Stadiums

ElJefe - Oh yeah, the Hunts, Kroenke, and Hauptman have really distinguished themselves over the years with their brilliant marketing and outreach efforts, so it must be the suburban stadium, right?

BTW, answer me this: If suburban stadiums are "the problem," why does FC Dallas get more people now in their horrible suburban stadium (in one of the fast growing cities in the United States) than they did when they played two miles east of downtown Dallas?

MelbaToast - Yes, they know how to market their teams. We're talking about sports entertainment moguls. Their problems, however, are the product of the MLS 1.5 mindset.

The in vogue thing to do for such moguls in the times of MLS 1.5 was purchase one of ASG's many teams (the Hunts aside), acquire cheap land in a suburb, and place a below-grade, future-expansion-made-easy soccer/concert stadium there. For their desired demographic, they chose suburban Boomer and Gen-X soccer moms and their Millennial kids. The results were sterile, cookie-cutter "family friendly" atmospheres and a group of stadiums that weren't attractive to the less-than-desirables: the urbanites; the rowdy people who drink and swear and make a lot of noise; the people who, if they were too numerous, would surely scare off the precious suburbanites.

It was a marketing strategy that nearly killed the league. MLS 2.0 teams did better to attract the urbanite demographic, and MLS 3.0 teams have seized it.

Learn from history or...you know.

Now, have you asked yourself, 'Why are the business-people in Columbus suddenly so desperate to keep the team?' 5 years ago they couldn't have given less of a shit. The simple answer is: they now use the Crew to attract business and young employees. Likewise, the Crew enable the city to sell itself as progressive: the young demographic in this country is into soccer, thus having a soccer team is cool and attractive. What's cool and attractive to young people, is cool and attractive to businesses.

What would make things even sexier? "We have a downtown soccer stadium." Holy Millennial sploosh!

What would kill the vibe? Suburban shopping center soccer; a total Millennial cock-block.

Believe you me, Hunt, Kroenke, and Hauptman know they messed up by building in Frisco, Commerce City, and Bridgeview. There's nothing they can do now but sell (which they won't do) or wait until their stadiums need replacing. So, they're simply stuck biding their time another decade, at which time you'll see them and the league go into full-on stadium lobby mode. New stadiums in better locations will be built, and with them the whole "rebrand" thing. New crest, new digs, maybe new colors all to disassociate from the epic failures of MLS 1.0-1.5.