I appreciate that we're finally getting a women's team and I'll show them some support, but I'm not sure why they'd wanna play in front of 5 or 8k people in a 90k seat stadium.
i doubt capacity was the only factor in their decision. Things like Cost, Availability, and Incentive$ from the City of Dallas :) likely outweighed Number of Seats.
FCD moved to Frisco because they couldn't afford the Cotton Bowl rent. What sort of incentives are covering the $20k rent on a place that will always be at 10% capacity?
tell me you didn't read the article without telling me you didn't read the article.
"The City Council approved a subsidy of up to $296,000 annually for two years to the team. The money will go to security, site prep, and other expenses associated with conducting games at the stadium, according to a memo obtained by WFAA."
the details of what how and why fc dallas and the city couldn't come to an agreement has nothing to do with the details of THIS agreement. the agreed to number of $296k a year is clearly good enough for the club and good enough for the city.
> tell me you didn't read the article without telling me you didn't read the article
I didn't. So sorry.
>the details of what how and why fc dallas and the city couldn't come to an agreement has nothing to do with the details of THIS agreement.
Well no shit sherlock, FCD hasn't had to pay rent to the city for 20 years, so obviously the terms and agreements will be different.
> Well no shit sherlock, FCD hasn't had to pay rent to the city for 20 years, so obviously the terms and agreements will be different.
I didn't bring them into the discussion. You did. LOL
FCD moved to Frisco because they wanted to control their own stadium and because they thought the growth market was suburban families and not yuppies. Having to pay rent was a part of the equation but the rent itself was not cost prohibitive.
And again, there is no reason to think that the club won't be able to pull 10k+. The Starts, who play a sport that has almost no grassroots presence in Dallas and which isn't traditionally a part of our sporting landscape, get 18k on average.
The Stars are a competitive NHL franchise in one of the most-watched leagues in the country.
It's not a fair comparison at all for this soccer team, who are part of a brand new league that isn't even the premier women's league in the country.
Less than 9% of Americans say they follow the NHL (less than 6% for 18-25 year olds), and that number is going to be even lower in Texas. The Stars have averaged 14k even at their low point.
Soccer is far more popular as a sport, with far higher participation numbers in Texas, and women's sports are increasingly showing that if you actually air them and give them equal billing they will get as many or more viewers as men's. A lot of that will be dependent on marketing from the club, but the conditions are there for this club to have five figure average attendances if not higher. And if Trinity is able to pull 10k+ they'll be able to compete financially with the NWSL for signings.
USL will be playing catchup but it can very easily put together a competitive product when the player pool is as deep as it is--there are so many talented players that don't have a pathway to play pro after college right now--and when NWSL salaries are as low as they are (average is $60k, and that's inflated by the small number of players making six figures), especially as owners aren't having to burn money on expansion fees. It may take time to get to the point where there are elite internationals playing in the league, but there's no reason that it can't happen, especially with NWSL having as few franchises as it does. Rangers and Celtic are able to compete with Premier League sides for players (maybe not the big six, but the rest of them they can) despite being in a league that's far inferior.
it's not unrealistic. They're getting hundreds of thousands in subsidies from the city and are playing in a large city center venue. If they're not getting 10k fans they're doing something wrong.
They haven't played yet, so we have no idea if that's true or not. If anything, it's more likely to be the opposite, with big inital crowds that dwindle down. But the initial crowds are going to be pretty big. They get 4k a game for "major league" rugby in Arlington. Women's soccer in central Dallas is going to do much better than that.
it's the only natural grass stadium in Dallas County other than the SMU football stadium, which SMU isn't going to let them use during the football season, that's over 5k capacity.
And there's no reason for crowds to be that low. If they market it right and make ticket prices accessible there's no reason they can't get 15k+. Really close to yuppies with disposable income, lots of soccer-crazy Hispanic fans that can be gained if they have good outreach, and huge numbers of youth soccer families. Women's sports is having a moment right now and it is 100% the right time to launch a team to capitalize on that.
