OnGoal, LLC, owners of the MLS franchise Kansas City Wizards, are going directly to the fans. On bigsoccer.com last Wednesday, Robb Heineman (part-owner of the team) posted a series of questions in order to get fan feedback under the heading (and I'm not kidding) "Do my job for me.....i'm just a rookie".
It isn't surprising that KC's ownership is clueless. One can judge that by the fact that despite having one of the better teams in the league, they have the worst attendance in the league. Of course, the Wiz's attendance woes go back to the days when they were actually known as the Wiz. Over their 11 years in the league, Kansas City's average attendance is around 11,000, which would be a semi-respectable number if you didn't look at the per-year stats. In the lean years of 1997 to 2000, Kansas City has only been able to sell around 9,000 tickets. And in 2000, they won the MLS Cup (and only drew 9,112). The MLS Cup Championship boosted their attendance over the next 4 seasons, with 2003 being the high water mark (15,473), but since then KC's appeal is waning. Their average attendance figures so far this season are 9,691, according to the league.
So Heineman is admitting that they are clueless and they are going to the fans. Here are the questions he posed:
1. where would you like to play in '08? (to clarify a. high school stadium, b. arrowhead c. other ideas you have)
2. who would you like to play in friendly matches and where?
3. would you rather build a stadium in kansas or missouri?
4. if you could pick-out and sign our DP who would it be?
5. if you could trade for anybody in the league, who would it be?
6. preseason - argentina or spain?
7. promote pierron or reynolds?
I'm not going to give my answers to questions 1-3 because they are all basically the same question, and I think that they should move the franchise to Philadelphia or Seattle anyway. But if that's off the table, questions 4 and 5 are interesting. I think that Kansas City should bring in Thomas Gravesen since no one seems to want him. There were rumors that he was not fitting in with Celtic and they were looking to deal him to Sheffield United for around 2 million pounds. KC needs a holding midfielder, someone to be enforcer in the middle of the field. He has the body type of a younger Preki and the heritage of Miklos Molnar. Seems like a perfect fit for Kansas City to me. As for question 5, I would deal Sasha Victorrine and Davy Arnaud to New England for Andy Dorman or Adam Cristman to give Johnson some help. But that's just me.
It is an interesting idea to solicit advice from fans, certainly outside the typical owner's box, but I hope they think a little bit before listening to one fan on bigsoccer who suggested they play at a high school stadium. This is not USL-1. Unless, he was suggesting that they should be relegated.
2 comments:
You are an idiot. Give the ownership group some credit for soliciting feedback from their customers & fans. The ownership group created a $3 billion fortune 1000 company from scratch, I think they know how to run a business.
To what fortune 1000 company are you referring? OneGoal, LLC? Or are you referring to Cerner or Conspec? Heinemenn's Rock Island Capital? Nobody is doubting their ability to sell concrete or IT for healthcare systems. My point is I can run a manure company and know shit about making money, but I might not know shit about running a soccer franchise. And I did give them credit "It is an interesting idea to solicit advice from fans, certainly outside the typical owner's box..." You must be from KC. Why don't you go to a match instead of calling people names? Improve your team's crappy attendance.
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