The Challenge of Marketing NYCFC to NYC

[mgarbowski]

We have 2 related but different discussions.
1. Why has attendance dropped (unless it didn't even drop per Seth); and
2. Why is NYC not killing it in attendance compared to other cities.

I find the second more interesting. NYCFC is 5th, which is fine, but we're also larger than everyone else ahead of us by a factor of roughly 2 or more.

I think the following factors explain why:

• NY is not unified. We are fractured. Diversity is not an asset in this instance. And I'm not specifically talking ethnic diversity. It also includes having 5 distinct boroughs, with multiple unconnected neighborhoods in each, and loyalties that go to your school, or neighborhood, or country of origin, or class, or religion, or race, or your particular interest in art, literature, TV, music, politics, a hobby, activity, or collection, or whatever.
• This is worse than in other cities because NYC is so huge that every tiny sub-group has a critical mass of people who can cluster together instead of getting engaged through momentum into any possible city-wide civic culture.
• Have you ever been in another city when one of their sports teams makes it to even a conference final? The entire city is covered in team colors and everyone takes part in it, including people who silently think sports is stupid. Here, even when the biggest teams like the Giants, Yankees or (it's been a while but still) Knicks win a championship, you not only have fans of competing local teams rooting against them, but everyone who thinks sports is boring sits it out because there are hundreds of thousands of people who feel the same and there is no pressure, negative or positive, to go along. In other cities they would be bandwagon boosters and might even attend games on occasion.
• Many New Yorkers feel disdain for much of American culture, and admiration for foreign. That many foreign soccer leagues are better than MLS reinforces this but it would be an issue and will be an issue as MLS improves. So many NYers root for big foreign teams instead of the local MLS team. Obviously there is substantial evidence just in this forum of fans who do both, but it's a distinct subset. This is why there is more buzz for visits by Schweinsteiger or a washed up Gerrard than for USMNT legend Clint Dempsey and MLS Champion Seattle. Getting excited for a game against Columbus, Houston or Salt Lake will never happen for these people.
• NYCFC is affiliated with the wrong foreign team. Man City is nouveau riche who became good the wrong way and too recently. Teams like Chelsea did the same thing more or less but did so just earlier enough to seem more traditional. Even Tottenham probably has more cachet among these fans than Man City.
• Portland, which has a large similar culture group to the people I am discussing in NYC, overcame this with a team that is distinctly Portland. The name. The colors. Everything about that teams says Portland. It think also helps that that Portland is smaller so the connection between the team and this subculture could coalesce more easily.
• In contrast, NYCFC's identity has nothing to do with New York City. Instead, we have generic "City" branding. Forget Man City, let's take a look at our sibling down under.

• City to the Core, This Is Our City, This Week In Our City, Meeting The City. Every damn one of those could be transplanted to any random city where CFG sets up shop including right here in NYC and fit right in, and be just as bland, generic and meaningless. There's nothing NYC about NYCFC's marketing, name, or branding, except for the letters NYC. Every team in every sport in every city uses the that locality's name so that's not exactly anything. Subway posters based on the "City" brand do nothing to connect this team to This City. Even all the "City" jerseys are 80% or more identical.
• 
• Oh, we have some orange, and the badge looks a bit like a subway token. That's how NYCFC represents NYC. I think this is one reason why people are so unrelenting on demanding a stadium in the boroughs, and so unforgiving of Belmont, even with the sliver of it inside the city. And yes, transportation is a major issue, but even if that were solved, and Belmont were absolutely convenient, I think the fans we do have would reject that site because if the team is not actually 100% inside NYC then there is nothing NYC about it at all. It's just "City"
• Beyond Portland, contrast us also with Seattle or Vancouver. Everything about those teams evokes their location: the name, the colors, the badge. It all fits together. I don't see anything particularly "Atlanta" about Atlanta United, but the locals do. Maybe it is the colors, or the owner, who is a beloved local personality, plus a bandwagon effect in a small/big town (or maybe Atlanta is big/small). They have obviously gotten hardcore soccer fans, plus Atlanta boosters, plus general sports fans, plus soccer mom/dads/kids, plus hipsters, to embrace this team. In contrast to those teams, we are the generic "City."

