Becky Sauerbrunn will be at the DC United game tonight, but the team is reporting that US Soccer won't clear her to play until at least 24 hours after her return, so she won't be on the game roster.
I think you are selling folks in the NW a little short. I think one of the things that is making the Sounders an item is that there are an awful lot of folks that want to see LOCAL heros again. A big chunk of the team are players that made an impact at the college level here as well as the WNT level and folks want to see them play. Leroux is a Seattle native, but Hope, Veronica Perez, Kate Denies, and other players are from UW. Rapinoe, Winters, and Cox are Portland products and folk will travel the hour and a half to see them. Even the coach draws fans. Michelle French is much beloved in her home town and is still fondly remembered at UP ( she was inducted into the UP HOF before Tifeny Milbrett) And as to Women's Soccer not being any more popular here than anywhere else, I'll remind folks that UP, one of the smallest schools in the NCAA, has lead the Nation in attendance for seven straight years.
Just got back from the Sounders Women vs. Pali Blues game. 2-0 Pali. Sounders looked terrible at the start conceiding 2 quick goals in the first half. The second half was much better for the Sounders but couldn't put one in. Charlie Naimo had Pali organized and attacking. Sounders played a real good team tonight. The USWNT players did not play for the Sounders, but Pali has some players as well like Liz Bogus, Sarah Huffman, Christie Shaner and Nikki Washington. As far as the attendance, I don't care what the announced will be. There were maybe 1,500 people there. Still a decent crowd but no sellout. Half the granstand was empty. There is no count at the gates. It's just a bunch of kids who volunteer to take tickets. They just rip it and give you half. One of the security guards who was standing next to me said that it looked about the same as last weekend. I told him that it was posted that there were 4,500 people here on Sunday. He said NO WAY. It was about like it is tonight. So apparently they are counting the season tickets or various game combo tickets they sold marketing Hope Solo and the other USWNT players. Which is great. But that doesn't mean all those people are coming to every game. Having said that, it's still a great time and a nice atmosphere.
Last night's game report between the Lady Sounders and Pali Blue: http://equalizersoccer.com/2012/06/21/pali-blues-hand-sounders-women-first-loss-of-the-season/ It says that attendance was 3,500. I was there. Nowhere close to 3,500. If it was then there were a lot of invisible people.
Must be paid attendance. Too bad we don't have an actual count of fans who were there. If we did, then we'd have a pretty good idea how many non-one-game tickets they've sold. FYI, I've asked them how many season tickets they've sold. I don't know if I'll hear back or not. For comparison purposes, I'm guessing that all the WPS and WUSA attendance numbers were paid attendance, as are almost all (or just plain all?) professional sports. If so, then the 3,500 number is the one to compare. 3,500 paid attendance on a night when the Sounders drew upward of 45,000 isn't so bad.
It's all sports. For a couple years during the Jail Blazer era the attendance was always sold out when it was clear the arena was half full. Here is a sold out Yankee Stadium.
Having said what I said above, the Sounders women still get LOTS of fans. If there is a place where a women's pro team would have a fighting chance to succeed, it would be here.
I'm not surprised. Prior to this season women's soccer wasn't very well supported in this area. Sounders Women were only getting around 500 people per game. That plus the travel expenses required to get to Seattle and you've got a recipe for disaster. This year they got new owners, brought in the USWNT players, and starting working with the Sounders to market the team. It will be interesting to see what happens going forward, particularly if the USWNT women don't come back.
Yeah, the experienced management and partnering with the MLS Sounders for their marketing is definitely the difference between the 500 and this year's numbers. It's a concept neither the WUSA nor the WPS ever grasped, and it's why those leagues are now footnotes. Perhaps some rational league organizers will see that next time, or USSoccer could require that first division clubs sponsor women's and youth squads as a condition for certification like they do in Europe.
2 failed leagues within 10 years. I suspect it is going to be quite a few years before the next professional women's soccer league is created. Although, I will add one thing. The Storm are fairly well supported, but they've also been quite successful on the court
4,500 for the final game for the USWNT players. Not bad considering the men were down in Portland at the same time. 4-0 win. Goals by Veronica Perez, Sydney Leroux(2)! And Alex Morgan.
All of their home games show the same attendance on the W League site except for one which does not show any attendance number. Watching the game online today, although I could only see one side, it did not look like it was sold out. If anyone attended please let me know if it was sold out.
Depends.. It was probably sold out, but I doubt every ticket was used. They report tickets distributed, not butts in seats..
