The stadium experience, going to the games

From Saint Louis: We had 5,008, which is either at or over capacity. The parking lot next to the stadium opened 3 hours before the game and there was a lot of tailgating and lots of junior league players kicking the ball around in the neighboring fields. Good overall atmosphere before the game. The only problem is that the parking lot was full an hour before the game and anybody after that got diverted to a lot farther up the road, really not that close to the field. I think the problem is that they added seats to the stadium for Athletica, but you obviously can't add to a parking lot.

Once inside the stadium, there were two Athletica fan groups behind one goal. Our group, Laclede's Army and Verde Azul, a Latin supporters group for the team, both had drums and chants. The crowd had thundersticks that were handed out when everyone entered the stadium. There was also a Latin band playing off in one corner.

I think there is a hospitality tent for premium ticket holders.

After the game, the players all came out to the surrounding barriers/fences and signed autographs for 15-20 minutes.

One problem is that the stadium is wide open and it doesn't hold sound as well as you might like. Chicago brought a nice crowd also, and I think that added to the atmosphere. For those of you not in the midwest, St. Louis and Chicago are rivals in almost everything, especially baseball and hockey. I think there will be a nice one developing in women's soccer, too.

Our next game is at Hermann Stadium at Saint Louis University. That will be different, since most of the parking is in garages and there won't be the same tailgating atmosphere.

 

Cville K C, as I said before I liked the atmosphere last Saturday night at your stadium. Also the weather being nice helped. We have Red Stars fans who are also Fire supporters who know the songs, chants, etc. So if we added to the atmosphere, thanks. I do hope that we develop a nice rivalry with Athletica. These two teams should play more often since the fans can get to each other's cities relatively easy. It took about 4 hours or so to get from chicago to Edwardsville.
We are lucky in Chicago to have a beautiful SSS in Toyota Park for both the Fire and Red Stars. Our atmosphere should be electric as well. Can't wait for opening day.

 

Were there any latino-rooted supporters groups for WUSA teams? This would appear to be a great sign for WPS. How big was each group? Did they manage to get on the same page?

 

Verde Azul had about 10 people. Laclede's Army was about 20?25? maybe 30 when people joined in on chants.

We are very different though. Verde just drummed the whole time while the Army was drumming to chants.

To see pics of Lacledes in action see our website, lacledesarmy.com.

We did get together on some ole's and some athletica claps. It went well, though for the next game we have to be suomewhat separated because they drummed the entire game and the acoustics are terrible in that place. They drown us out due to them being rows in front of us in the bleachers and sound going up. I think some people heard us though.

 

Here's an article that describes the Saint Louis/Chicago atmosphere:

http://www.womensprosoccer.com/newsitem_ektid11114.aspx

But for goodness sakes, I don't know if I've ever seen a donkey in St. Louis or anywhere near St. Louis.

 

For those that were diverted to a parking lot further away from the field did they provide any transportation because it was not really close to the field? If not were people complaining about a long walk to get to the field?

I find it hard to believe we can't find another venue in the St.Louis area that can hold 5 to 6 thousand. Couldn't the Soccer Park do that right now? It is ideal because AB/InBev has given the Soccer Park to Jeff Cooper anyway or let Jeff Cooper use it.

As far as the flooding goes doesn't that pertain more to the large parking area required for an MLS team? I don't recall hearing that place flooding too often anyway.

 

Maybe we should move the stadium stuff to the STL boards. Don't want to bore everyone with our discussion.

I do want to know about the experience at other stadiums, though. Wasn't there a supporters group for Gold Pride? How did that go? What was NJ like? Anyone?!?

 

From what I've been told, it floods quite a bit. The problem is what if it does flood. We're talking a professional league here with schedules and travel, etc. You can't just say, oops sorry, it's flooded, we'll have to reschedule. Then there is ticketing. You have to plan far ahead if you are selling season tickets, because seats in one stadium are in different locations than seats in other stadiums. The team offices are in Collinsville and a short drive from SIU. If St. Louis had been granted an MLS team, both teams would have played in Collinsville and it would have been easier to get people used to the idea of coming to Illinois, than playing a year or two at Soccer Park and then changing to Collinsville. And even if the flooding pertained more to the parking area at Soccer Park, isn't that what we're talking about at SIU, that a few people had to park farther away. The schedule was made far in advance of Cooper getting Soccer Park anyway.

I think people, in general, liked the venue. The only reason parking became a problem is that they increased the capacity of the stadium for Athletica and obviously the parking lot was made for the original capacity. It probably could have been planned a bit better. But people could have gotten there earlier if they were concerned about parking, too. I thought someone said that they bused some people between the lots. I don't know if it's true or not. Again, it wasn't everyone, it was only part of the crowd that had to park farther away.

