It some ways it was easier for Toronto FC in the beginning. A fresh start in a soccer specific stadium – we owe some thanks to the 2007 U20 World Cup – along with the excitement that accompanies a new professional sports team in town was enough the make a ticket to BMO field a hot commodity heading into the club’s inaugural season. The average attendance mark has hovered around the 20,200 mark for five seasons, an impressive feat considering the lackluster product on the field.
The Whitecaps spent their first season in the MLS at Empire Field, waiting for the renovations to BC place to finish. Average attendance was third best in the league, coming in just ahead of Toronto and behind fellow left coasters Seattle and Los Angeles.
Alright. So we’re clear – professional soccer can thrive in Canada, idiot. Montreal would join Vancouver and Toronto as key pillars in the MLS – strong ownership coupled with vocal local support is what this league is all about.
Half way through the season the above isn’t false. The club has been ambitious, bringing in former Serie A stars Marco Di Vaio and Alessandro Nesta during the season as designated players. On the day Nesta was introduced to the media the club cut ticket prices for the rest of the season. After drawing huge numbers for the club’s first two regular season games attendance has fallen off drastically since the Impact moved back to the renovated – and extremely nice – Stade Saputo.
Bill Beacon has the numbers:
Since moving back outdoors to Saputo Stadium, they have attracted 17,112 against Seattle, 12,357 for Houston and a disappointing 14,412 for Di Vaio’s debut against Toronto FC on June 27. Only 12,085 watched their 3-1 loss to Kansas City on Wednesday night.
With a capacity of just over 20,000 seats that is pretty bad. On a day that should have been a celebration, Joey Saputo was openly wondering why attendance figures were so low. From my limited experience in the federal government I know that while Saputo is the public face, a slew of employees are getting verbally destroyed by their bosses. Something isn’t working.
Mount Royal Soccer’s Gio Sardo created a guide to selling out Stade Saputo late last week, it’s a terrific read. Among his many issues – staying clear of the homeristic officiating excuse – is the poor marketing campaign put forward by the club. The organization looked to social marketing to figure out what the hell was going on:
The Impact were so perplexed about the erratic attendance figures in their MLS expansion season that they conducted Twitter and Facebook surveys to find out why there were so many empty seats in their 20,000-seat stadium. They found the chief obstacle for fans was high prices for top-end tickets.
So what say you Impact supporters? Is it the high ticket prices, lack of marketing presence, poor scheduling, sketchy officiating (vomit) or all of the above? Inquiring minds would like to know.
Maybe the simplest answer is Montreal soccer fans, as most soccer fans in this country, are a little smarter than given credit for and have little interest in watching the 2004 Italian World Cup team or the best O-35 team in North America…
I would all suggest that when the bloom does come off the rose, if it hasn’t in fact already, the attendances in Toronto will drop to similar levels very quickly… it would be best for Toronto fans not to be too smug about this current disparity.
Bill
It’s year six and TFC has already suffered through the worst string of results in MLS history. While attendance will surely come off more next year, I think you’re pointing to the wrong causes.
Toronto can pin it’s success on being a larger market and having a good stadium location. Montreal has an OK stadium location and to be frank Quebec has a different attitude about buying tickets than the rest of the country. It’s not good or bad, it’s just done differently.
Nobody who goes to these games is diluted enough to believe they are watching a top league in the world, but that doesn’t mean you can continually run a poor team like TFC has and people will let it pass.
Hey bill, there was no world cup in 2004
There was a 2004 Italian World Cup team?? ;)
^ lol
nobody is smug about it, just somewhat surprising attendance is so poor already. i dont see why torontonians would be happy about this imo.
First of all, I’m not an Impact fan, per se.
I’ve also heard the fickle, peculiar nature of Montreal ticket purchase habits. I believe Nick deSantis has discussed this previously, before it was a front burner issue.
I think you make good points about TFC and a clean slate when they came in. Without precedent, you could charge whatever you want and people wouldn’t have a context to use for comparison purposes. Montreal did not have that “luxury”.
When I see Montreal, I don’t think of an expansion team; I see them more as a promoted club. With that in mind, I’d like to know (a) how much more the prices are this year vs. last year, and (b) how consistent is that with other clubs who get promoted from league two to top tier.
