The Athletic, aka the non-union (for now) sports website that the New York Times replaced its sports department with, ran an article yesterday about MLS and its desire for new stadiums that sits firmly in the pantheon of “the business of sports business writing is business” reporting: The first words are “Chicago Fire owner Joe Mansueto’s eye for Chicago real estate,” and it just gets more investment-bro-y from there. The ostensible topic is how the Fire and NYC F.C. and the New England Revolution are all working on new stadiums, and how MLS needs them to “wake up” those “critical markets” and “make those teams truly matter in those cities.”
If this means anything, it presumably means getting more people to go to MLS games in those cities. The Revolution and Fire were 7th and 8th in MLS attendance last year — to the extent that official MLS attendance figures mean anything — while NYC F.C. was in 14th. Those figures, all in the 21,000-24,000 per game range, pale in comparison to Atlanta United (41,000 per game) or the Seattle Sounders (31,000), but then those teams play in NFL stadiums, so they have the capacity to draw more. And in fact the new Fire stadium would only hold 22,000 and the Revolution stadium 24,000, both less than the teams claim to be drawing now, so it’s going to be tough to see much increase in announced attendance, though perhaps fewer fans will show up dressed as empty seats.
Either way, the fact that a soccer reporter is asserting that “activating the country’s biggest markets is critical for [MLS] building relevance and establishing a superior television audience” is an indication that MLS needs big markets more than the big markets need MLS, so if new soccer-only stadiums in those markets are truly what will make the league a success, its owners can reasonably be expected to find the capital to build them themselves. Both NYC F.C. and the Fire (Boston is still in the planning stages) are covering construction costs, but both are also being built on land that is at least partly exempt from property tax, amounting to subsidies of around $538 million in New York and $700 million (not all of it for the stadium) in Chicago, plus perhaps another $200 million in infrastructure costs for New York. Could those cities have cut better deals, knowing that the league needed to get them done in order to build relevance and establish a superior television audience? We’ll never know — though early indications in the Revolution’s stadium plans show that holding firm and refusing to give up the store is an option, when savvy city negotiators recognize their leverage.
The Fire and Revolution also play in NFL Stadiums, Chicago on its second stint after abandoning Bridgeview.
It’s been reported that the Seattle Sounders plan on building a new stadium for themselves in the future at the Sounders training complex in Renton, WA. It’s 12 miles south from Lumen Field. Of course this is a long term plan.
It’s counterintuitive, but the fact those MLS franchises are located in big markets actually makes them more liable to being crowded out (if not ignored altogether) in favor of the bigger, older, more successful, and far more established teams in the metro area.
Teams like the Cubs and the Bears (or the Red Sox and the Celtics) can claim fanbases stretching back generations, whereas the number of people who grew up rooting for the Fire or the Revolution are impossibly tiny in comparison.
Maybe new soccer stadiums in places like Chicago, Boston, and NYC will help them make more money — but the generational game in markets large and small are won by teams and businesses that give people something to cherish and hold onto. The very nature/structure of MLS will prevent that from ever happening in most of its current locations.
Exactly- the successful MLS teams are in underserved markets. The Braves decamp to Cobb county- all of a sudden there’s a lot of sports fans who no longer have easy access to pro sports- they adopt this new MLS team. The SuperSonics leave and the mariners are pathetic- Sounders attendance soars. It helps they both play in large stadiums- keeping ticket prices down a bit and both are easy to get to.
Chicago is oversaturated with sports, and the thing that has worked for NYCFC is that Yankee stadium is really easy to get to- will the fanbase come with them out to queens?
Considering the Fire have missed the playoffs 12 of the last 15 seasons, their claimed 12 to 20 thousand average attendance is inline with, or better than, the product on the field. Seattle is an outlier in soccer attendance. With just a couple gaps, the Sounders have existed nearly continuously for 50 years. Few cities can ever expect to reach those numbers. The Fire briefly seemed relevant, with many of their games on over-the-air WGN, but then some genius moved MLS games to Apple on a subscription based model.
Let’s be honest here.
Most soccer fans in big cities are transplants, with few exceptions.
This is definitely the case in Philly, where the Union fanbase and the people who crowd the trendy bars or spend most of their time in Fishtown or Kensington or University City are one and the same.
It’s no coincidence that the two most gentrified and far left cities in the country are two of the most successful MLS markets.
NYFC was a stupid idea. LA can support two MLS teams because LA is full of soccer diehards who would otherwise be watching Mexican or other Latin American leagues. NYC being a big city doesn’t mean everybody will support everything equally. The East Coast is a whole different animal than the West Coast, and the Mid Atlantic is especially different than New England.
MLS works in its legacy markets because of the grassroots soccer established in those places that goes back many years. The Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and New England have produced soccer players for a long time now compared to the markets MLS is trying desperately to get into or establish itself in the same way.
New York already supported the Red Bulls. Adding a second team just because LA did was always going to be stupid.
The Fire are lucky they’ve been around so long that they have a fairly stable fanbase.