There were a lot of people there today. This is the last home game that the USWNT players will be with the team. I don't know about away games. They marketed the USWNT players heavy. They are the draw. Particularly Solo and Morgan. That's all you hear the kids and most parents talk about. Rarely other players. The other day when they were playing Pali Blue, I went to where the players come out and go from one building to the other separated by the fans from a fence like thing and the players would sign autographs. As the Pali Blues players passed by, they just slapped the kids "five". No kid was asking them for an autograph and I asked one of the parents do these kids know that they just slapped five with the Goalkeeper for the Italian National Team, Sarah Huffman, Nikki Washington who probably has more National Championship rings then all the Sounders put together. They looked at me with blank stares. They had no idea who or what I was talking about. Some even asked me where Pali Blues were from. The only thing they were there for was to see Hope Solo and see if their kid can get an autograph. The Sounders did a fantastic job selling season and multi-game tickets using Solo and Morgan as bait. They are on flyer photos, faces on web page, etc. Even though much of the season they will be without them. Actually, I don't see them winning the league without the USWNT players. Pali Blue will win this league. They may not have USWNT players but Charlie Naimo has put together a solid team of many former WPS players and other stars at Pali Blue.
I was at a WPS Freedom game where more people were there to see Mia Hamm at halftime than to see Abby Wambach and Marta on the field.
It seems to me that some are very anxious to downplay the Sounders having sold out all their games (whether or not all the ticket holders attended), resulting in their 4500 attendance (paid) numbers. Why? Yes, they promoted their WNT players. Of course they did, just as all professional sport franchises promote their best known players. Is something wrong with that? I don't understand why it seems important to some to downplay what the Sounders have accomplished. Haven't they done exactly what is needed? It's almost like some don't want the Sounders to have succeeded. Why?
My thoughts are not to downplay the Sounders success at all. I think it is the fact that they had "ringers". Sorry, hate the term but it fits. The national teamers were there for two or three games and without them, bottom line, subtract 6 or 9 points. They would be in a different place in the standings.
So, were the big name players on the WPS teams "ringers"? Why apply a standard to the Sounders that isn't applied to the WPS teams?
Because, in WPS, those players were there for the whole season and, more importantly, because using the "big name players" definition would make almost the entire starting XI's for all WPS teams "ringers". WPS teams could lose a couple of their best players and still be close to full strength, which can definitely not be said of the Sounders (and many other top-level W-League and WPSL teams) right now. To answer your original question, I don't think people are trying to "downplay" the Sounders organization at all. However, it's been shown multiple times now that even though a flash of exposure for the USWNT puffs up league attendances, no organization anywhere has been able to sustain the attendance success. Good numbers now mean basically nothing in the long-term. Yes, they should be recognized, but just for what they are - the current popularity of the USWNT. The Sounders did incredibly well to get the USWNT players, but unless they can keep the attendance numbers up in future seasons, they haven't proven anything new.
I think some are just questioning the validity of the numbers... from both people there in person and from video observation. When they report sellouts and it's obvious that it's not (at least in conventional terms), something seems off. The Breakers have reported sellouts at all their games, but the attendance numbers have been different for each one. It's tough to manage for all teams that have flexible ticketing to determine how many will show up, but it seems a little suspicious to report the same attendance at every game.
Welcome to sports in the US. Attendance is always reported by tickets distributed and not butts in seats. That is common throughout the sporting industry in the US and it certainly isn't a valid reason to be down on the Sounders Women for doing the exact same thing everyone else is doing. Now, SiberianThunderT's point about the numbers being driven only by the USWNT is completely valid and, more than likely, highly accurate. The Sounders Women weren't drawing much prior to this season and the new owners really stepped up both the marketing of the team and convincing "big names" to play for the team.
I'm well aware of the way that ticket sales are reported. Some here have questioned why they are reporting 3500-4500 per match when attendance at the stadium doesn't appear to be anywhere near that. Maybe they do have 1000s of fans buying tickets and not showing up. Reporting round numbers every match is an obvious way to draw suspicion. I only base that on the folks who've been to the stadium and have watched matches.
The rounding is a bit annoying, but, yet again, the fact that less are showing up than were distributed is not a valid complaint. Papering stadiums is not uncommon in the US in any sport. NFL teams do it all of the time in order to avoid the NFL's local TV blackout rules. The NBA does it as a standard practice. MLS used be horrible about papering their stadiums, but with the advent of SSS and the move out of NFL stadiums, they aren't nearly as bad as they used to be, but they still do it on a regular basis. As an example even when NYRB reports a sell-out at RBA the Red Bull logo is still clearly visible on their lower bowl seats.
What the Sounders is doing this season is great for now, great for the fans in the area, but it's not moving the sport forward beyond that. I don't even think the short-term attendance spike from the World Cup and Olympics is the issue. It's that the Sounders aren't paying a dime for Solo, Morgan, Rapinoe or anyone else on the team. It's fine that it works out that way for one season but obviously that isn't sustainable for a top division league.