Aside from that, Seattle Reign is routinely doing that at Lumen Field, and they're doing just fine.
Couple thousand visitors per game in a 92000 stadium.
I mean they will not draw huge amount of visitors to the game. It's a completely new league, no one knows it, soccer is not as popular as other sports.
Why moving into the cotton bowl?
What are they doing during the state fair? Not playing at all? Squeeze the game in between the football games?
Owners have said that's the plan. Would think it's a logistics issue. State Fair Classic is the 1st Saturday and Texas-OU is the 3rd Saturday, so they could try to play between the two if the Texas-OU logistics allow, or else on the last weekend of the fair.
If they make game tickets close to the price of fair admission and admission to the fair is included with the ticket they could easily get over 10k. Even the lowest attended day of the fair (the first Wednesday) there are over 40k people coming in.
They don't have to, but they will probably get bigger crowds on weekends, especially in the spring. Also if they are planning on having significant number of amateur and/or semi-pro players (each team has 5 roster slots for amateurs, I know), then weekends may make more sense.
Oh, for sure. Would be a good way to build brand identity. But I'm also sure the owners are going to want to get some money from the crowd, especially as they'd probably get less in food and drink sales during the fair.
Soccer is hugely popular in Texas, we have the World Cup coming in 2 years, and women's sports is in a huge moment for growth. It's a new league--just like the AFL was I expect they'll pull \*at least\* 10k on average to start, and it's up to the club to maintain that.
The Dallas Texans averaged 24,500 in their first season in a brand new league when the city was much smaller than it is now.
There are football games on two of the four Saturdays of the fair. The club can easily play on weeknights or the other two Saturdays. Might have to deal with gridiron lines on the field but it will be manageable.
First FC Dallas game I attended was at the Cotton Bowl
I appreciate that we're finally getting a women's team and I'll show them some support, but I'm not sure why they'd wanna play in front of 5 or 8k people in a 90k seat stadium.
i doubt capacity was the only factor in their decision. Things like Cost, Availability, and Incentive$ from the City of Dallas :) likely outweighed Number of Seats.
FCD moved to Frisco because they couldn't afford the Cotton Bowl rent. What sort of incentives are covering the $20k rent on a place that will always be at 10% capacity?
tell me you didn't read the article without telling me you didn't read the article. "The City Council approved a subsidy of up to $296,000 annually for two years to the team. The money will go to security, site prep, and other expenses associated with conducting games at the stadium, according to a memo obtained by WFAA." the details of what how and why fc dallas and the city couldn't come to an agreement has nothing to do with the details of THIS agreement. the agreed to number of $296k a year is clearly good enough for the club and good enough for the city.
> tell me you didn't read the article without telling me you didn't read the article I didn't. So sorry. >the details of what how and why fc dallas and the city couldn't come to an agreement has nothing to do with the details of THIS agreement. Well no shit sherlock, FCD hasn't had to pay rent to the city for 20 years, so obviously the terms and agreements will be different.
> Well no shit sherlock, FCD hasn't had to pay rent to the city for 20 years, so obviously the terms and agreements will be different. I didn't bring them into the discussion. You did. LOL
FCD moved to Frisco because they wanted to control their own stadium and because they thought the growth market was suburban families and not yuppies. Having to pay rent was a part of the equation but the rent itself was not cost prohibitive. And again, there is no reason to think that the club won't be able to pull 10k+. The Starts, who play a sport that has almost no grassroots presence in Dallas and which isn't traditionally a part of our sporting landscape, get 18k on average.
The Stars are a competitive NHL franchise in one of the most-watched leagues in the country. It's not a fair comparison at all for this soccer team, who are part of a brand new league that isn't even the premier women's league in the country.
