2015 Whitecaps

[dutch13]

Sam should be put in left back. Its his year to take the spot. Guy has been nothing but good when he gets a chance to play... Harvey was on the wrong side of the player both goals.

 

[Rangerforever]

Young co-op student in my office plays for UBC.

He said that WC2 are VERY good and they were lucky to hold their own and get the tie.

 

[bandcamp]

Young co-op student in my office plays for UBC.

He said that WC2 are VERY good and they were lucky to hold their own and get the tie.

Saw this game with my son. WFC2 are very fast and UBC had a hard time keeping up. They got no time on the ball. UBC keeper was excellent.

 

[dezza]

Sam should be put in left back. Its his year to take the spot. Guy has been nothing but good when he gets a chance to play... Harvey was on the wrong side of the player both goals.

You obviously didn't watch the Canada U-20 team at the CONCACAF championships. Adekugbe got torn a new a-hole by the Mexicans.

 

[dezza]

NYCFC announced on Monday that they will open the 400 level at Yankee Stadium due to the high demand for their first home game, which will take place on Sunday against the New England Revolution (5 pm ET, ESPN2). Though normal capacity for NYCFC games at the stadium is expected to be be 27,528, more than 30,000 tickets have been sold already for the game.

Are you listening Whitecaps FC?

 

[RL RCD]

This info is a bit old (from 2014) but it will serve the purpose:

Imagine that Whitecaps drop the average price per game to CAD 10.00 (only for season ticket holders, of course) and then make tickets between $15 and $20 for casual fans. I am quite sure that the number of season ticket holders would jump close to 30,000 and that they would have attendance between 30,000 and 40,000 every game.
But, why would they do that when they can say now that they sold out at 21,000 in attendance which they would not be able to say if they sold 40,000 tickets. Wait a minute!? Is something wrong with that sentence? 21,000 sold out vs 40,000 not sold out - strange, isn't it?
Let's just jump a little bit over to the neighbours (BC Lions). They are crying when they have only 30,000 in attendance at their current price structure. For God's sake, slash the prices by 30% at least and you may have over 45,000! Do not be greedy! Build a young fan base! Make tickets EXTREMELY accessible to general population and you both (Whitecaps and BC Lions) will have always a lot more people in attendance than now.
That should be marketing logic when you have a stadium with 55,000 seats; not current ridiculous high price ticket policy (by BC Lions) and limiting number of available seats (Whitecaps).

 

[cascadesoccer]

This info is a bit old (from 2014) but it will serve the purpose:
View attachment 9492
Imagine that Whitecaps drop the average price per game to CAD 10.00 (only for season ticket holders, of course) and then make tickets between $15 and $20 for casual fans. I am quite sure that the number of season ticket holders would jump close to 30,000 and that they would have attendance between 30,000 and 40,000 every game.
But, why would they do that when they can say now that they sold out at 21,000 in attendance which they would not be able to say if they sold 40,000 tickets. Wait a minute!? Is something wrong with that sentence? 21,000 sold out vs 40,000 not sold out - strange, isn't it?
Let's just jump a little bit over to the neighbours (BC Lions). They are crying when they have only 30,000 in attendance at their current price structure. For God's sake, slash the prices by 30% at least and you may have over 45,000! Do not be greedy! Build a young fan base! Make tickets EXTREMELY accessible to general population and you both (Whitecaps and BC Lions) will have always a lot more people in attendance than now.
That should be marketing logic when you have a stadium with 55,000 seats; not current ridiculous high price ticket policy (by BC Lions) and limiting number of available seats (Whitecaps).

Not to mention the increase in food and beverage sales, and sales in merchandise, with more people in the stands.

 

[Regs]

To be fair, there is a cost associated with opening and staffing the upper deck.

I have no idea what those are but probably significantly higher than the net revenues made from the brown third-jersey that the Whitecaps marketing team tried to say that's what the market suggested

 

[STD]

I have missed this discussion.