The core fanbase of this team is people who really like soccer, without reservation, and want a local team to root for. But I think this team does a poor job of wooing

• people who like soccer but mostly root for foreign teams
• people who like other sports and could be convinced to embrace soccer with a bit of momentum and actual NYC branding.

Part of that is the greater barriers and obstacles that NYC presents as I discussed, but it is also just poorly done.

 

[mgarbowski]

Fully agree!

Until CFG starts building a stadium, I have not seen one thing about the organization that makes them any better than a singular owner that’s motivated. We’ve been hurt as much as helped by their player decisions, but hopefully we’re now on the upswing with recent signings (although I bet we lose Hererra-types after a year or two).

I love our club, but...... I hate our branding, I hate our Man City colors, I hate our sponsor, I hate that the mother ship has any control to usurp FO decisions, and I hate that there isn’t one thing about the club that is NY-centric. I think CFG over-estimated their self-worth by wanting a uniform synergy throughout their org - I think NYers that follow another euro team would be more open to taking a dive with the club if they didn’t associate it with being a CFG/MCFC clone. I’m onboard because I want a hometown team to support, but my support stops at the city limits - I couldn’t care one bit about any other CFG org and every Saturday I root against MCFC and take joy whenever they lose.

I personally share many of these sentiments, but for this post my intent was to put it aside. For one thing, none of it was an obstacle to me even though I don't like it. But more essentially, I'm trying with whatever degree of success to put myself into the heads of those who have not even tried to embrace the team. And my guess is the "City" branding is not so much an obstacle because it's associated with Man City or CFG, but because it is stiff, vague, and just sounds off. I guess CFG's marketing wizards think it smoothly glides from one city to the next, but I think it is just weak shit. They could even tweak it for NYC by changing every single reference to "The City" and it would be at least a little bit better, because NYers actually call the city "the City. Who the fuck just says city. I live in city. I support city. Who do want to be city mayor? Guess what, those all sound like they were written by Balki from Perfect Strangers. This has nothing to do with Man City; it has everything to do with not being remotely New York City.
Imagine if all the marketing for the USMNT and USWNT -- not just one campaign or ad but everything all the time -- just said "Support country." "This is your country." And everything was pale yellow for no apparent reason. All the time. And they never mention U-S-A, or America, or show the flag or iconic images of the country. Everyone would be "what the fuck is that?" But for some reason the people running this club seem to think that's a good idea for New York. And Melbourne, etc.

 

[mgarbowski]

And also consider that this is a city that attracts people from all over the country and world to it, with their own pre-established allegiances. The only other cities that really have this to such a large degree within this league would be DC and LA. Sure Chicago and Houston are large cities that others will move to, but not quite as dominant as NYC or DC.

NYC population movement is odd. NYC churns more than anything else, which partly supports your point. But for the past 10-20 years the NYC metro area has had a net loss of population relative to the rest of the country. Far more people move away from here than move in, domestically. This is offset by foreign immigration, and also in part because in the last 10 years the influx to the metro area has been concentrated in the city itself. If you do research you'll see lists that show NYC is growing among the fastest cities in the country, but this is mostly because hardly anybody lives in most US cities proper except for NYC, Chicago, and a handful of others. If organized by metro area the NYC does not even make the top 10-15 lists of growth rate. Atlanta's population is only about 500k, but the area is about 4.5 million. The metro area is the relevant metric because no more than 4-6 cities could support a major sports franchise on their own without getting 80% of the fans from outside the city itself.

