"We missed you in the beginning of the season"

Exactly this, and pretty much what I meant. In a sense it's sort of brand awareness we're lacking, but it's not just us but more of an MLS problem. Every once in a while a caller will mention the team on WFAN and the almost universal response from the host is that nobody's interested. Which is more or less true, especially in a city like ours where there are nine other professional sports teams in the "big four" sports. In an atmosphere like that you need to constantly get the team mentioned both in ads and in the news. We need to hear about tomorrow's girls team tryouts on the radio, maybe get a TV station news crew or three up there and have a 20 second human interest spot or two tomorrow night. That sort of thing. Get some of the players to do appearances on the morning TV shows. Get WFAN to do more than merely mention the scores. We need to get the team in the public eye. A subway ad is great, but what you need is to have the team be an actual thing that people are aware of, so that when they do happen to see a subway ad they'll easily be able to start to think of buying a ticket and bringing they're friends or family. Brand awareness is such a cliche but it's what we need, and what MLS needs.

What we need is a media rep who can get us on the media.

In a way we're in the same spot as hockey, except they're the after and we're the before. If you stop an average person on the street and say "hockey" they'll know about the Rangers and possibly also the Devils and Islanders maybe. But they're guaranteed to be aware of the NHL, and know that the Rangers play in the Garden. If you then say "soccer" to them they'll maybe say something like, "oh, yes, the kids all love to play soccer, especially on Long Island." Even if they've heard of MLS they may not even know there's a team here in the city and even fewer will know they play at Yankee Stadium. I've had people give me a "wow" when I've told them that, which honestly is a little weird.

Brand awareness: MLS's biggest problem.

I've seen NYCFC get the most brand publicity at the New York Stock Exchange (I think 3/4 times over the past three years) and that's not the top place a sports team should be getting their message out.
 
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Exactly this, and pretty much what I meant. In a sense it's sort of brand awareness we're lacking, but it's not just us but more of an MLS problem. Every once in a while a caller will mention the team on WFAN and the almost universal response from the host is that nobody's interested. Which is more or less true, especially in a city like ours where there are nine other professional sports teams in the "big four" sports. In an atmosphere like that you need to constantly get the team mentioned both in ads and in the news. We need to hear about tomorrow's girls team tryouts on the radio, maybe get a TV station news crew or three up there and have a 20 second human interest spot or two tomorrow night. That sort of thing. Get some of the players to do appearances on the morning TV shows. Get WFAN to do more than merely mention the scores. We need to get the team in the public eye. A subway ad is great, but what you need is to have the team be an actual thing that people are aware of, so that when they do happen to see a subway ad they'll easily be able to start to think of buying a ticket and bringing they're friends or family. Brand awareness is such a cliche but it's what we need, and what MLS needs.

What we need is a media rep who can get us on the media.

In a way we're in the same spot as hockey, except they're the after and we're the before. If you stop an average person on the street and say "hockey" they'll know about the Rangers and possibly also the Devils and Islanders maybe. But they're guaranteed to be aware of the NHL, and know that the Rangers play in the Garden. If you then say "soccer" to them they'll maybe say something like, "oh, yes, the kids all love to play soccer, especially on Long Island." Even if they've heard of MLS they may not even know there's a team here in the city and even fewer will know they play at Yankee Stadium. I've had people give me a "wow" when I've told them that, which honestly is a little weird.

Brand awareness: MLS's biggest problem.

A lot of what you talk about falls on the public relations department. Anything involving media coverage is something PR needs to "pitch" to local news networks and newspapers. They do some of it in the smaller papers and publications, but the big boys (Times, Post, DN) do virtually nothing.

The papers probably believe that not enough people care about NYCFC to spend the money on doing coverage. There needs to be a way to prove them wrong. I have no idea what that way is.
 
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I've seen NYCFC get the most brand publicity at the New York Stock Exchange (I think 3/4 times over the past three years) and that's not the top place a sports team should be getting their message out.
I think this is good. When a NYC team makes it and gets hot the casual fans with more money than sense or passion spends stupid money on expensive seats and especially for the glamour games. As much as the hardcore fans hate that if the team gets to the point where the real moneyed class is spending $500 on StubHub for playoff tickets then that is a sign of having broken through.
 
