Question and answer session tonight at Gillette with Brian Bilello and Mike Burns. Flotsam and jetsam from the meeting: +Season ticket sales are ahead of 2010 +A little over 5000 season ticket sold -we are "4th or 5th in the league in season ticket sales growth" +Friendlies: 1) Two national teams 2) Rev's vs an international team +Burns is more in favor of this version of the reserve league. They can use academy players but not college players ( NCAA rules). Hope to announce a new assistant coach in about a week who will also coach the reserve team.The MLS reserve league schedule was just finalized today + No plans to create a separate DAP with MLS teams because of the travel expenses + Plenty of issues putting together the MLS schedule: stadium availability, favorable TV matches, FIFA soccer windows, etc. caused the home opener to conflict with the USMNT vs Argentina game + Actively looking for 1-2 forwards. Will have another player in this week. If he's good enough, they'll make him an offer. +Dabo & Alston will not travel to LA due to small injuries +Domi will be a game time decision due to small injuries + Rev's have signed 5 international players in the off-season with Diego Fagundez being one of them. "Talked long and hard with him and his family about the decision." He was not planning to go to college and before he started to look at clubs overseas the Rev's made him an offer. There is no guarantee that he will make the first team, but, he was independently rated to be a top prospect ( tough to see all of the players in the country) and highly evaluated by Gulati, Burns & Nicol. " Diego has been tremendous."The Rev's hope to one day expand down to the u-14 level " if the DAP does so first." + Sunil Gulati is the President of Kraft Soccer. He represents the Rev's at the MLS Board of Governors meeting +MLS is using Opta software to provide more soccer statistics to "the geeks." Brian Billelo is a self confessed geek. Burns told me afterwards that the Rev's have been using their own statistical software for the past "5-6 seasons" + " What does it take to run a US Soccer league?" There are huge travel costs, it is more difficult to have a supporters culture in the US because of the size of the country, there is a supporters culture in England where the supporters can easily travel to away matches, BB seemed in favor of regionalizing the league because of the travel. + The Rev's have bid for the All-Star game but a variety of factors determine whether they get such a game: new stadiums are often promised games, larger stadiums such as Gillette are used for "bigger events" + A third kit was offered to the Rev's in an "off the shelf design" which they were lukewarm about. The minimum quantity for Rev designed kit is too high. They are talking to 4 potential shirt sponsors and meeting with one of them in the next week. Hopefully a shirt sponsor this year. + The stadium plans are "progressing" + I asked Burns after the meeting his feelings on the league since 1996. "The players of the first year would still make the team but there is more depth across the board, on our team, across the league and across America." In a perfect world, the Rev's "would have their own stadium with a grass field, their own permanent locker rooms, weight rooms, academy teams from u-8 to u-23." But, that will cost a LOT of money.
Thanks for posting the details from tonight! Hopefully that this season will be the rebound and the team only get better from here. We hit rock bottom last season, this season they can only go up from here!
Actually, he said hopefully a shirt sponsor will agree to something in the next week or so. That was one of the positives I took out of last night.
They don't need to acquire players with it. They can use it for other things, as long as it somehow goes into use for the organization (money for the academy, scouting trips, etc) ... that's the point. Obviously it would be good if they used it to help with covering some of the cost of a DP as well.
It wouldn't kill them to actually advertise the team in this market, or to hire a larger sales and marketing staff. The Revs are effectively invisible. It wouldn't hurt to hire a larger FO that might be able to better scout and develop new players. Or put more money into the academy. Lots of things that shirt sponsorship money could go towards that don't involve player salaries. Kraft could spend that money anyway without a shirt sponsorship, but I would think as a businessman he would like the team to pay for itself as a business as much as possible. More revenues coming in might finally encourage him to spend the money he needs to spend in order for the Revs to play catch up with the rest of MLS that has been improving while the Revs, as an organization, have been stagnating.
Team A: "We've sold 18,856 season tickets. We are the fourth highest team in total season ticket sales." Team B: "We've sold 5,000 season tickets this year. That's 1,100 more than last year -- a 34% growth rate -- the 4th best growth rate in the league and Bob said we could all have a bonus if we had at least a 30% growth rate. We're number 1, We're number 1 ... I'll take Team A thanks. Nitwits.
I'm sure there's some degree of "fuzzy math" that goes into explaining the Revs' numbers for this season, especially if they're counting four--packs and other types of ticket plans; it's not as if the Revs haven't done this before to 'fudge the numbers.'
Did they ever say what happened with the Barra Revolution? That dwindled from half a section to a four-piece pretty rapidly.
Apparently they do have billboards up - Boston, Providence and somewhere else. The audio thing the Jeff Lemieux and friends did talked about some of their marketing efforts.
Good interview with the Don - maybe to build on at the meeting next week? http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/ne...rlisle-interviews-mls-commissioner-don-garber ...and if you give them a product that they want to see, in the right environment, with some unique and creative marketing efforts, you can be successful. Another point, too -- the expansion teams haven't been successful just because they're new. They've been working hard to do some really creative marketing programs, putting together a strong and focused front-office staff, and worked hard on getting the product on the field right and attractive to the fans. So I think those are the lessons that the older teams are paying attention to.
We don't have enough Latino players, according to them. This is also apparently why we don't have Portuguese fans:
It's probably time to stop thinking about wooing ethnic markets. They only care about players from their own country, and thus have no interest in building the fan base of the team that is most local to where they are currently living. I think it would help to build real rivalries if we played regional teams more often.
They obviously prefer to live and work here, their children are born here. Why then can't they support the country they are in and their local team? My Great-grandparents came from Germany and Poland, should I only support teams with players from those countries? Or should I only support womens soccer since there are no women on the Revs to represent me? I think it's pretty insular to only want to watch players who are like yourself in whatever way you identify yourself.
If you were living in a country with a mediocre soccer league like MLS, say the Swedish league, wouldn't you be more likely to go to matches if they had an American or two? Latino players also tend to have a certain flair that most American players lack. Most Latino fans want to see skill, flash, and flair regardless of what country they're from. I'm sure Honduran and Mexican fans would be excited if we signed a talented Brazilian or two, even though they're not from their country of birth.
If I moved to a foreign country permanently and the Colorado Rapids came to play a match against the local team I wouldn't put on my Revs jersey and wrap myself in an American flag to go watch the game.
With all due respect, I think you're judging others through the lens of your own personal values (i.e., why can't people be more like me?). If people's extended families have more recent ethnic ties to other countries, clearly that's going to have more of an influence on their values. And there are differences owing to the differing places people have come from, when they came, why they came, etc.
Honestly if I moved to another country I am not going to follow that new country or local teams at all.