With the Seattle Sounders’ trouncing of Colorado in the US Open Cup and their Round of 16 win over Chivas America, MLS Seattle boosters are pointing and nodding and nudging one another like Tim Howard off his meds. But hold on a minute.
The Sounders put together a couple of wins and looked impressive against Colorado, but this particular team’s quality on the pitch says nothing about Seattle’s ability to host an MLS expansion team.
That’s not the way Seattle Sounder owner Adrian Hanauer saw it following his side's win:
"I'm highly optimistic we'll be able to get this thing [MLS expansion] done this time"
Not so fast, Hanauer. Let’s examine an aspect of last night’s 5-0 blitzkrieg of Colorado that has been overlooked – the pitiful crowd.
I watched the match on usllive.com (ok, the first half) and what struck me was not the quality of the Sounders or the terrible play of the Rapids, but the complete lack of atmosphere. If Seattle fans expect MLS to bring a franchise to their city, they need to show the league that they will support a team (even when they’re playing crappy Colorado). And there were way too many open seats. Sure, it was played in Qwest Field, a cavernous NFL stadium, but I’m talking empty bottom bowl seats.
The attendance for last night’s match was officially 6,619. Against Chivas America in the Round of 16, it was 3,589. Pitiful.
I can only guess, but I am confident that this would not be the case in a city like Philadelphia, who is also soliciting MLS for a team. Admittedly, I have experienced the passion of the Philly fans first hand when I made a comment about them possibly slipping on the list of MLS expansion cities and was immediately torched on this site and Big Soccer.
Yes, the Sons of Ben, as their already-created supporters group is called, are in full force and would have gotten out the word and filled the stadium had an MLS club came to town to play a local Philly squad. They are already organizing trips to other MLS stadiums. And there is already a proposed SSS in Chester, Pa.
I googled and googled and I couldn’t find anything like the SOBs (I hope they did that on purpose) for Seattle. I found this blog GoalSeattle.com, but it doesn’t seem to be organizing fan support in any real way, other than politely urging people to support the Sounders.
Another stumbling block for MLS Seattle will be Qwest, itself. MLS commish Don Garber has gone on record stating that every MLS team needs to be playing in their own soccer-specific stadium. So, even if Qwest Field is an acceptable short-term solution, a Seattle franchise would need to be thinking about an SSS. And here’s a great column on the problem with that, courtesy of a blogger on seattlest.com.
Last night was Seattle’s opportunity to show that there is a passion and desire to bring MLS to the city, and it fell as flat as the Colorado Rapid defense.
11 comments:
You are wrong on almost all levels. Shoulda been there. The most important level you are wrong about?
MLS is looking for franchise investors, NOT supporters groups.
Seattle currently have FOUR groups playing it out for MLS rights.
Unless all of these rich guys have not done their homework, I'd say they are sold on Seattle as a market.
BTW:
Emerald City Supporters:
http://goalseattle.com/gallery/ECS-2007-Album
Webmaster,
GOALSeattle.com
I think this raw video gives you a better idea of the actual atmosphere at Qwest last night:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtpKQx6QtoY
Yeah, only having a part of Qwest field's lower bowl filled up certainly looks pathetic...
What happens when you compare that to the (07/22) Colorado Rapids @ Kansas City Wizards @ Arrowhead - 7,101 fans turn out.
But what happens when you compare it with the crap turnout they get at the Dick in Denver when only 10,000 turned out versus defending league champs Houston. AND their SSS opened this year. Aren't you supposed to get sellout after sellout with an established fan base in a new stadium.
Or the 7,802 attendance for the New York Red Bulls when they hosted (surprise, surprise) the Crapids.
You wanna make some noise... Talk about how much crap it is that we don't have relegation. We'd have been in the top flight of American footie for quite some time.
Maybe a little research would've shown how terrible the Crapids are at drawing a crowd when they're on the road (and at home).
So what...30 people, who actually stretch every 4th seat to make it look like there are 100 people there.
You may have *some* atmosphere, but nothing like down in Portland where people are literally scrunching in to sit in 107. Every 2 people for 1 seat.
Seattle may have investors, but it doesn't have shit for supporters.
After what Toronto has showed us, MLS definitely wants more cities like that.
The SonsofBen are also a joke, what, 20 guys started a website, cool.
If MLS came to Portland you would instantly have 2,000+ chanting soccer freaks ready for the action.
MLS has ignored us too long!!
Go away. PDX is irrelevant.
Rapids and KC's shitty attendance aside, we're talking about a city that wants an MLS team and they can't drum up enough support when any MLS club comes to town. And maybe a shitty Rapids team explains the 6,619. What explains the 3,589 against Chivas? I'm on the record saying KC's attendance average is pathetic, but that has nothing to do with whether or not Seattle should get a franchise. Oh and gs-1, what does investors minus fans equal? That's right, the WUSA. And I'm sorry, but the video kind of proves my point, not yours. Put I will post it on the site anyway.
Unless you were there, you really don't know. The atmosphere was actually fantastic, and I've heard from more than one person that was the case. Keep in mind you also don't know what kind of press soccer gets around here. Prior to this game there were two articles in both papers (on game day), as well as a five minute interview with the owner of the team on a sports radio station, and a day or two of ads in the sports sections of the dailies. And that's it. And they managed to double their attendance with only that kind of publicity. Here's hoping that Hanauer will pull his head out of his ass for the next round, and actually try some advertising, but I'm not holding my breath.
One thing that probably helped us last night was that we weren't competing directly with the Mariners who are less than 100 yards directly south of our pitch. On the 18th of July the M's drew 28,550 against Baltimore. I think it's the direct competition there that deflates our numbers a little bit.
There's also a cultural thing here in Seattle that people want Major league sports. Some folks just won't come out to non top-flight matches (crap excuse, but I cannot change people's minds).
What is a true testiment is that we do have an adult league that is now over 100 years old and we have the third biggest youth league in the States behind SF and New York. I think that alone speaks volumes as to why we will get a team.
Well, here's chance number 2 to silence the critics:
September 4
FC Dallas (MLS) at Seattle Sounders (USL-1)
Qwest Field; Seattle, Wash. 7 p.m. PT
I only see one critic and, quite frankly, I don't think Seattle's too terribly worried about silencing you. That said, I want there to be double the attendance we had on Tuesday, as the energy in that stadium was incredible. Best time I've had at a Sounders game in years.
Just amazing. One would think that Toronto fc would put an end to this idiotic comparing of USL attendance and what MLS attendance would be. The seattlest blog is not current as at least one of the investment groups is prepared to PRIVATELY finance a SSS. For public money yes I91 pretty much kills anything in the city but guess what plenty of places outside the city will work just fine. A lot of MLS SSS are feild complex's so I would bet thats the way they are leaning anyway.
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