to take care of other issues, etc.
Maaaan, I hate hearing tales of great sales reps because I had a succession of terrible ones from 2012 - 2018. I mean they were trash and the only reason I didn’t drop tickets because I’m one of those “soccer fanatics” (or however Walker & Widder refer to us at that meeting - @nbrooks503 @DonJuego ). Yall newbies wanna know why attendance sucks? It was the terrible sales department they had in the early BBVA years. They didn’t have to work hard 2012 - 2014, but once the stadium newness and playoff appearances wore off their (bad) quality showed. Meanwhile, all the good reps left to higher paying industries or teams (Astros, Rockets) or ran off by the previous marketing manager/coo/sales manager/etc. My previous rep was excellent and my current one is young/eager. I hope he doesn’t get poached, too.
I have to say it twice. I know yous that have had nothing but great reps find it hard to believe, but there was some major disorganization in the sales dept for a while and a some terrible reps.
i have leftover credit from the 2020 pandemic season and haven't heard from a rep in a year. bluntly, in no hurry since i like to watch cooler weather games and kind of want the pandemic numbers down to a point before i am back live. but still. like i fell down in a hole or something. i will probably contact someone later this year if but to preserve the credit. but anyhow. all due respect to those doing their job well and making the world a better place but my sense is the overall experience would be mixed bag leaning negative which would then be reflected in the faltering attendance. if the general vibe was great people and great experience we'd be living in brian's world where maybe lighten up about the team because they are cool and it's a blast no matter what. i felt like they squeezed ticket holders for more money and picked fights with the SGs precisely when their own product was getting cheaper and eroding, and the astros were a force.
personally my experience dating back to ching standing on the signboards day 1 is the team is approachable and interactive with/loved by the fans just fine. cold blooded JC the wannabe GM might even say too loyal. feel like i am constantly fighting about the team is not good enough cut some fan favorite and get reamed for it. sorry, no, i'd say what you're reacting to is the people allowed the interaction are in the expensive seats and attendance is well down where fewer are there; and there is simply less to celebrate. bring back the level of team stomping colorado 5-2 and fill the yard and you'd see exactly what you would like to see. no real change is needed in terms of our affection or their approachability, just give the fans something to get excited about. last genuine excitement item in 4 years was the 2018 USOC final. other than that it's one playoff appearance in almost a decade. second point, there's a big old concrete wall around the field, fronted by signboards with few gaps, and the SGs are up in the rafters. if you run that gauntlet you're hugging someone in the $100 seats. and to make a subtle point, in places like the UK, (a) in the lower divisions the cheap tickets would be the standing room behind the boards and on endline terraces with the closest access -- which i assume field level are our most expensive -- putting rabid fans in contact and (b) their sense of how to price tickets is like middle height first tier is the most expensive. they tend front row cheaper. there is a kiosk there selling front row theater tickets half price the day of the show. i was once feet from ben kingsley, at half price. we would probably sell those for thousands to rich people or at least people eager to part with a pile. different dynamic of who is there to give front row love, sorry.....
elaborating on the architecture bit, something like borussia dortmund's yellow wall is not an accident, it's built that way. a lot of our stadium decisions have been made to promote money making and a pleasant middle class experience as opposed to create a home advantage or create close up spaces for rabid fans. i mean, setting aside we have neither a riverside embankment nor a cottage, we haven't really built up "stands" -- as in particular stadium sides -- with their own personalities. probably because it's part full and anyone with a brain wants the shade. but we don't have stands with traditions and vibes (liverpool's "kop") nor have we built up a full stadium vibe. we kind of outsourced to SGs who we then put in the rafters now. it opens up seats for $ sales but isn't how to enhance interactivity or make the stadium scary to play in. imagine if kyle field's vibe was just the corps and the corps was stuck up in row z. you can make that front row center and encourage the rest to join in or put it in a cage way off in a corner someplace.
to throw something out there, i remember being known for the streamers on the field......and then it was confetti.....they had a goofy but adored logo, sent to the guillotine.....they had a goal song we were fine with, sent to the guillotine.....and now? what traditions are left?
The SG’s aren’t in the “rafters” anymore. This was true for a few years but the section was expanded to the lower level (as discussed plenty in this forum). As it stands Texian Army, Surge and Bandera Negra occupy that area while EB is in the higher part. That last part is also EB’s choice as best I can tell. To the architecture point, the Boston Consulting Group report in 2015 on how to improve the league suggested that SG areas be a “wall” of seats. Notice the pattern in most stadiums built after that. At this point it’s about working with what you got. I do like the tradition they’re working on implementing where the supporters sign a flag and give it to the man of the match. Good for interaction. Also the idea that barriers are more cumbersome here than at Robertson doesn’t make sense to me. Especially when Robertson had hedges behind each goal.