Outside of a handful of industries -- finance, law, media, new tech, and ancillary industries that support those or their workers -- NYC's economy mostly does not work. You can point me to a ton of counter-examples because NYC is big. It has everything. It's the same principle at work in my discussion of the fractured city above. But on the whole the general NYC economy is weak compared to the US at large and if you grow up in NYC and want to find work outside of its core industries you probably end up deciding to move elsewhere. Plus the cost of living sucks and the taxes are stupid high. You can live better as a latex salesman, marine biologist, importer/exporter or hen supervisor in almost any city in the country than you can in NYC metro. Bigger house, lower taxes, more consistent quality schools, easier commute.

NYC's dominant industries do very well, and draw new people, and supply most of the jobs and taxes that pay for everything else, and people who move here for those industries and jobs seem not to know how bad the city's economy is for people who lack the skills or desire to work in those limited areas, but that is why more people leave the city than come here domestically.

Anyways, circling back to the fanship/stadium point, more people net are moving to Houston, Phoenix, Denver, Orlando, and Atlanta metro areas and several others than are moving to NYC metro even including international immigrants. And many of them are coming from NY. I'm certain that the issue you raised about loyalty is at least as much a problem for them as it is for NYCFC.

 

[mgarbowski]

I was thinking about this post and remembered the Along These Lines spot that the club did last year: https://www.nycfc.com/post/2016/09/28/along-these-lines.

I remember thinking at the time that it did a pretty good job of capturing the allure of the city as well as the diversity that you talk about. Having said that, I'm a transplant. What did you think?

I think that's fine, and better than the more formless "your city" stuff, but I want to refine my POV somewhat.
My original big post on this was meant to be more about the challenges NYC presents, with some critique of how the club approached it. It's no surprise the focus in the ongoing back and forth has been on the club's marketing, but it's actually what I'm less confident addressing. And I also ended up criticizing the "City" brand more than I intended.
I think I might be clearer if I say my critique is 2-fold:
1. It relies too much just on being NYC; and
2. It does so, IMO, somewhat poorly with the City brand.

Every team in every city relies on local identification to build loyalty. That's why every team in every sport has a city or state name as the first part of their name. But then they present some personality beyond that. Let me try to explain by example. The newest NHL team is the Las Vegas Golden Knights. They start play imminently, and have been marketing for a few months. They don't tweet thing like "We Are Las Vegas." That's a given. Las Vegas is desperate for major league teams. Las Vegas is their name. They will play in Vegas. They don't need to keep saying "Hey. We're part of Las Vegas." Because for most teams you put the place name in front of your name, and pick a local place to play, and your local identity is established. Instead the Knights have developed this very funny and playful persona on Twitter. (Obviously they have been more somber the last 16 hours). That's their identity, at least until they start playing.

Now NYCFC is in a very different place for many reasons. But they seem to be marketing almost nothing but "We are NYC" and half the time they do it they don't even say "NYC." They just say "your city" etc.

This obviously resonates with the core group of knowledgeable local MLS fans who have wanted a team in NYC for 20 years and came to resent, despise, or hate the Red Bulls in part because they never played in NYC and also because of the Red Bull thing. And I think it also appeals to the young knowledge workers who move here because they identify with the NYC brand, which is sort of an ancillary point of another previous post. So I get that. And it has worked for the team. Our attendance is up there equal to or better than 75% of MLS. So I think this approach made sense as a core part of marketing but I also think they need to expand the approach. Because I also presume they want to grow more, and get higher TV ratings, and all that.

Then I come back to the 2 groups I've identified based on no research or actual knowledge, so take this for what it is
worth:
1. local soccer fans who disdain MLS, and
2. local sports fans who could be enticed to follow soccer.

And I think Group 1 looks at our marketing, says "MCFC clone," and turns up their noses, while group 2 has no idea who Man City is, but looks at the marketing and thinks, "OK, you're NY. You keep saying that. So are about a dozen other teams. What else are you? Who are you?" And if you asked me what else is this team's personality based on its marketing, I could not tell you. I can tell you the Golden Knights are fun, irreverent and clever, but I could not answer that question based on NYCFC marketing, even though I've spent probably 10,000 as much time thinking about NYCFC as I have the Golden Knights.

