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USMNT survey


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#16 dirtyboy

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Posted 27 October 2011 - 10:11 AM

Anyone have an ESPN Insider account? This story looks interesting and might have information prevalent to shark_boy's report.

http://insider.espn....ccer-attendance

#17 Shooter

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Posted 27 October 2011 - 10:35 AM

Anyone have an ESPN Insider account? This story looks interesting and might have information prevalent to shark_boy's report.

http://insider.espn....ccer-attendance



Since we're all about measurement here on Insider, we figured we'd look at some figures that in their own way are as disappointing as the lack of goals so far under Jurgen Klinsmann -- the U.S. national team's recent attendance figures.

The Yanks are coming off three straight summers of intense international competitions that fans gobbled up. The 2009 Confederations Cup, the 2010 World Cup and this summer's CONCACAF Gold Cup generated significant interest and, in the latter two cases, impressive TV ratings. But that interest didn't translate into crowded turnstiles at first four home matches of the Klinsmann era. The national team failed to sell out either the Home Depot Center (15,798 vs. Costa Rica) or Red Bull Arena (20,707 vs. Ecuador), despite those MLS venues' sub-25,000 capacity. They couldn't fill the lower bowl at Sun Life Stadium in Miami (21,170 vs. Honduras) and, most surprising, couldn't draw a monster crowd for a match with Mexico in Klinsmann's debut in Philadelphia, filling just 30,138 of Lincoln Financial Field's 68,532 seats.

So why hasn't all that World Cup passion, not to mention a new world-famous coach, translated into fuller houses? We caught up with Sunil Gulati this week, and the U.S. Soccer president says the attendance issue is complicated.

For one thing, Gulati says, "Water cooler moments" like Landon Donovan's winning goal against Algeria, are just that -- moments. "It's impossible to keep up the momentum of the 72 hours or seven days after Landon's goal. It's impossible to keep up the momentum of the 72 hours or week after Abby Wambach's goal and the subsequent win for the U.S. women's team this past summer. What you hope is in both cases you're in a slightly higher or significantly higher platform to try to continue. But overnight you don't change the landscape for soccer, or virtually anything in a country like the United States."

Even though Klinsmann has been popular with fans and media, "People go to watch the team play," Gulati says. "There are very few coaches who add to attendance."

On a more practical level, "I think in some ways the market may have been a little bit saturated," Gulati says. Though the feeble Mexico gate was a shock to people accustomed to El Tri fans filling any match with the U.S., in hindsight maybe it shouldn't have been. "It was shortly after the Gold Cup," Gulati says, "and on top of the Gold Cup, we had a lot of high-level international games this year," plus U.S. barnstorming tours by Barcelona and Manchester United.

Meanwhile, MLS is a much stronger league now than even four years ago and broke overall attendance records this year, drawing more than 17,800 fans a game. It's possible that the U.S. league sopped up some of the soccer demand created by the U.S. national team.

Beyond that, Gulati says, "The schedule of games this year, Mexico in particular, came in a tough period in August -- middle of the summer, vacation time, all of those things."

U.S. Soccer's core mission is player development, and not marketing, but the organization needs to take a long look at the empty seats. One place to start is ticket prices. It was $55 a pop for decent tickets against Costa Rica; how many fans who caught a World Cup game and liked it, but aren't versed in the nuances of CONCACAF rivalries, are going to gamble on a family night, or buddies' night, that tops $200 for four people? Especially in this economy. It's not surprising that the Honduras match in Miami saw a significant attendance bump when half-price tix came available on GroupOn. Even at half price, those $30 seats were more expensive than most New York Red Bulls tickets will be next year, and that's after the Red Bulls angered fans with a huge hike.

The fact that we're able to critique the attendance is a good sign. A national team that's long punched above its weight class has created expectations for the game in this country, and not just on the field. Those expectations were fueled by events like the incredible turnout of U.S. fans for matches in South Africa.

U.S. national team fans are proud and, on message boards, quite loud. But they still don't constitute a very large or reliable market. U.S. Soccer needs to figure out ways to change that.

#18 haggis

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Posted 30 October 2011 - 09:49 PM

Done

I'd like to see your report once it's complete. Good luck with it.

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