My feeling is that there is a problem with each of the three potential venues. Soccer Park has the flooding potential, it's not near the team's offices, it's not centrally located, and it's not near where a stadium would ultimately be built if things pan out. SIU is not centrally located and there is a parking problem. Hermann Field at SLU might be the best option. It is a fairly nice facility, the right size, and centrally located. But then you have to deal with Saint Louis University. There would be no tailgating, since there is no lot around the stadium, only garages. It's not near the team's offices and the team couldn't practice there. And like SIU, you would still have somewhat of a walk between the garages and the stadium. So take your pick. Right now SIU is the most viable alternative of the three and the one that the schedule was built around this year, when Cooper had no other options. I might also mention that Cooper put a lot of money into upgrades at SIU, including a turf field.

 

The Freedom edition:

They had a Fan Fest set up just outside the entrances to the stadium (which, due to the overall setup, were fairly close together). A band was playing, Girl Scouts were selling cookies, there was some Easter stuff going on with someone in a bunny suit, and there was the usual face painting, etc.

This time, at least, there was a reception for season ticket holders inside the huge gym building next to the stadium. Not terribly exciting, just stuff to munch on and a chance to chat with fans I hadn't seen since the WUSA days.

Several pregame ceremonies with the Founders Cup and then with April Heinrichs, Carin Jennings-Gabarra, and a third notable early WNTer whose name escapes me at the moment.

They'd done a nice job of decorating the perimeter with assorted banners, including ones noting the Freedom's previous two North American club championships as well as the championship that one of their youth teams won.

Attendance was announced as a smidge over 5,000, which is close to capacity. The seats were well-populated but not packed, at least not on my (unreserved) side. Didn't notice anything unusual about the demographics, seemed like a decent mix, not just 13-year-olds and their parents.

I was busy talking with my friends and don't remember what they did at halftime. They did have a door prize sort of raffle, where they'd announce a seat, and if you had that seat you got a bag of goodies.

Somewhat to my surprise, they were selling beer, but you couldn't drink it in the stands, you had to go to a special area by the south goal they called the beer garden.

Parking was a bit of a mess. People who arrived late had to use distant lots and then walk over.

They had the best doggone porta-potties on our side. They weren't just outhouses, they were trailers with really nice restrooms - wood inlays and everything - on the inside.

The Freedom Fighters were not hugely in evidence. Several members have reserved seats and prefer to sit there during games, so there were only about a half-dozen card-carrying members in the supporter's section (though we weren't the only ones sitting there). However, TOTC's bagpipes certainly made their presence known (and I'm still trying to get the tunes out of my head!).

The sun is going to be an issue later in the season for those of us on the east side - it wasn't a whole lot of fun for part of the second half for this one. It's going to be a real problem for the cameras, too, if they continue to have the main ones face west.

The players signed autographs after the game, but I didn't stick around for that. I think they just wandered along the edge of the stands rather than having an "autograph alley."

Getting out was a real mess. The Soccerplex only has one entrance road, and it's a single lane each way. It took us 20-25 minutes to get from our parking spot to that point, but after that it was easy. Of course, both the parking and the getting out should be easier for future games as I doubt we'll match this attendance for any other regular season game.

Still, there was a great buzz for the game, so much more exciting than previous visits when I'd come out for a W-League match and there'd be 200 people in the stands. I'll be interested in seeing how many people show up the next time - I know at least one young lady I gave my free tickets to who is now completely sold on the experience.

 

General impression reading the comments so far:

One very good trend so far is the players staying afterwards and signing autographs, and not just the home teams but the VISITING teams! Let's hope this keeps up beyond the home openers.

Parking - yecch! But we'll have to leave that to the individual teams to make the best of their facilities -- and hope for less rain.

Chanting, drumming -- confined to the efforts of a brave, hardy few. (But you could've predicted that.) I'd love to see a crowd get behind a chant or two, but what'cha gonna do?

Good turnouts so far and crowds in a festive mood. We're all waiting to see how much of a dropoff there is after the home openers.

I wish one of the teams would take up my suggestion of a "mixer" section, or "social" section as someone else called it. One of the problems affecting attendance to women's sporting events is the difficulty many people have in finding other people (friends, family, colleagues) to go to games with. I'm talking at least about one demographic segment of the audience - the adult and young adult fanbase rather than the soccer families with kids who are on youth soccer teams.

It would help to have a section where people could mingle for a while to watch the game in a section without assigned seating, maybe get to meet other people. Because for most adults, unless your a soccer mom or dad, there just aren't as many people you know who would like going to a women's soccer game, as opposed to the number of people who would say yes to a baseball game, or an NFL or NBA game.

 

As we near the end of the season I thought it would be a good time to revisit this subject. In other threads, the subject of beer has come up and (surprise!) we all agree beer is a good thing. Also, the subject of seating fans in the sunny side of stadiums has come up - Gold Pride, Chicago, and (I think) Boston threads have mentioned this. Not sure if there's a good solution in some places like Chicago where the club seats are located on that side but maybe something should be done about it at the other locations?

