November 20, 2008 7:06 PM
U.S.-Guatemala crowd was fantastic
Wednesday's U.S.-Guatemala crowd at Dick's Sporting Goods Park was fantastic.
The crowd was lively, and even my wife was really into the game. It's great having the opportunity to cheer for your national team, and the crowd took advantage of that.
Of course, by "the crowd," I'm referring to EVERYONE WHO SHOWED UP!
The U.S. Soccer Federation lists that number at 9,303. Is that tickets sold or butts in seats? My guess is that the number is pretty accurate. The north and south sections (behind the goals) were nearly full, and the rest of the place was probably slightly less than half full.
So those who showed up were fantastic.
Those who didn't show up were a tremendous disappointment.
I understand some of the reasons, some of them: It was a school night. It was November. It was long after the end of the Rapids' season, and soccer was not on people's minds. It was cold. The Americans didn't need to win. The U.S. didn't field its best players. Guatemala was a long shot to advance.
But I could not shake the feeling that this was a test. The soccer gods were testing the waters in the Denver area, measuring the local response. And I could not shake the feeling that we, the soccer-going community of the metro area, failed our test.
I'm sure the stadium looked horrible on national TV. It looked horrible from Section 132. I'm sure it looked horrible to the USSF. Am I being too pessimistic?
A long-distance soccer friend of mine, Dave Brett Wasser, told me not to worry about the numbers. Any major America city would have trouble at this time of year, he said, filling a 20,000-seat stadium for a qualifier that is meaningless and features a U.S. B-team.
I hope he's right. I enjoy the special soccer events that come to Colorado, and I had hoped Dick's Sporting Goods Park would be a magnet for such games.
But Wednesday's empty seats proved that this game at this date was just not a magnet for ticket-buying fans.
November 20, 2008
10:21 PM
Bonji writes:
My guess on the biggest reason people didn't attend? Cost. Midfield seats were almost $100. This is a down economy and sporting events suffer. You pointed out the full sections...they were $30, the cheapest seat in the place. Imagine if US Soccer used the Rapids' normal pricing about half what they asked. I bet there would have been a lot more tickets sold.
November 21, 2008
12:29 AM
George Tanner writes:
fine points, sir. we sat in the northwest corner, and those were $40. we wanted our regular seats (one section more toward the middle), but i think those were $10 more than what we paid. and there were four of us at $40 each. it wasn't a cheap night. but i paid for those tix so long ago that i'd really forgotten about the price.
November 21, 2008
8:45 AM
Ben! writes:
If prices were at Rapids level, as suggested by other commenters, it would have been a lot easier for people to get out to a 6p game on a cold night in November to watch a meaningless game.
-Ben!
November 21, 2008
2:12 PM
Phillip writes:
In fact, the price of a ticket was the only reason I didn't go. I figured that a meaningless game in November would be cheap, but when the cheapest seats I could find were $40, I said nevermind. What is more important to USA soccer - maintaining a pricing level that keeps fans away, or putting butts in seats?
November 21, 2008
4:02 PM
Lloyd writes:
While the ticket price affected the section I chose, I think a bigger problem was the lack of publicity in Denver's news media. We were one of four US cities thus far in the process to host a match. Yet there was effectively no publicity beforehand. Maybe we'd have more seats filled if the mainstream press got behind soccer and promoted it even a fraction as well as they promote the Broncos, Nuggets, Rockies and other "major" sports.