Comments on: Sounders Enter World’s Top 50

By: Deja Vu All Over Again « The Thinking Man's Global Soccer Fan

Deja Vu All Over Again « The Thinking Man's Global Soccer Fan — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:01:51 +0000

[...] it is somewhat easy to make these calls from the city of Seattle, which proved itself to be amongst the most soccer-loving in the world over the last season. But I do remember growing up here and hearing jokes like “to eliminate confusion, from now [...]

By: Paul H.

Paul H. — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:57:33 +0000

Great ideas about exbanding the crowd capacity. My ideas are open up the “hawks nest” or call it the “Green Wave” for all Sounders games. A Sound is a body of water and what a opportunity to have a Supporters Group in the Section with painted Green and Blue faces.

Another Option: open up the middle sections in the upper tier on the half line of both sides if there is at enough people to get season tickets for at least one full side. The Rest of the tickets could be sold for single ticket games. Keep a list of Season ticket holders in the order of their senority, so if the next year both sides open up for season ticket holders, they can move to better seats on the other sides.

I don’t know how many seats these middle upper sections hold, but I am thinking at least 5,000.

So with the Sounders averaging almost 31,000 seats and adding 2,200 in the Hawks nest/Green Wave that would total at least 38,000 fans. That is if my guesstamation of at least 5,000 seats in the middle upper sections is accurate.

Getting 38,000 tickests sold for Sounders games could be an attainable goal for the PR gurus. It would also test the passion and resolve of the Soccer fans in Washington State.

By: JackR

JackR — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:29:07 +0000

They should keep the upper bowl tarp, and open up the hawk’s nest. Right now the team is doing well,but in the future it may not be the same. You must solidified your fan base before you expand. I don’t think that it is a good idea when you have one strong team, attendance wise, while you have the rest of the league struggling with average attendance below 17,000. Taylor and Stacey made good points that the health of the whole league is important. You cannot have only one good team and the rest of the league is not healthy. We must not forget the NASL. We should learn from the NASL experiece. Let’s not repeat it.

By: Publicola » Blog Archive » The Upper Deck

Publicola » Blog Archive » The Upper Deck — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:46:38 +0000

[...] Prost Amerika cites the August (?) addition of World Soccer Magazine. I couldn’t find the source itself, [...]

By: CarlosT

CarlosT — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:31:43 +0000

I don’t think that the FO is going to put too much stock into breaking the top 50 beyond “isn’t it nice?” My impression is the FO is concerned with growing the fanbase so it sustains itself over the long term. Opening too much of the stadium would dilute the atmosphere and would leave a portion of those extra people wondering what the fuss was about. They could very well have a bump in attendance for that year with a severe dropoff after that. I think they see it as much better to have a steadily growing number of seats available each year, so that the supply is always just a little under the demand.

Also, if they opened too much upper deck capacity, then it would steal from the lower bowl, because presumably those upper deck seats would be cheaper. If enough people fled the lower bowl, it would create exactly what the FO doesn’t want, which is a bunch of fans scattered here and there in a giant stadium.

By: ABTsportsline

ABTsportsline — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:01:02 +0000

i could care less about modifying the capacity to claim “sellout”…. that is all just based on artificially limiting the supply. The bottom line is the attendance – regardless of how many seats are “open.”

Making the top 50 in the world is a big feat, especially when you consider that, for most of the teams in front of us, soccer is their main sport – and for us it is the second (or third) behind football (and possibly baseball).

Congrats to the Sounders, let’s hope they continue to help the MLS gain popularity

By: Matt Browne

Matt Browne — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:44:56 +0000

@ Derek Young,

+1 for catching that, well played sir!!!

By: Michael W.

Michael W. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:42:01 +0000

I’d rather them open the upper bowl to bring in 45,000 people/game and have some empty seats up top than tarp the whole thing off to attain “sellouts”. The demand for Sounders FC is high in Seattle and they’re losing money and a chance to bring in more supporters by capping ticket sales.

By: Taylor

Taylor — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:39:05 +0000

My whole thing is that 25-30K of people are soccer fans. The ECS NES and people around it want to be there. They love the team. This is my first year watching the Sounders and I can honestly say I’m hooked. The friendlies sucked in my view, because you had a lot of people there just to be there, and didn’t know how to partake at a soccer event. I was stuck in the Hawk’s Nest, and having to sit the whole game, and watch people consistently get up and leave during play sucked. People leaving at the 85th minute sucked. 35K should be about what we aim for next year. I can’t imagine watching the game from the upper bowl, away from the rest of the fans there. There will be a time and place where we can expand into the entire stadium, but not before the rest of the MLS is on our level. Toronto is the only team capable of drawing 20K consistently. If the rest of the league can average 15-20K the salary cap will go up (or even away) and we could afford to be a world team. Right now that shouldn’t even be an option, being an MLS team.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:10:26 +0000

I disagree with the notion that the blocked-off sections hurts the team somehow. I find it pretty funny that some other people in soccer, particularly in MLS, carp about the Sounders claiming that the games are “sold out” despite seats being blocked off.

It’s delicious when you figure that those other folks cannot find a way to fill their 20K seat stadiums. If the upper deck had been opened and the Sounders sold the same number of seats, it’s not a “sellout”… but the SSFC would still hold the attendance record and would still be selling 150% of the tickets of any other MLS team.

There’s a ton of psychology at play here. The psychology of the current fans feeling like they have more value in their tickets, because those tickets are a limited commodity. The psychology of looking around and seeing a packed stadium. The psychology of the limited supply making people MORE eager to buy tickets (and thus probably paying more than they would if there were 65K available for every game.) And yeah, the psychology of being able to say that every game was a sellout.

I don’t mind the club setting a target that they can meet, as opposed to setting targets that are going to be tough or impossible to meet. For one thing, going into the season, they could not have possibly known that they’d sell as many seats as they did. The only hint was the extreme demand for season tickets, but even that wasn’t a sure thing when they came up with the “tarp off the upper deck” plan.

I vote for selling the Hawk’s Nest and the loge seating all of next year, and then ramp it up from there. Keep in mind that sales are bound to drop after a losing season or three (just look at the Mariners).