They've been doing that. They like billboards and bus stop and subway signs. But it's pretty sporadic and probably needs to be integrated into a more comprehensive approach.

Fair point. I don't drive in too often but I'd like to see one on the Deegan and at approaches to the GWB.

Side question. I know one of the selling points to buying season tickets was priority in getting seats at a future stadium. With the lack of any new info on said stadium, do you think people are dropping tickets because they're assuming the stadium isn't happening?

I also think the team is suffering from the same things as the Yankees. Demand for tickets is not as high as it used to be so why but season tickets when you can pick them up for most games for half price. I saw tickets on the ticketmaster resale for as low as $11 for last weekend's game.
 
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Fair point. I don't drive in too often but I'd like to see one on the Deegan and at approaches to the GWB.

Side question. I know one of the selling points to buying season tickets was priority in getting seats at a future stadium. With the lack of any new info on said stadium, do you think people are dropping tickets because they're assuming the stadium isn't happening?
I don't think we know. It clearly bothers some people and I'm certain has caused some people to fall away, but that doesn't mean it's a significant factor. Plus, for the casual fans who have become aware of the team, playing in Yankee Stadium is a plus. It is a sign of seriousness and importance, more impressive than playing in a brand new 20-30k seat SSS. I couldn't say how it all balances out and would dismiss anyone who purported to know absent real research.
 
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  • Minnesota somewhere north of 15k season tickets sold which is awfully close to our 18-19k, and the entire state of Minnesota is less than half the size of just the NY metro area. The Twin Cities metro area is 1/3 our size.
MNU has less than ~11,8xx season tickets sold. That is the cap for this year, and they stated they haven't reached it yet. They picked the number because it is the number of lakes in MN.

YES is owned by the Yankees so it shouldn't cost anything to air there (although there'd be some cost to make the spots), and
YES is no longer owned, or at least majority owned/controlled by the Yankees. They sold to Fox Sports some time ago. So we would have to negotiate air time with Fox, who may or may not be interested. I think if NYCFC produced the programming, they would gladly give up the airtime for the added content.
 
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MNU has less than ~11,8xx season tickets sold. That is the cap for this year, and they stated they haven't reached it yet. They picked the number because it is the number of lakes in MN.


YES is no longer owned, or at least majority owned/controlled by the Yankees. They sold to Fox Sports some time ago. So we would have to negotiate air time with Fox, who may or may not be interested. I think if NYCFC produced the programming, they would gladly give up the airtime for the added content.
If YES is owned by Fox, there should never again be a game telecast delayed by a Yankees game going long. They have plenty of channels to place it on as a rollover.
 
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MNU has less than ~11,8xx season tickets sold. That is the cap for this year, and they stated they haven't reached it yet. They picked the number because it is the number of lakes in MN.
Don Garber: "Obviously Atlanta and Minnesota begin to play next year, LA in 2018. Both teams are doing very well in preparing for their inaugural seasons. Atlanta has over 20,000 season tickets; I believe Minnesota is at 15,000."
http://www.espnfc.us/major-league-s...commissioner-talks-expansion-pro-rel-and-more

ETA: to be fair you can easily find skepticism of Garber's statement on the web. But the 11,842 also was definitely not a cap on season tickets. It was limit to the number of season ticket holders eligible for the Itasca Society which is their version of Founding Members. They seem not to have reached that, but most accounts hold more than one ticket so the number is uncertain. Also a lot of the skepticism of Garber's statement is based on people misreading the 11,842 number and thinking it is the number of tickets eligible for that status but it clearly says "Membership is limited to the first 11,842 season ticket holders"
http://mnunitedtickets.com/itasca.html
 
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schedule is kind of terrible for me this year. I come from Connecticut and work 6 days a week. Get out pretty early Saturday but this most of our home games are either Saturday afternoon or weeknights both of which are no no's for me. Has to be Saturday night or Sunday so I'm not going to make it to nearly as many matches as the first two seasons.
 
If get this survey and you dont mention SSS, you are doing us all a disservice.
 