 

[Angela Miller]

I don't have knowledge of our Mr mgarbowski age or if he's still in school ? In my day what he just wrote would have been called a Term Paper . I don't know if these day's said Term Papers still exists ? I like to suggest he should go back to his Teachers both in High School or College and ask them if he's still illegible for A's and Extra Credit ?? Maybe what ever degree he has can be upgraded to the next level of achievement .

I would like to answer simply those 2 questions at the top of his page with one reply . Once Andrea is gone for good this team and Attendance numbers will sharply increase . The focus will be out with old and slow and young and fast will prevail . The Jack H and Sands Boy's will have years on their side something of consistence for all of NY to hang on to . This Team and NYC haven't even seen it's best yet .....It's to come . So there and some here think I can't be serious .

 

[northernburbs]

We have 2 related but different discussions.
1. Why has attendance dropped (unless it didn't even drop per Seth); and
2. Why is NYC not killing it in attendance compared to other cities.

I find the second more interesting. NYCFC is 5th, which is fine, but we're also larger than everyone else ahead of us by a factor of roughly 2 or more.

I think the following factors explain why:

• NY is not unified. We are fractured. Diversity is not an asset in this instance. And I'm not specifically talking ethnic diversity. It also includes having 5 distinct boroughs, with multiple unconnected neighborhoods in each, and loyalties that go to your school, or neighborhood, or country of origin, or class, or religion, or race, or your particular interest in art, literature, TV, music, politics, a hobby, activity, or collection, or whatever.
• This is worse than in other cities because NYC is so huge that every tiny sub-group has a critical mass of people who can cluster together instead of getting engaged through momentum into any possible city-wide civic culture.
• Have you ever been in another city when one of their sports teams makes it to even a conference final? The entire city is covered in team colors and everyone takes part in it, including people who silently think sports is stupid. Here, even when the biggest teams like the Giants, Yankees or (it's been a while but still) Knicks win a championship, you not only have fans of competing local teams rooting against them, but everyone who thinks sports is boring sits it out because there are hundreds of thousands of people who feel the same and there is no pressure, negative or positive, to go along. In other cities they would be bandwagon boosters and might even attend games on occasion.
• Many New Yorkers feel disdain for much of American culture, and admiration for foreign. That many foreign soccer leagues are better than MLS reinforces this but it would be an issue and will be an issue as MLS improves. So many NYers root for big foreign teams instead of the local MLS team. Obviously there is substantial evidence just in this forum of fans who do both, but it's a distinct subset. This is why there is more buzz for visits by Schweinsteiger or a washed up Gerrard than for USMNT legend Clint Dempsey and MLS Champion Seattle. Getting excited for a game against Columbus, Houston or Salt Lake will never happen for these people.
• NYCFC is affiliated with the wrong foreign team. Man City is nouveau riche who became good the wrong way and too recently. Teams like Chelsea did the same thing more or less but did so just earlier enough to seem more traditional. Even Tottenham probably has more cachet among these fans than Man City.
• Portland, which has a large similar culture group to the people I am discussing in NYC, overcame this with a team that is distinctly Portland. The name. The colors. Everything about that teams says Portland. It think also helps that that Portland is smaller so the connection between the team and this subculture could coalesce more easily.
• In contrast, NYCFC's identity has nothing to do with New York City. Instead, we have generic "City" branding. Forget Man City, let's take a look at our sibling down under.