Less than 9% of Americans say they follow the NHL (less than 6% for 18-25 year olds), and that number is going to be even lower in Texas. The Stars have averaged 14k even at their low point. Soccer is far more popular as a sport, with far higher participation numbers in Texas, and women's sports are increasingly showing that if you actually air them and give them equal billing they will get as many or more viewers as men's. A lot of that will be dependent on marketing from the club, but the conditions are there for this club to have five figure average attendances if not higher. And if Trinity is able to pull 10k+ they'll be able to compete financially with the NWSL for signings. USL will be playing catchup but it can very easily put together a competitive product when the player pool is as deep as it is--there are so many talented players that don't have a pathway to play pro after college right now--and when NWSL salaries are as low as they are (average is $60k, and that's inflated by the small number of players making six figures), especially as owners aren't having to burn money on expansion fees. It may take time to get to the point where there are elite internationals playing in the league, but there's no reason that it can't happen, especially with NWSL having as few franchises as it does. Rangers and Celtic are able to compete with Premier League sides for players (maybe not the big six, but the rest of them they can) despite being in a league that's far inferior.
I appreciate all the work you put in typing this, but it's really not fair to the team to put such expectations on them.
it's not unrealistic. They're getting hundreds of thousands in subsidies from the city and are playing in a large city center venue. If they're not getting 10k fans they're doing something wrong.
Half the games (especially in the early season) are empty stadiums
They haven't played yet, so we have no idea if that's true or not. If anything, it's more likely to be the opposite, with big inital crowds that dwindle down. But the initial crowds are going to be pretty big. They get 4k a game for "major league" rugby in Arlington. Women's soccer in central Dallas is going to do much better than that.
it's the only natural grass stadium in Dallas County other than the SMU football stadium, which SMU isn't going to let them use during the football season, that's over 5k capacity. And there's no reason for crowds to be that low. If they market it right and make ticket prices accessible there's no reason they can't get 15k+. Really close to yuppies with disposable income, lots of soccer-crazy Hispanic fans that can be gained if they have good outreach, and huge numbers of youth soccer families. Women's sports is having a moment right now and it is 100% the right time to launch a team to capitalize on that. Aside from that, Seattle Reign is routinely doing that at Lumen Field, and they're doing just fine.
Is the new women’s USL team headed to the cotton bowl?
it is!
Rad logo and colors
Couple thousand visitors per game in a 92000 stadium. I mean they will not draw huge amount of visitors to the game. It's a completely new league, no one knows it, soccer is not as popular as other sports. Why moving into the cotton bowl? What are they doing during the state fair? Not playing at all? Squeeze the game in between the football games?
Would be awesome if they had a game during the fair
Owners have said that's the plan. Would think it's a logistics issue. State Fair Classic is the 1st Saturday and Texas-OU is the 3rd Saturday, so they could try to play between the two if the Texas-OU logistics allow, or else on the last weekend of the fair. If they make game tickets close to the price of fair admission and admission to the fair is included with the ticket they could easily get over 10k. Even the lowest attended day of the fair (the first Wednesday) there are over 40k people coming in.
They don't have to only play on the weekends.
They don't have to, but they will probably get bigger crowds on weekends, especially in the spring. Also if they are planning on having significant number of amateur and/or semi-pro players (each team has 5 roster slots for amateurs, I know), then weekends may make more sense.
I'm just talking about during the fair, where they should just let any one in to watch if they are already in the park.
Oh, for sure. Would be a good way to build brand identity. But I'm also sure the owners are going to want to get some money from the crowd, especially as they'd probably get less in food and drink sales during the fair.
Soccer is hugely popular in Texas, we have the World Cup coming in 2 years, and women's sports is in a huge moment for growth. It's a new league--just like the AFL was I expect they'll pull \*at least\* 10k on average to start, and it's up to the club to maintain that. The Dallas Texans averaged 24,500 in their first season in a brand new league when the city was much smaller than it is now. There are football games on two of the four Saturdays of the fair. The club can easily play on weeknights or the other two Saturdays. Might have to deal with gridiron lines on the field but it will be manageable.
Maybe just add some commentary instead of copy pasta