⚪️ SG EINTRACHT FRANKFURT -UEL-POKALFINALIST 2022 ⚪️Mir fehlen jegliche Worte. DANKBAR!#SGE #Eintracht #UEL pic.twitter.com/iVp9q5JTuZ— Kostićinho (@Kosticinho10) May 5, 2022 Check this out.
work with what we got is a bit overdetermined. they tinker with how they allocate out seating for different purposes every year. are you suggesting it's that expensive or hard to pull seats back out? or otherwise create areas pointed toward promoting atmosphere? are they down to the "ground" or are they "moving into the lower bowl." two different things. and i think you're missing that part of my point is one by one f*cking with tradition or pushing the large fan groups away from the field. you're like, well, they started lowering them back down, not acknowledging that itself says something, like, ooops, we went too far. it has felt to me for years like we're coming up with new ways to make money as opposed to create areas to push home advantage or create atmosphere spaces. and that whole line of thought plays into the messed up FO concept where they make the money and then increase payrolll, as opposed to working on payroll and atmosphere to energize the fans. it's always some short termist money chase as opposed to "if you build it he will come" ie put a good team out there and work on making it more fun and the revenue will follow when people want to be in the stadium.
saying orlando or others are going that direction only underlines how we seem to get stuck at MLS 2.0 back almost 20 years ago. let's be real, we went with a fairly cookie cutter bowl and are struggling with non-commercial re-tasking of the stadium in ways to catch up to 3.0. i am using "architecture" both literally and figuratively. they can't rebuild the place but they could pull seats or work within the concrete they have. vs they seem to find all sorts of room to create restaurant/bar gimmicks with seating space, etc. half my point here is chain the MBAs up constantly thinking about immediate short term $ and get soccer people and creatives thinking about it like i want this to be a fun home advantage space with cool atmosphere, which will then draw people and get the MBAs their money. sorry my concern is the limited resources we spent were fubo money and that being spent it's minimally different than before in terms of MBA mentality, GM shoddiness, cheap coaches, etc. if we want old school success they need to rethink how this has been done in about every facet.
"Eintracht Frankfurt have enjoyed some success in the Bundesliga, having either won or drawn more than three-quarters of their games as well as having finished the majority of their seasons placed in the top half of the table..." won the forerunner to the B.1, won B.2, 5 time domestic cup winners, won 2 of the smaller european tournaments, and runnerup in the forerunner to champions league. and they are a true "club" that offers 19 other sports and has champions and olympians in those other disciplines. so part of my loyalty might be that i was part of their basketball team, but i show up for soccer. last point, i doubt the response of the FO to the interesting display you present was to bring out water houses and nip that in the bud. violence is bad and shouldn't be tolerated but after the initial flowering and notoriety the response to some other harmless expressions became to turn on the fire hose and clean it up. and, importantly, when our response has often been to toe league lines, we did not come up with fun alternatives, and then punished the groups involved and sent them to siberia. which, they need to enforce rules, but they neglect they are some of the more regular and enthusiastic fans. and they neglect you might want to let (and politic the league for) acceptable fun happen. at some point this pivoted from a semi-competent winner who let the fans have fun and didn't come off obsessed with money, to a team still semi-competent, low payroll, not competitive, but compounding that by chasing away organic fun the league disapproved of while bringing in tame or weak top down stuff. i personally never understood why streamers had to go.
But, to counter your point, the only thing they've won in the last 40 years is 3 DFB Pokal trophies. They haven't won a German Championship since 1959 (unless you count the 2.Liga Championship they won in 1998), and the last time they won Europa League was 1980. They've qualified for European competition by league standing once in their club history, and have never competed in Champions League under the current format. Since I've been following them, they've been in relegation battles, they've been completely broke and unable to spend in transfer windows, they've sold off all my favorite players and had some terrible managers. The fans there see themselves a vital part of the team. That's why 30,000 of them march down the streets of Milan, London, and Barcelona on their way to an away match. If you took their fireworks away, they'd raise hell and come up with something else to do, then they'd pack the stadium just to give the people in charge the middle finger. You can't stop them from cheering for their team, and literally, nothing you do will curb it. That's what got me into them. When I started following them they were in the middle of a relegation battle, and I couldn't believe how passionate the fans were. I'd love to see us bring that to PNC every game.
I believe it was "soccer purist", which I found funny because their apparent concentration was on soccer tourists
Are you guys talking about the "soccer enthusiast" moniker? That came from me -- and I was using it because the MLS commissioned Boston consulting group report came up with it. It also classed some potential fans as "soccer purists." I don't remember Walker/Widder using either term except in reference to my using it. Soccer enthusiasts are people who love the game, support multiple teams and want to support their local team. Soccer purists is BCG identified group. Most of us call them Eurosnobs. Another important group was Sports fans, which is the general dude who likes to go to fun sporting events. The BCG study says Soccer enthusiasts and sports fans are the two groups most important to the league. It says soccer purists cannot be won over ever. I know some of you guys I rounded up for that meeting did not like the soccer enthusiasts label -- but it fit each of you to a T. Having said that, Nigel is now going to protest that statement.