View attachment 7553
View attachment 7554 View attachment 7555

• City to the Core, This Is Our City, This Week In Our City, Meeting The City. Every damn one of those could be transplanted to any random city where CFG sets up shop including right here in NYC and fit right in, and be just as bland, generic and meaningless. There's nothing NYC about NYCFC's marketing, name, or branding, except for the letters NYC. Every team in every sport in every city uses the that locality's name so that's not exactly anything. Subway posters based on the "City" brand do nothing to connect this team to This City. Even all the "City" jerseys are 80% or more identical.
• View attachment 7556
• Oh, we have some orange, and the badge looks a bit like a subway token. That's how NYCFC represents NYC. I think this is one reason why people are so unrelenting on demanding a stadium in the boroughs, and so unforgiving of Belmont, even with the sliver of it inside the city. And yes, transportation is a major issue, but even if that were solved, and Belmont were absolutely convenient, I think the fans we do have would reject that site because if the team is not actually 100% inside NYC then there is nothing NYC about it at all. It's just "City"
• Beyond Portland, contrast us also with Seattle or Vancouver. Everything about those teams evokes their location: the name, the colors, the badge. It all fits together. I don't see anything particularly "Atlanta" about Atlanta United, but the locals do. Maybe it is the colors, or the owner, who is a beloved local personality, plus a bandwagon effect in a small/big town (or maybe Atlanta is big/small). They have obviously gotten hardcore soccer fans, plus Atlanta boosters, plus general sports fans, plus soccer mom/dads/kids, plus hipsters, to embrace this team. In contrast to those teams, we are the generic "City."

View attachment 7557

The core fanbase of this team is people who really like soccer, without reservation, and want a local team to root for. But I think this team does a poor job of wooing

• people who like soccer but mostly root for foreign teams
• people who like other sports and could be convinced to embrace soccer with a bit of momentum and actual NYC branding.

Part of that is the greater barriers and obstacles that NYC presents as I discussed, but it is also just poorly done.

All well said
NY's as a whole are opposed to "Joining" and we tend to Pigeon(intended) hole people.
I'm Terrence Vellone , growing up everyone knew I was Italian/Irish.
I was born a Yankee fan because of my dad (84 years old and still has lunch with 15 guys from the same 2 blocks in the Bronx every other month) Thats old school NY.
It might take a generation or 2 before people start to affiliate with NYCFC and not AS Roma or (spit as I say it Lazio)

 

[gbservis]

We have 2 related but different discussions.
1. Why has attendance dropped (unless it didn't even drop per Seth); and
2. Why is NYC not killing it in attendance compared to other cities.

I find the second more interesting. NYCFC is 5th, which is fine, but we're also larger than everyone else ahead of us by a factor of roughly 2 or more.

I think the following factors explain why:

• NY is not unified. We are fractured. Diversity is not an asset in this instance. And I'm not specifically talking ethnic diversity. It also includes having 5 distinct boroughs, with multiple unconnected neighborhoods in each, and loyalties that go to your school, or neighborhood, or country of origin, or class, or religion, or race, or your particular interest in art, literature, TV, music, politics, a hobby, activity, or collection, or whatever.
• This is worse than in other cities because NYC is so huge that every tiny sub-group has a critical mass of people who can cluster together instead of getting engaged through momentum into any possible city-wide civic culture.
• Have you ever been in another city when one of their sports teams makes it to even a conference final? The entire city is covered in team colors and everyone takes part in it, including people who silently think sports is stupid. Here, even when the biggest teams like the Giants, Yankees or (it's been a while but still) Knicks win a championship, you not only have fans of competing local teams rooting against them, but everyone who thinks sports is boring sits it out because there are hundreds of thousands of people who feel the same and there is no pressure, negative or positive, to go along. In other cities they would be bandwagon boosters and might even attend games on occasion.
• Many New Yorkers feel disdain for much of American culture, and admiration for foreign. That many foreign soccer leagues are better than MLS reinforces this but it would be an issue and will be an issue as MLS improves. So many NYers root for big foreign teams instead of the local MLS team. Obviously there is substantial evidence just in this forum of fans who do both, but it's a distinct subset. This is why there is more buzz for visits by Schweinsteiger or a washed up Gerrard than for USMNT legend Clint Dempsey and MLS Champion Seattle. Getting excited for a game against Columbus, Houston or Salt Lake will never happen for these people.
• NYCFC is affiliated with the wrong foreign team. Man City is nouveau riche who became good the wrong way and too recently. Teams like Chelsea did the same thing more or less but did so just earlier enough to seem more traditional. Even Tottenham probably has more cachet among these fans than Man City.
• Portland, which has a large similar culture group to the people I am discussing in NYC, overcame this with a team that is distinctly Portland. The name. The colors. Everything about that teams says Portland. It think also helps that that Portland is smaller so the connection between the team and this subculture could coalesce more easily.
• In contrast, NYCFC's identity has nothing to do with New York City. Instead, we have generic "City" branding. Forget Man City, let's take a look at our sibling down under.

