It appears that the Washington D.C. -Metro area has, for the moment, caught the Spirit. Last Saturday night, at Audi Field in the nation’s capital, close to 20,000 people walked through the gates of D.C.’s newest stadium and were given something that young and old will remember for quite a long time: a 2-1 win by the Spirit over the Orlando Pride and a sign that things are finally heading in the right direction for the women’s side.
Those who want to paint the picture that this was a watershed moment for soccer in the DMV are partially correct. Soccer has always had a massive impact in the Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area. It is one of a handful of American cities that have hosted both men’s and women’s World Cups and Olympics matches. For decades it was one of the automatic shoo-ins for areas to host international tournaments along with Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York/New Jersey. At the youth club level the region has produced hundreds of top-level athletes who have gone on to play club soccer not just in the United States but internationally as well.
So the District can be rightfully called a soccer hotbed. However, it is certainly fair to say that it has waned in importance in recent years. Part of that is due to the lack of a viable big stadium to host major matches. After RFK Stadium fell into disarray there wasn’t an exact replacement. FedEx Field in Landover, which is home to the Washington American Professional Football Team, isn’t a desirable option given that A) getting in and out of the stadium is a nightmare and B) the owner Daniel Snyder is universally loathed. Baltimore’s M &T Bank Stadium is a fine place to watch matches, but tournament organizers have always shown a weird reluctance about giving international matches to both Philadelphia and Baltimore, given the proximity to one another.
Then came Audi Field. Although it is not exactly a massive stadium, it is a significant upgrade in size for the Spirit when compared to the Maryland SoccerPlex. The SoccerPlex main stadium typically holds about 5,000 (although that number can go up as we have seen the team open up both ends of goal for spectators in recent weeks) while Audi clocks in at close to 20,000. There is also a significant increase in amenities at Audi versus the SoccerPlex, with more food and drink options and general merchandise available. The one downgrade is parking, where there is little to none near Audi while the SoccerPlex has vast swaths of parking options due to hosting multiple fields throughout the park.
Parking aside, a move to Audi makes sense for a Spirit ownership that seems ambitious and wanting to use the buzz of the World Cup to continue their reboot. Having covered the team over the past five years, a marked change was in the atmosphere and the attitude within the club this year over years past. After coming within whiskers of winning the NWSL Championship, the club seemed to lose their way, struggling to win a handful of games each season and struggling to get people at the gates. The club’s media presence was barely noticeable with no regional broadcast partner and with minimal coverage in major media.
However, 2019 seems to be different for the Spirit. With the addition of Steve Baldwin as a majority owner and hiring Richie Burke the club made a clean break from the past. On the pitch the club added three top ten draft picks in Samantha Staab, Jordan DiBiasi, and Tegan McGrady, which has also helped in infusing the team with a new energy and some better results.
Off of the pitch, it is a brand new club. Whether it is club legend Joanna Lohman providing analysis on Fox 5 during the Women’s World Cup, seeking out more local sponsors and working with local business leaders to get the word out on the team, or their regional television deal with NBCSN-Mid Atlantic. The club has more of a presence around the area, which in turn undoubtedly has led to better attendance numbers. The club also seems to be marketing more towards local soccer teams in the area (such as holding open practices at FedEx Field and Audi) and using the Maryland SoccerPlex as a means to get people at the gate.
The Portland Thorns defeat the Washington Spirit 3-1 at Providence Park, Saturday August 17, 2019 (Photo by Dante’y Buitureida).
A quick sidebar: Let’s get rid of the tired ‘The Spirit cannot draw a crowd at the Maryland SoccerPlex because it is so far away from Washington D.C.’ nonsense. The SoccerPlex on an average weekend will see 6-7 thousand families come through its gates either for games or for tournaments and realistically that number is probably higher. Parents and players are already in the area and likely spending multiple days in the region especially if it is a tournament. To say that the Spirit could not grab at least half of those individuals for a 7pm game is ridiculous. The problem is that, like so many issues in soccer, the club never really marketed to teams that didn’t have the Spirit on their shirts. Now they are and we can already see the difference.
While seeing the Spirit in a venue the size of Audi at full capacity might be something new for the club (the team played at Audi last year to a crowd of about 8,000) the signs had been there, interest had been picking up for the side. The club’s two previous home games at the SoccerPlex were sellouts with the last match against the Chicago Red Stars forcing the club to use both goal ends for seating, something unseen in five years of covering the team.
Although the club will be back at Audi for their September 14 match against the Seattle Reign, using Audi for every match is unlikely. With the venue serving as D.C. United’s home and the D.C. City Government trying to avoid having both home soccer and baseball matches going on at the same time (The Washington Nationals stadium is roughly less than a mile away and traffic is the seventh circle of hell in the Southeast part of the city) there will likely still be matches going on at the SoccerPlex into the future. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as the club uses the opportunity to their advantage.
So how do the Spirit keep this going? The first and easiest answer is that they need to win. As evidenced by 2016 when the club made it to the finals, fans will show up to the gates if they believe the team is good. Having Rose Lavelle and Mallory Pugh helps, but the two really haven’t produced much for the team in 2019 and will be in and out of the roster due to USWNT duties for the remainder of the season. Players like Aubrey Bledsoe (who made several key stops in goal on Saturday), Andi Sullivan and Cheyna Matthews, have to continue to be a steadying presence for the club’s younger players. They only have two games left at home and will be heading on the road to play in difficult venues like North Carolina and Portland, which will not be easy.
Winning will go a long way towards building off of the momentum of Saturday night, but so too will doing the small things right. The Washington D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area has a soccer mad culture and is one that has time and time again proven itself to be a hotbed for soccer of all varieties. Any person who has stood on the sidelines after a match at the SoccerPlex knows that the fans of women’s soccer don’t just know the USWNT superstars but also the entire eighteen of each side. Continuing to work with local club teams and tapping into the market of high school soccer will further expand their audience and show that they want to be leaders of the soccer community.
Washington Spirit
