SUMmer of Soccer Continues

Coming into this past weekend, 21 matches(5 doubleheaders) have been played during the the ‘Summer of Soccer’ which began on June 20. Attendance: 252,914. All games, except the Timbers friendly, were part of entities owned or marketed by Soccer United Marketing(SUM).

The Gold Cup finished the group phase with 6 doubleheaders.

Here’s how this week’s events fared …

Summer of Soccer Attendances
Opponents Venue Date Event Att
 Panama vs. Nicaragua
Mexico vs. Guadeloupe
 U of Phoenix Stadium
Glendale, AZ
Sun, July 12  Gold Cup  23,876
 RSL v Club America  Rio Tinto Stadium
Sandy, UT
Sat, July 11  Friendly  17,212
 USA v Haiti
Honduras v Grenada
 Gillette Stadium
Foxborough, MA
Sat, July 11  Gold Cup  24,137
 Costa Rica v Canada
El Salvador v Jamaica
 FIU Stadium
Miami, FL
Fri, July 10  Gold Cup  17,269
 Guadeloupe v Nicaragua
Mexico v Panama
 Reliant Stadium
Houston, TX
Thu, July 09  Gold Cup  47,713
 Haiti v Grenada
USA v Honduras
 RFK Stadium
Washington, DC
Wed, July 08  Gold Cup  26,079
 Jamaica v Costa Rica
El Salvador v Canada
 Crew Stadium
Columbus, OH
Tue, July 07  Gold Cup  7,059
 total  163,345 
 average  23,335 

The six Gold Cup doubleheaders are marketed(Ch-ching!) by SUM.


“Soccer United Marketing manages marketing, public relations and operations for the Gold Cup tournament.”

No marketing that I could see directed at the Anglo soccer audience in Phoenix. Checked the AZ Republic’s Sunday morning website and found no reference to the games. At least it wasn’t easily located if a gameday article existed.
Phoenix as a possible World Cup venue in 2018 or 2022? Can’t imagine anyone with FIFA who may have attended the matches in Phoenix thinking anything other than, ‘Whoa, it’s f**king hot!’. It was 113 on game day.

How Does the Gold Cup Impact MLS Soccer

USMNT Gold Cup
MLS Same Day Attendance v Average
  Group Play  6/6/2007  07 Avg
  Toronto  20,113  20,130
  Chicago  20,407  16,490  7/4/2009  09 Avg
  FC Dallas  14,640  15,145  14,327  9,306
  Columbus  14,370  13,056
  Colorado  19,680  13,045
  Kansas City  10,385  9,789
  Los Angeles  20,609  19,292
  Group Play  7/11/2009  09 Avg
  Seattle  32,404  29,715
  New England  24,137  11,511
  Chicago  18,123  11,726
  Colorado  8,128  13,045
  San Jose  9,679  11,774
  Chivas USA  23,409  15,312

Correction

In my last post on this subject, I had mistakenly listed an ’07 Houston match as occuring on same day as a USMNT Gold Cup. The US match was on June 6, as the above chart indicates.

For those of us that are looking for MLS to eliminate the scheduling conflicts with FIFA and CONCACAF, these numbers do not lend themselves to press the issue. For the most part, attendances on MLS match days that coincided with the USMNT match days were above 2009 seasonal averages. New England’s huge increase comes as a result of their MLS match being added to a Gold Cup doubleheader.
Most fans, of course, would make the case for not having their teams be forced to play with top players off on international duty, thereby diluting the quality of play. I’m certainly in that group. But it’s apparent that money can’t be used to as the wedge to change MLS scheduling policy, because it appears they are not being hurt. That will make it very difficult to convince the MLS to move more games to weekdays, which would be necessary to complete the schedule with breaks for internationals. It is my opinion that the league is still in ‘survival’ mode. Using the widely read Forbes report on MLS after the 2007 season as a baseline, I expect 11 teams will lose money this year. So while the league appears in no danger of folding, it still depends heavily on the ancillary revenues generated by SUM’s non MLS business activities and more recently, expansion fees. By the time expansion ends, will most teams be in the black? Don’t know, but until then the league(and SUM) will continue to play it conservatively. Only when it’s demonstrated that teams can make it on their own will the reins be loosened.
And that’s the point of this series of posts. In this post, I displayed a table that demonstrates that clever marketing could produce financially viable weekday events paired with MLS matches, thus overcoming the fears that MLS teams would be significantly hurt by shifting more games to weekdays. That would overcome a major stumbling block in alleviating MLS/International match conflicts.

How SUM of the Money is Spent

Dick’s Sporting Goods Park hosted the 2009 SUM U-17 Cup.

Congestion for some

SuperLiga after Group Phase
Total Game Dates Average
2007  195,816  12  16,318
2008  161,167  12  13,431
2009  86,948  10  8,695
2 Doubleheaders in 2009 meant
2 fewer separate game dates
Chicago beat Revs on July 15
Final on Wed, Aug 5

This coming Sunday will complete a 29 day run in which the Revs will have played 8 matches(MLS, USOC, SuperLiga).

For Chicago, after they play this weekend, they’ll have played 3 matches in 8 days. Not too bad, but it comes a week removed from having played 5 games in 15 days from June 20 to July 4. And like most teams, key players Segares, Soumare and Pause were on international duty and missed games at various times.

As I’ve mentioned before, expect changes to the SuperLiga after this year. If the tournament survives in 2010, a World Cup year, and remains essentially unchanged, it will be a sure indication that live attendance and wide distribution of English language coverage in the US are irrelevant. That will demonstrate where the real money comes from; sponsorships and Spanish language TV. SuperLiga in August or September next year?

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US Open
Jul 21 Sep 2
Semifinals Final
DCU, Houston, Seattle

Seattle hosts Houston at the Starfire Sports Stadium in Tukwila, Wash. Rochester will travel to Maryland SoccerPlex in Boyds, Md. to meet DC United. Rochester receives $10,000 for being the last team standing from USL-1.

DCU and Houston play on July 18th, and all three play on July 25th. Houston will play 3 meaningful matches in 8 days during the Jul 18-25 time period. DCU has a CONCACAF Champions league match on July 28. Seattle will play Chelsea FC on the 18th.

Kansas City’s exit from the tourney culminated a run of 6 matches in 17 days. KC then played a league match on July 11, making it 7 matches in 21 days.

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CONCACAF Champions League
Jul 28 – Jul 30 Aug 4 – Aug 6
Prelim First Leg Prelim Second Leg
DCU, RBNY, TFC

DCU and TFC play MLS league games on Jul 25 and August 2. That means they will each play 4 times during the period Jul 25-Aug 6(13 days). RBNY play an MLS game on Jul 25, but are off the week of August 2.

All told, between July 18 and August 8, DCU has 4 MLS matches, 2 CONCACAF Champions league matches and 1 US Open Cup match. 7 matches in 22 days.

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Well, it’s still not pretty, but unlike last year, teams won’t be coming out of SuperLiga to compete in the CONCACAF Champions League.