And if Columbus was able to play at Ohio Stadium there would be far fewer complaints. Instead they are playing out of reach of most of their fanbase.
No one is disagreeing it will raise revenue, but that is not the argument. The Fire did not move the match across the state for that $10 million, just opened up more seats. There were no costs, other than more security and actually having all the concessions open. Even if the Fire were still in Bridgeview, and played the "Messi match" at Soldier Field, that would not be the equivalent of what the Crew are doing.
I mean, it’s not like they had zero fans in Toronto before then, and even with an international border and no straight line route due to Lake Ontario a car trip between the two cities looks to be about 30-40 minutes less than Columbus-Cleveland. Even if the goal was to convince people from Cleveland proper and the surrounding areas to become Crew fans rather than just a cash grab in a stadium where they don’t have to pay rent, they could play 28 other teams in Cleveland without screwing over their fanbase. Not quite cutting off their nose to spit their face but kind of a curious choice imho.
Then the Crew would have to share the gameday revenue with THE Ohio State University. The Haslams and by extension the Crew will have control of the revenue from the game being played in the Cleveland Browns Stadium.
It looks like Ohio Stadium holds around 35k more than Brown’s Stadium does, you’d have to assume they either think they couldn’t sell that many extra tickets there or that they’d still make less money at Ohio Stadium even if they did. Honestly doesn’t seem like they considered much of anything other than immediate $$$ in the decision making process, at least on the surface.
Ohio Stadium is bleachers vs actual seats. Tickets would be less expensive which leads to less revenue, plus they'd have to split everything with The Ohio State University. Better seats, plus better overall experience in stadium at the Cleveland Browns Stadium with the additional ability to control all revenue makes it a no brainer. Not to mention Ohio Stadium cannot fit a regulation soccer field.
Ohio Stadium would probably cost $500k to rent. If 60,000 fans spend an average of $50 on confessions that's $3 million. Let's say the stadium owners would get half of that. As I understand there are a few hundred club seats at Ohio Stadium. Huntington Bank Stadium has 37 private suites, 250 indoor club seats, 1,250 outdoor club seats, 50 loge boxes and the DQ Club Room. That's where the serious money will be made. I'm guessing playing in Cincinnati will result in $4 or $5 million more for the "club" than playing at Ohio Stadium, assuming the additional profit will go to the Crew and not to the owners or to the Browns.
Well sure, a no brainer if the only consideration is $$$ above all else. To me, the no brainiest of no brainers is just to play the home game the home team’s stadium, and not somewhere ~2 hours away because you happen to own a larger stadium there. I own zero teams (and even fewer in Ohio) but I’m sure there are ways they could get some extra money out of the game without requiring their fans to travel further away than they would have to for a match against FC Cincinnati. This really just seems to be them saying ‘how can we get all of the money possible and maybe a little on top of that’ (obviously their right but…) with a good degree of confidence that it will not cost them anything tangible down the road via alienated local fans. Given the higher number of soccer teams that they own than I do, it’s possible they will make all of the possible money from this game and that will exceed any possible future loss of money down the road. If we only cheered for soccer on a spreadsheet I’d probably care a lot less about where one of my team’s rivals plays a high demand home game and how their fans feel about it, but we’re well past the days where what happens on the spreadsheets related to single game can really impact the league’s survival directly. As much as I enjoy (in my own team’s forum) seeing Crew face the even the slightest inconvenience, I think it is less than ideal that a high profile ‘home’ game is being moved to stadium in a city that is further away from them than their closest rivals and might be their last opportunity to see Messi just because the opportunity to make even more extra money is there.
The Haslams need to make this a positive experience for Crew fans and not f up the PR. Part of that will involve seeing the benefit of the additional revenue materialize on the pitch.
Their owner is so rich, he doesn't need this revenue to spend more for the on-pitch product. This is just a bottom line type of move to prop up his stadium with an extra sold out date.
As this thread is almost extinct. Reported attendance figures as % capacity. Premier League 99.1 Bundesliga 97.2 Eredivisie 93.5 MLS 87.0*** 2 Bundesliga 86.8 EFL Champ 82.3 La Liga 81.8 Ligue Un 81.5 Serie A 80.4 Argentina PFL 70.6 Belgian Pro 69.2 J-League 65.0 Brasiliero 61.0 Liga MX 59.0 Liga Portugal 54.1 Chinese SL 46.4 Indian SL 40.6 A League 40.1 Turkish SL 39.6 *** Transfermkt uses NFL capacity for Atlanta, Vancouver, Chicago and Charlotte but reduced soccer capacity for New England, Seattle and New York City. With all MLS teams using tickets distributed compared to just some in other leagues these numbers are purely indicative.
La Liga sells close to capacity than I expected. England might have the most supported soccer pyramid (top to bottom) in the world. Germany deserves a better league.
18,008 for USA vs Venezuela in Miami which would be quite good for this kind of match if it wasn't for the fact that the overwhelming majority for cheering for Venezuela.
45,265 the official attendance for Messi vs Club America in Vegas. They couldn't host an NFL playoff game because of this. (Rams went to Arizona because Vegas already started converting the field to soccer last week)