View attachment 7553
View attachment 7554 View attachment 7555

• City to the Core, This Is Our City, This Week In Our City, Meeting The City. Every damn one of those could be transplanted to any random city where CFG sets up shop including right here in NYC and fit right in, and be just as bland, generic and meaningless. There's nothing NYC about NYCFC's marketing, name, or branding, except for the letters NYC. Every team in every sport in every city uses the that locality's name so that's not exactly anything. Subway posters based on the "City" brand do nothing to connect this team to This City. Even all the "City" jerseys are 80% or more identical.
• View attachment 7556
• Oh, we have some orange, and the badge looks a bit like a subway token. That's how NYCFC represents NYC. I think this is one reason why people are so unrelenting on demanding a stadium in the boroughs, and so unforgiving of Belmont, even with the sliver of it inside the city. And yes, transportation is a major issue, but even if that were solved, and Belmont were absolutely convenient, I think the fans we do have would reject that site because if the team is not actually 100% inside NYC then there is nothing NYC about it at all. It's just "City"
• Beyond Portland, contrast us also with Seattle or Vancouver. Everything about those teams evokes their location: the name, the colors, the badge. It all fits together. I don't see anything particularly "Atlanta" about Atlanta United, but the locals do. Maybe it is the colors, or the owner, who is a beloved local personality, plus a bandwagon effect in a small/big town (or maybe Atlanta is big/small). They have obviously gotten hardcore soccer fans, plus Atlanta boosters, plus general sports fans, plus soccer mom/dads/kids, plus hipsters, to embrace this team. In contrast to those teams, we are the generic "City."

View attachment 7557

The core fanbase of this team is people who really like soccer, without reservation, and want a local team to root for. But I think this team does a poor job of wooing

• people who like soccer but mostly root for foreign teams
• people who like other sports and could be convinced to embrace soccer with a bit of momentum and actual NYC branding.

Part of that is the greater barriers and obstacles that NYC presents as I discussed, but it is also just poorly done.

Outside of MCFC fans, NYCFC fans, and hardcore fans of other MLS teams (none of which are targets to expand our current fan base) I don't think the CFG connection is well known enough to be that big of a factor. Honestly most potential fans I've spoken to are completely unaware of the CFG/MCFC connection.

With regards to Atlanta I think it's too early to compare, flashy new team, flashy new stadium, in a city with notoriously fickle fans when it comes to their other pro sports teams. How many people at the most recent ATL games went just to see the new stadium because it's way cheaper to see it at an MLS game than an NFL game? The other cities at the top of the list benefit from considerably less competition from other local professional teams for people's money and attention. Seattle MLB+NFL, Toronto NHL+MLB+NBA, Orlando NBA compared to NYC competing with 2xNFL+2xNBA+2xNHL+2xMLB.

 

[LionNYC]

During the Chalk Talk with Don Garber at NYCFC House, a question was asked how can MLS become to equal in the American sports culture to where NBA and MLB are now, which are secondary sports to NFL, but still the largest and most followed. The easy answer is time. From the Knicks to the Rangers and Giants to Yankees, every sports team in New York has been around since we've been alive (most of us, I'll assume). MLS is brand new. And NYCFC is infantile. It's going to take a generation or two to have NYCFC to based into the New York sports culture.

