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Over the summer I pissed a bunch of local soccer fans off when I criticized the city’s plan to undertake a $75 million renovation of PGE Park. That plan, which looked foolhardy then, seems downright stupid now that the economy is in the tank. The Blazers might keep selling out the Rose Garden, but 20,000 people aren’t going to come out for an MLS game. I mean, come on, the league couldn’t even keep David Beckham in America.
Sorry, but facts are facts: PGE Park houses three marginal teams. The Padres stink, and that means that the Beavers are going to stink, too. The Portland State football team is about the most uninteresting thing possible, but they still make money even if they only get a crowd when Montana is in town. And yes, of course, the Timbers. I won’t hate, they are pretty cool and so is the Timbers Army…but that’s not enough to convince me that they need a fancy park, or that a fancy park and crappy MLS team would draw well.
We’ll follow this plan, but know one thing: this is on the city’s way back burner now. Not when they’re talking about cutting back basic services.
UPDATE: The only reason MLS draws well in Seattle is because they don’t have a professional basketball team competing in the Association, and the other two teams are the Mariners and the Seahawks.
4 responses so far ↓
Mike // March 1, 2009 at 4:06 am |
Just passing by.Btw, your website have great content!
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Making Money $150 An Hour
Quen // March 7, 2009 at 9:15 pm |
“…20,000 people aren’t going to come out for an MLS game. I mean, come on, the league couldn’t even keep David Beckham in America.”
Ummm… Had a look at the figures for Seattle’s new MLS team yet?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sounders/2008803898_sounders03.html
In 2008 MLS as a whole averaged 16,310 per game pre-Seattle (and this includes Kansas City and San Jose, teams that are stuck in tiny temporary stadiums for the moment while new soccer-specific ones are being built).
Given the support the Timbers currently get (which is much better than the USL Sounders ever got), I think getting 20,000 per game for an MLS team would be pretty easy with halfway-decent marketing- especially given that, unlike in Seattle, they would have no competition from other big-league franchises. Given the financial investment the Paulsons are willing to make paying for the franchise fee, I expect that they would go pretty much all-out on that aspect, using the very successful new Seattle and Toronto (for two years every single game in their 20,000 seat stadium has been a sellout, despite having a mediocre team) franchises as models.
I know this is just a blog, but you really should do a modicum of research before making declarations on a sport and league that you clearly don’t know much about. There are legitimate reasons not to support renovations for PGE Park whether you like soccer or not, but clearly 20,000 a game for an MLS team is, to say the least, quite possible.
Quen // March 8, 2009 at 3:56 pm |
So your deal is you just erase comments from people that disagree with you? No wonder you don’t have any comments.
CK // July 11, 2009 at 12:09 am |
Seattle and Torondo sell out every game. Seattle is close to 30,000 per game TO is 20,000. DC and Houston regularly draw 15-17,000 per game. Because you obviously don’t pay attention to MLS or what’s happening withing soccer in general, what makes you an expert on this?