Actually, it was primarily due to capacity. In 2002 the Fire sold out 9 of the 14 MLS matches (65%) it hosted at Cardinal Stadium in Naperville. Additionally, only one of the matches that weren't sold out was a Saturday night game.
Sure, facts. But facts from 2002. In 2003, we had 7 Saturday games in July, August and September in N'ville (ie after the additional stands had been added to raise capacity.) Only 2 of them even broke 14,000. Essentially, Naperville worked like every other new franchise -- we had much larger attendance in the first year. The only problem is that even in the first year, Naperville attendance wasn't great. In the second year, it sucked royally. We were just another KC. If you go look at the final attendance averages for 2003, remember that we drew 59,000 in our last two games - which were played at Soldier Field - to bring the average up to 14,000. The 13 games at Naperville drew just 151,000 - or an average of 11,500. Those are the relevant facts, despite what Feuerfex and Kebzach want to believe.
The Boston globe business section did a piece on stadium size (not in soccer, but relevant to the discussion nonetheless)... I have only read about half of this thread, so I hope that this wasn't posted elsewhere... http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/04/20/ballparks_prove_less_is_more/ rand
I'm not disputing that they could have averaged a much higher figure without the capacity limits. That's not the context here: I simply believe (and it should be relatively uncontroversial) that the games they didn't sell out (especially in 2003) indicate that they might've drawn more at Soldier Field. As you note, they did sell out a lot of their Saturday games, but IIRC many of their games were on Sundays-- I'm not sure if that's a big mitigating factor. Kenn has shown that Sundays are actually pretty good for attendance (better, in fact, than Saturdays and certainly nothing like Wednesdays).
As I proved after his post, the 2002 thing was just the typical novelty effect of a franchise that was essentially "new." In 2003, we averaged 11,500 in Naperville and didn't sell out any of the games aside from a couple early ones before the full stands were brought in, when capacity was 7-8,000. That early-season capacity issue may have cost us 8,000 fans on the year (not per game, but total), so it might have raised the average to 12,000. There is no question Naperville was a horrible place for the Fire. There is ample land to build a stadium at that distance from the central city, but they didn't pursue such an idea, because they had learned it would be a disaster.
they also changed their marketing strategies '02 was built around naperville '03 was built around the return to soldier field
Is anyone seriously worried here that the NY franchise could possibly make the same blunders that was the undoing of NASL? The flood gates became open to overpaid over aged atheletes way past their prime, and the weight of that and over expansion of the league is what caused the NASL to eventually implode. I pray that the League offices watch Red Bull like a hawk, and don't fall victimto the idea that hype is good for the league, and the sport in this country. MLS has a good thing going right now, but it wouldn't be that hard to derail it.