I have a cousin with a three year old girl. He's a Tottenham fan and I made him into an NYCFC. I have taken him to two games in three seasons, he doesn't have much time as a new father with another girl less than 6 months old now too, and we text occasionally about the matches. Hopefully he's watching the games with his young daughter so she can be raised an NYCFC fan. That what's it is going to take. We are Knicks fans or Yankees fans or Mets fans or Jets fans because our parents were and there was a history to what we were watching. The glimmer of NYCFC being new is exciting but that's not going to hook everyone.

Tribeca Film Festival was small when it started and people thought it just should have stopped. It takes time, and smart decisions, to make something grow. That's going to be the case with NYCFC. A landmark to cement out place in the city will certainly help.

We'll look at this question again in 10 years and 20 years and 50 years and see how NYCFC and MLS are ingrained in the fabric of New York and American sports.

 

[Gotham Gator]

During the Chalk Talk with Don Garber at NYCFC House, a question was asked how can MLS become to equal in the American sports culture to where NBA and MLB are now, which are secondary sports to NFL, but still the largest and most followed. The easy answer is time. From the Knicks to the Rangers and Giants to Yankees, every sports team in New York has been around since we've been alive (most of us, I'll assume). MLS is brand new. And NYCFC is infantile. It's going to take a generation or two to have NYCFC to based into the New York sports culture.

I have a cousin with a three year old girl. He's a Tottenham fan and I made him into an NYCFC. I have taken him to two games in three seasons, he doesn't have much time as a new father with another girl less than 6 months old now too, and we text occasionally about the matches. Hopefully he's watching the games with his young daughter so she can be raised an NYCFC fan. That what's it is going to take. We are Knicks fans or Yankees fans or Mets fans or Jets fans because our parents were and there was a history to what we were watching. The glimmer of NYCFC being new is exciting but that's not going to hook everyone.

Tribeca Film Festival was small when it started and people thought it just should have stopped. It takes time, and smart decisions, to make something grow. That's going to be the case with NYCFC. A landmark to cement out place in the city will certainly help.

We'll look at this question again in 10 years and 20 years and 50 years and see how NYCFC and MLS are ingrained in the fabric of New York and American sports.

Agree. I love the Florida Gators, not because I chose them or found them somehow. It is because I grew up in that community and started going to games when I was 7. It takes a long time to develop a loyal fan base. Slow and steady wins the race. That's how the league was established, and that is why it's growing while most others are not.

 

[mgarbowski]

I don't have knowledge of our Mr mgarbowski age or if he's still in school ? In my day what he just wrote would have been called a Term Paper . I don't know if these day's said Term Papers still exists ? I like to suggest he should go back to his Teachers both in High School or College and ask them if he's still illegible for A's and Extra Credit ?? Maybe what ever degree he has can be upgraded to the next level of achievement .

I would like to answer simply those 2 questions at the top of his page with one reply . Once Andrea is gone for good this team and Attendance numbers will sharply increase . The focus will be out with old and slow and young and fast will prevail . The Jack H and Sands Boy's will have years on their side something of consistence for all of NY to hang on to . This Team and NYC haven't even seen it's best yet .....It's to come . So there and some here think I can't be serious .

I'm #Team50 Angela Miller. School is long behind me but I try to keep learning.

 

[mgarbowski]

https://www.reddit.com/r/MLS/comments/xfik5v

Interesting charts displaying interest in MLS, as measured by the admittedly imperfect proxy of Google searches, in various countries and sub-regions.
My interest is drawn to NY being tied with Illinois and Virginia for lowest state in the US at 2%. TBH I'm not sure what the 2% exactly means, (2% of all soccer searches, of league searches, of users who search MLS more than any other league, etc). But that NY is lowest in the US is not surprising. Also not really sure why the results for 2009-21 differ so much from just 2021.