Gold Pride fans - unhappy because team is doing poorly.

Chicago fans - placated even though team is doing poorly. Because they're Chicago fans and they're used to these things. (From Cubbie fans: "give us a beer and a hot dog and we're happy.") 8000 show up for final home game against LA - terrific crowd gets to go home happy.

Sky Blue fans - sellout crowd shows up the other night! Wow! Who'da thunk? Considering we never hear from any Sky Blue fans around here.

 

I absolutely love Toyota Park. It holds a little over 20,000. When the Fire sell it out it is electric. In a couple of weeks when Beckham comes in town the atmosphere will be awesome.
Obviously the Red Stars don't come close to selling it out but it is still an awesome place to watch a game. It has nice amenities like the Club for after game socializing with players and fans of both teams. And when there is a good crowd, there's nothing like it.
I hope the Red Stars never leave TP. I would hate to see them play in some midlevel college stadium on an astroturf field with football lines. That would ruin the stadium experience for me.

 

You need Club seats for that, though, right? How many people usually hang around after the game?

Home Depot Center also has the great club restaurant overlooking the field but I don't know if people go there after the Sol games or not, and whether any of the players go there afterwards. It's pretty awesome that visiting players go up to the club in Chicago.

One thing that LA hasn't done is arrange any meet-and-greets (that I know of) for players on other teams apart from the players being willing to sign autographs after the game in front of the stands.

 

I have enjoyed all of the venues I have been to, including Toyota, Soccer Park, and the Md SoccerPlex. I really liked Toyota the game I went up there for. Soccer Park has its plusses and minuses, but generally, the atmosphere has been pretty good there. The players from both teams usually sign afterwards. The PA announcers haven't over-done it, which to me is a good thing.

And as I said in another thread, we usually go to a patio area behind the stands and in front of the locker rooms to greet the players as they they come up after signing autographs. We clap for players on both teams. We do get some different reactions though. Most of the players appreciate it. Marta ran right by us at nearly full speed. Washington's players must have taken a different route to the locker room, because we missed most of them. It was a tough night for Boston when they played in Saint Louis, because they lost a tough match in the middle of the playoff race, so as a group, they weren't as receptive to our cheers, but I think I can understand under the circumstances. The other teams have been great, especially Sky Blue. The best reaction was probably from Arakawa of Gold Pride. She didn't know quite what to make of us, especially Laura who does her hair up in a green mohawk. Maybe, Eriko was just jealous that someone got even more creative with the hairstyle than her.

Athletica players have been great all year long to us. It's almost getting to the point where we think of them as family, it's that good of a relationship. Actually, it might even be better than family.

 

Yes you do have to have Club seats unless someone brings you in as a guest. I have seen visiting players and sometimes their realtives every time I've been up to the Club. That's why I got Club seats. A little more expensive, the team gets more money (I would not do this with the Fire), and you have some fun meeting and talking to people, players.

 

Coming from Los Angeles Home Depot Center experience... and a nieve one at that since this is my first time I've ever followed a sports team in my life(SOL)

The club seats I take it are those seats that are located above the stands indoors behind glass right? I've never been inside before so thats why i ask.

There's a restaurant at the Home Depot Center above the endzone area but I dont know who that's reserved for, and who exactly has access to it.. I do see people in there eating and watching the game though... it's kinda random and exclusive but I don't really know how one gets in a place like that.

From my experiences being at HDC, and believe me it's surprisingly the only sports venue I really set in considering I'm not a sports fanatic(Lakers, Angels, Ducks, Dodgers and anything else blah I die of boredom)

Anyway, the place is huge, there's like 4 main entrances I believe, plenty of parking for WPS games, don't ask me about Galaxy games because It takes forever the leave the parking lot during those games

The parking fee is 15.00, and I honestly think its a steep price but others have said this is very typical of sporting events to charge that much money for parking.... otherwise the 10.00 parking I found during my visit to Buck Shaw Stadium seemed more reasonable.

On one side of the HDC, you will see all these booths for Amway Global, and you can spin a wheel to get like free artistry makeup or energy bars and junk. I forget what this place is called, SOL City? Anyway, you also have like these dogs that hit the ball in the goals and that's very entertaining to watch. Sometimes you have McDonalds Cafe where you can sample their lattes and such(this was especially useful during the very first rainy Wednesday night game during Chicago, when I was coming straight from work)

Sometimes there are silent auctions going on as well... and sometimes you have the players signing autographs in that area after certain games. One hard lesson I've learned with the autographs is that they can only take so many people before they have to close the lines. This shut me out numerous times during the season when I tried to get an Autograph from Marta, and to this day I still haven't got an autograph from her yet.