I wonder if some people blanked at the price hike. I also wonder if some stepped aside because it was no longer their quiet little secret. Kind of like when a rock band gets “too big too fast”, some of the original core support can go all hipster and walk away.
SB
The prices are not that bad. Unless Montreal is full of poor people.
$25 at the Olympic Stadium got you sideline seats. $25 at Saputo Stadium gets you seats behind the nets.
If the problem is the seat you are getting for $25, then I think you need bigger problems.
They don’t have time to go to a soccer game. They need to protest ;)
But after seeing 50K at a game, I am surprised too to see the low numbers.
Can The Score PLEASE broadcast english-language games for Montreal when “The Three Letter” isnt broadcasting the game? It would do good for us Montrealers who doesnt have TVA-Sports and it would do good for James Sharman as he can improve as a commentator! Win-Win on both sides!
MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA.
Try as I may I know that this will fall on deaf ears.
It’s media (quantity of it). A native French speaker has limited quantity of French media to learn about MLS. Any of us reading this I have no doubt regularly go to MLS.com, listen to the Extreme Podcast radio show, read other sites and blogs about MLS in English. A french speaker does not have those options. That is the issue. The lack of media in French about MLS translates into a lack of emotional connection with the MLS and then the Impact. I am not talking about the few minutes of air time that RDS, TVA sports, Lapresse, journal de Montreal give the Impact. I am talking about learning about the MLS as a league, all the other team players, all the DP, and teams. And yes, Montreal is bilingual but that usually means someone can ‘get by’ in their second language not that they feel like learning about their sport by reading another language.
That is the main issue.
Rarely anyone in Toronto or Vancity knows the opposing players either other than the usual handful everyone knows. Nobody cares to know about it either.
Impact in D2 catered to a non-soccer watching crowd: the kids & families who play soccer. With higher prices, they’re not showing up. The people who view footy largely as a spectator sport haven’t been convinced and/or are happy to watch top class football on tv.
TFC didn’t cater to soccer moms & Vancity seems to have enough of a base amongst the various key groups: 2nd gen footy hipsters, soccer moms & old country footy supporters.
Ask anyone in Montreal and they’ll tell you. Montreal is not a sports city, it’s an event city. People will flock over in masses when there is something “big” i.e. the Beckham effect, or whenever Thierry Henry makes it back. But otherwise, people and the media around here don’t care for much beyond the Habs. I don’t think it’s a Eurosnob issue. I’m a season ticket holder and judging by mercato conversations you hear prior to a game, there are plenty of so-called Eurosnobs at the park. It’s just that there isn’t that strong connection yet between the wider public and either the sport, the league or the club. It needs to be grown and that will take a bit of time, as well as success on the pitch.
But the club is headed in the right direction. The product on the field has not been too bad for an expansion team and there is hope for next year. The DiVaio and Nesta signings should help as well. There is, I believe, ok media coverage, at least first-level coverage (games, pre-games, post-games, in sports news ,etc). What is needed is some radio coverage, and more in-depth analysis, call-in radio shows, etc. It should come over time.
The Alouettes, who play in a second-tier 8-team football league, have been able to sell out for years because there is a tradition and an emotional connect with the fans, in addition to them winning the Grey Cup a few times. The Impact has everything to succeed. Every casual observer I know who’s been at SS plans to go back. Despite the lower attendance than expected, the atmosphere is still fantastic.
I think these numbers should be looked at more closely. 14’000 and 12’000 seats were reached on a Wednesday night; the latter being a 7PM kick-off time. Considering the stadium is in the EAST of Montreal, and with the traffic /construction on every major road in Montreal in the summer , it makes it close to impossible for someone who finishes work at 5 to go home and come to the game in the east. And thats not to mention that for those of us who would like to arrive early, and grab some beers/food to a bar nearby, well, theres just absolutely nothing (unless we consider bring a keg and drinking it at Olympic Park..).
The Stadium should have been built closer to DOWNTOWN Montreal and not just near the Italian area. People love to be downtown Montreal and thats one of the reasons the Montreal Canadiens and Montreal Alouettes are so popular.
Awesome responses people. Thanks for the info.