I am dropping two tickets if there's no announcement this year. I only added them for priority since I know get to select 4 seats at my day 1 selection spot.

But why bother with priority when it's not going to get you anything.
 
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I am dropping two tickets if there's no announcement this year. I only added them for priority since I know get to select 4 seats at my day 1 selection spot.

But why bother with priority when it's not going to get you anything.
I'm selling my tickets for the rest of the year and given that I'm moving I don't see any reason to renew.

A big draw for me keeping them was being one of the people who got their name etched into the stadium and since that seems to be about a decade away, I honestly don't see a reason to renew unless I manage to sell my tickets for a profit. Judging by attendance early on and the general lack of enthusiasm I've seen from casual fans and even the team marketing department so far this year I don't think selling them above face value will be an option.

I hope this email was a fire being lit under someone's ass as they saw the team get their lowest ever attendance. Ideally the team finally listens to suggestions from some people :rolleyes: and reaches out to schools and universities to offer heavily discounted tickets to students.

The way to build a long term base of support is to target them when they're young. Just take a page from cigarette manufacturers back in the 50's.
 
I think all of this loops around to the posts about casual marketing in the city - bus stops, bodegas, subway, Grand Central, etc. I saw a lot more of this in past years than I do now. That kind of thing can work terrifically to create or reinforce an impression that this team is one with the city and a big part of it. If you get in front of people's eyes enough, especially as they go through their day around the City, then they will be more interested when seeing a news story about the Club or receptive when someone suggests going to a game.


The way to build a long term base of support is to target them when they're young. Just take a page from cigarette manufacturers back in the 50's.

This is entirely correct and is really how MLS is thinking about things generally. This is why they've had a "go slow" approach from the beginning. I love the college team I do not for any rational reason, but just because I was going to games there when I was 7. That's the basis of real, deep loyalty, and it takes a generation for that to fully take hold.

I'm selling my tickets for the rest of the year and given that I'm moving I don't see any reason to renew.

Where are your seats?
 
The way to build a long term base of support is to target them when they're young.
Well if our neighborhood playground and my son's 4-6 year old futsal team are any indication, we have a promising next generation of STH. We have met 3 families with season tickets at the playground where our kids just all happened to be wearing jerseys. We then met a few more families with season tickets this winter at soccer practice. Two of the kids in my son's school class have also been to games. Maybe they were on to something with the Villa Sesame Street segment. I know that there have been studies and debates as to the pros and cons of giving away unused sports tickets but, here, I see the upside of targeting schools, youth teams, etc. From what I have seen, you have plenty of parents grooming the kids. It also would be effective to target the kids who, in turn, may hook their parents.
 
For me, it is an open question whether demand for tickets has truly fallen or whether the decline in attendance is driven more by the removal of artificial supports such that what we are seeing now is a baseline.

In the inaugural season I know there were massive giveaways to youth teams, etc that padded our number a lot. There seems to be a lot less of that happening now. I'd be wary of thinking those help all that much long term when we know that the NJRB did the same for years tonlittle lasting effect, but they certainly help attendance in the short term.
 
Well if our neighborhood playground and my son's 4-6 year old futsal team are any indication, we have a promising next generation of STH. We have met 3 families with season tickets at the playground where our kids just all happened to be wearing jerseys. We then met a few more families with season tickets this winter at soccer practice. Two of the kids in my son's school class have also been to games. Maybe they were on to something with the Villa Sesame Street segment. I know that there have been studies and debates as to the pros and cons of giving away unused sports tickets but, here, I see the upside of targeting schools, youth teams, etc. From what I have seen, you have plenty of parents grooming the kids. It also would be effective to target the kids who, in turn, may hook their parents.
Why is photoshop the most used graphics software outside of the "business" world - because every university used it via dirt cheap educational licenses, and Adobe never went after bootlegged copies/individual users for home use. They wanted the college generation to be so adept with it that companies would pay for it as their imaging software of choice. It was gorilla marketing before there was gorilla marketing.

NYCFC should totally be selling the cheaper tickets to schools and universities as a reduced rate. Get them hooked young and watch them grow; and they'll still buy concessions and merchandise (or their parents will).
 
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