MLS and US Soccer...for 5,100 at an Open Cup Final....you blew it, and you deserve potshots for making soccer look bush league tonight..
It's sad. MLS wanted NY to get a Cup so badly, and their plan failed in more ways than one. Tough crap for NY. Go Fire.
bunge, MLS had nothing to do with this. The schedule was set by USSoccer. Probably thought that Metros should host one. I believe Chicago hosted one as well.
The Fire hosted and won the 1998 and 2000 cup finals... and had attendances of over 18000 and over 19000 respectively.
With the Yankees/Red Sox game across the river, why would anyone go to the Metros game? To watch them lose like they did? Or to watch their team miss two penalty kicks in one game? More marketing could have helped also.
i really don't know why we can't schedule this game on Saturday nite and reschedule the MLS games they're involve in to Wednesday.
a cold, windy, wednesday, no advertising, and the yankees playing in their championship at the same time just across the water. If you're not on BigSoccer u dont even know the Open Cup final exists. and low attendance comes as a surprise?? yea..they shouldve played in Chicago so the Mexicans could have trashed the field and thrown beer + urine at BOTH teams. that would have been nice.
True, that. Depends on what the expectations were. By the way, and just out of fairness, did anyone in the New York area cast any expectations on attendance entering the game?
(Expectations) Worse thing is, there were no expectations since no one knew or gave a damn about this game...that is unconsciencable (sp?) for a major championship in a sport that calls itself MAJOR... If this is not a wake-up call to the organizers of this, and big changes aren't made, then they go from moronic to Anna Nicole Smith territory (wait, scratch that....at least she was smart enough to marry a 91 year old rich guy at some point)... Quit half-assing this "Cup" MLS/US Soccer...
Almost 42k for the Mexican national team....they woulda had 50k+ for Fire championship doubleheader. What a bunch of morons...
They would have had more than 50,000. I'm sure of it. Also, on my way out of the stadium, I realized that alot of them(every one in earshot) had at least some interest in the Fire and knew of the Open Cup game prior to attending the match. I doubt they all post on BigSoccer. Luckily for the fans in attendance, they cut away periodically to show the Fire game on the jumbotron. It's funny to think that there where about 8 times more people watching the cup final in Soldier Field then there where at Giants stadium.
USSF you suck. They blew it this time. Even holding the game at Naperville would have been better than this.
So u think it would of been better for the USOC final to be a warming up act for the Mexico friendly?? U think it would of been good to hear MEXICO!! MEXICO!! during the USOC final?? To me thats many times worse then Giants Stadium...
Too bad for you that probably wouldn't have happened. In 2000 the Fire and KC opened for Mexico/Ireland. The fans weren't as into the prelim as they were the international match, but they weren't disengaged either, and created a lively atmosphere for the Fire's come from behind victory. That said, by giving the final to Metros, the Fire were granted the opportunity to be the first MLS team to win the cup on the opponent's field. Now the conspiracy theorists can't say, "yeah, you won three cups, but only because the USSF which is located in Chicago gave you the homefield advantage every time."
According to my local paper and TV, the game never happened. I don't know why we can't get any coverage. That other Chicago team got pages of coverage this morning.
The USSF are a bunch of buffoons. The simplest decsion is usually the best decision and one the USSF rarely make. The USSF had sanctioned a doubleheader at Soldier Field with a crowd expected to be over 40,000. Adding a 3rd match could have been done at very little extra cost and a home team would have been involved. INSTEAD - in their boundless stupidity, the USSF paid $100,000 to open up Giants Stadium for a game on fake grass, spent .37 cents for one stamp on advertising and somehow got 5100 fans to bother to show up. I don't want to hear any BS about the Cup being the undercard at a meaningless int'l friendly. The USSF treats its own premier tournament as an afterthought. Job 1 for the USSF should be getting people in the stands for the game. I have no idea who these idiots are accountable to, but my guess is no one because these morons keep these ass-stupid decisions flowing year after year. These peopel do more to keep US soccer down than any imaginary media conspiracy, radio hosts and or anybody else. The real enemy to US soccer are the clowns and sell-outs and thieves in charge. Enron's enemy was not their competition - it was themsleves.
Do you think the Fire would have got similar numbers last night considering the Cubs playing game 7 and all of that?
When the Revs went to the Open Cup final 2 years ago, it was played in LA (Fullerton, actually, I think). I'm pretty sure they were well below 5100. If they had it in Revland, being that a) it was our first title game of any kind and b) that was back when the Krafts put some effort into the Revs, we could have probably had 15k+. My understanding at that time was that the two teams basically bid on the final, and the team with the best proposal won. Since the Krafts were probably offering Foxboro Stadium to the USSF for $70k or so, and Fullerton was probably much less, the number of fans attending probably didn't figure into the decision.
Honest to God, who is the political crony decision-maker at USSF (or gaggle) that is trying to escape this debacle (hoping everyone forgets).....seriously, as a fan that hopes men's pro outdoor soccer makes it in US, do you EVER want to see what happened last night repeated? Somehow, I have the feeling that USSF is somewhat like university systems in which certain folks have "tenure" which is akin to a communist system in which there is no relationship between status/decision making authority and level of ability... Where are the soccer writers' outrage on this? There ought to be article on how bad this is/"never again" vs. profiles on MLS players, and "how exciting the wrap-up to season will be..." If this was due to some sort of inner-office politics, guess what MORONS: Men's outdoor soccer is not yet popular enough to afford your idiotic infighting/power plays/stupidity, and get off the bus or you are going to get run over by NASCAR, a revived MLB, and other sports/activities that are not going to sit around and just let you conquer the world....ALWAYS put your product in the best light...
Well, the problem with the USSF is that they have not found a way to market the final. How many people even KNEW of the final going on at the Metros home. The unfortunate truth of the matter is that until the media starts giving the league some free coverage by actually reporting on it on ESPN and on local news affiliates sports shows, we will forever be in this quandary.
You don't know what you're talking about here but that's not a surprise. Remember when Governor Jesse Ventura wanted to do away with tenure at the University of Minnesota and eventually, other public school? Well, he didn't. Know why? It wasn't because of the all-powerful union, it was because the smart guys he surrounded himself with who ran the state figured out after extensive study that, if you did away with tenure, you would actually increase the cost of state-supported education, because you would have to pay even more money to attract decent teachers and researchers. In addition to minimizing government intervention in one's teaching and research (I thought you guys liked to get Gubment off people's backs. Anyway), tenure also holds down higher education costs: the job-security tenure provides is a trade-off for higher salaries you'd have to pay to attract any but the least competent who didn't get tenure.