This is all before the game too just so you know.... oh yeah and they hand out SOL thunderstix like flyers to people LOL Their programs are not much at all, merely a picture of a particular SOL player with the back having the list of all the players on SOL and all the players on the opposing team. I've collected them for the sole purpose of getting them signed by the player they highlighted.

Anyway, so during the game... only half of the stadium is being used, though the last home games had people hanging out all the way in the "general admission" area(the whole area underneath the big screen) where I would normally sit for Galaxy games.

We have a very loud speaker, so I can hear everything. They will every so often give out thunderstix to sections who are the loudest, play pre-recorded messages from players depending on the theme(mothers day/fathers day), show highlights, give away SOL t-shirts, artistry makeup, coupons for Mcflurries, and other junk I never win.

The food is okay I guess, but I usually don't like to spend money on snacks. The last few home games I've had to buy water merely because I wad dehydrating badly being out in the sun and the security is harsh at the HDC. They wont allow you to really bring in water bottles or food or anything like that though I've seen people sneak in stuff in plastic bags somehow.
But anyways, they will run up and down the aisles selling water, soda, churros, cotton candy, pizza and other stuff.

The fans seem very diverse to me here. I see Galaxy fans, some latino men, middle-class white families with their little girls and boys, I've seen maybe like 10 asian families, lots of little girl soccer teams, lots of soccer moms of course and .. soccer dads? LOL I've seen nuns, I've seen lesbians, I've seen sophisticated looking young woman in their 20s with fashionable sunglasses and clothes just sitting quietly with their water bottle, staring in total focus at the game as if they were "judging" without saying a word to each other or to the screaming audience behind them.

It's an interesting bunch, I'm probably not in anybody's demographic as I'm a 24 year old single girl that's a fan of women's soccer and it's kinda interesting to see the girls out in the field playing that are all averaging around the same age as me.

Anyway, that's been my overall experience from the Home Depot Center as a WPS season ticket holder. I was happy going to each game, and it was always a plus to have the LA SOL win most of their games and being number 1. I got kinda sad when they lost even though I knew it's just not natural for a team to like NEVER lose EVER.

My mom got really sick during the late spring/early summer and she's never going to get better. When I wasn't visiting her I would go to the LA SOL games at the HDC and it helped me take a nice break from all the depressing stuff going on with my family. That's why when LA SOL home games ended in early July, that kinda threw me off for a while. I'm glad they made the championship though and I'm looking forward to going to the championship game at the HDC

But I digress, the experience was more important than one can imagine and I just wanted to share how important it was for me. I hope the league continues to survive and for the LA SOL I hope they continue to be a strong team because they have a bunch of fans like me that really support them.

Oh yeah and supporter groups.... I do believe Angels Brigades(the supporters that support Galaxy) come to some SOL games as I've seen them drumming. I do see these two or three guys drumming during most of the games and I don't know if they belong to any sort of group.

There were also two games where a band played but I forgot what school they came from.

A few things I forgot to mention in my very long response...

There's a giant billboard of Kobe Bryant with the SOL Team before the season started in the SOL City area, so I always see people getting their picture taken in front of it.

There's an "autograph alley" at the end of each home game, but I've noticed that the international players don't really go through autograph alley or if they do it's only for a few minutes then they bow out. BTW the nicest players to interact with were always Shannon Boxx and Stephanie Cox and Cameron.

They do serve alcohol at the HDC and you can take it into the stadium. You can order a limited selection of beers, or you can have yourself a mixed drink or a margarita. I dont think they do Martini's though hahhaha but it's always interesting to see the "young sophisticated looking girls with the fashionable clothes sipping on their vodka drinks"

Okay I'm done for now... I promise

 

I do think one of the best parts is when the Army claps for the other team as they go into the locker room. Sky Blue has gotten it twice so they were used to it the second time, but the looks are great when you see these ladies looking around as if saying "Who are you clapping for?"

The Athletica are ready for it...

A top memory of mine this year will have to be this...

After the game the players go into this locker room. Apparently a group of 10 year old girls found out and were swarming the door chanting "Hope, hope hope". Everytime the door opened they screamed even though most of the time no one came out. Well at the highest point of screaming Amanda Cinali walked out and the girls got quiet and looked sad that it wasn't Hope. Amanda put a little smile on and waved and in a split second I grabbed my scarf and starting waving it while yelling "CINALI!". She cracked up and gave me a huge smile and then walked over and gave me a hug. Take that 10 year olds! hahaha.

These players appreciate what we do and the fans and that makes the experience better than any sporting event I have EVER been to. (and I have been to a few World Series games)

 

I had more fun this year at Red Stars games than Fire games.

 

It's funny, because I always thought of club seats as being the higher priced, better served seats in most venues I've been to. However, Athletica calls their general admission seating "club seats". I just thought that a bit strange.