Tried to copy and paste the NY ticket prices but couldn't so you have a look for yourself. The price for where your seat is in New York is better value at a Whitecaps game. They do not have $10 seats. I have tried to give tickets away in the past and couldn't and I talked to a former season ticket holder who said the reason he was downsizing from season tickets to a 5 game pack was because when he couldn't make a game he could not give his tickets away. I agree cheaper ticket will draw a larger crowd for some games but you do risk devaluing your product as a whole. This notion that if the open the stadium up you are going to get 40,000 people is ridicules if the demand was there you would see the 21,000 seats sold out a lot sooner than a week before the game. I have said it before Vancouver is not this great sports market people make it out to be.

 

[STD]

I also forgot to ask how did the $10 ticket price work for Chivas vs. $21.50 for Galaxy. Maybe there is more to it then just ticket prices and supply?

 

[RL RCD]

I have missed this discussion. This notion that if the open the stadium up you are going to get 40,000 people is ridicules if the demand was there you would see the 21,000 seats sold out a lot sooner than a week before the game. I have said it before Vancouver is not this great sports market people make it out to be.

The very first time Whitecaps management realized that the number of season ticket holders was going down that should have been a sign to drop the ticket prices. That move would keep at least the same number of season ticket holders (if it would not bring more right away).

Putting a good product on the field is the first thing to do (Whitecaps are getting closer and closer to that). The next thing (again) is to drop prices (by 50%) for season ticket holders (basically offer lower bowl, so best seats) to the season ticket holders at extremely low prices (and I am quite sure they would easily fill all 28,000 seats there).

Whitecaps do offer to youth teams $20/ticket and as far as I know those are gone quickly. So, there is obviously interest but not at this price structure (if BC Lions can have 30,000 at significantly higher price structure than imagine how many more they'd have with lower prices or how many would Whitecaps have with very low priced season ticket package).

They will make up money in food/drinks/merchandise sale.

 

[STD]

I believe I already said I think they set their ticket prices a bit high and they are making up for it slowly by: A) giving season ticket holder 12% discount on early renewal. B) not increasing prices so letting inflation close the gap. C) restructuring the price points behind the net. Where I disagree with you is that opening the stadium up and making tickets dirt cheap will fill the stadium other than maybe a few select games. Florida Panthers are a great example of this not working. They figured by giving tickets away they would create a fanbase that would be willing to pay for tickets down the road. Instead you end up devaluing your product.

Anyway I would like to see them slowly open up more seats in the lower bowl and only open the upper bowl if they feel they can get 40,000 say for a playoff game.

 

[Dude]

The very first time Whitecaps management realized that the number of season ticket holders was going down that should have been a sign to drop the ticket prices. That move would keep at least the same number of season ticket holders (if it would not bring more right away).

Putting a good product on the field is the first thing to do (Whitecaps are getting closer and closer to that). The next thing (again) is to drop prices (by 50%) for season ticket holders (basically offer lower bowl, so best seats) to the season ticket holders at extremely low prices (and I am quite sure they would easily fill all 28,000 seats there).

Whitecaps do offer to youth teams $20/ticket and as far as I know those are gone quickly. So, there is obviously interest but not at this price structure (if BC Lions can have 30,000 at significantly higher price structure than imagine how many more they'd have with lower prices or how many would Whitecaps have with very low priced season ticket package).

They will make up money in food/drinks/merchandise sale.

Drop prices by 50%? Seriously? You really think that they will double their draw just to make back that loss? I think you need to go back to Economics 101 and study the Law of Decreasing Returns.

The pricing isn't the problem. The problem is that there isn't as large a market as we in the soccer community think. It will take years to build anything close to the long term loyalty the Lions have, or the star power the Canucks have.

There may- MAY- be a case where, for marque matches they make portions of the upper bowl available at a discounted price, laike maybe your 50% off scenario. Paper half the joint with free tickets to youth soccer clubs, sell the rest. Thus, you really still are limiting the amount of tickets available. Accomplish two things:

1. You are capturing the young fan at the earliest possible stage.
2. You give yourself real, live marketing feedback. If they do manage to actually sell-out the limited number of tickets they make available, they know they have either priced it too low, or that a secondary market for less expensive tickets does exist. Maybe both, if they sell them fast.

You can't just dive into this, you need to find a creative way to slowly move into it while getting yourself valuable feedback, and other benefits. If you just open it up wide, and hope to hell that by dropping prices you'll fill the joint, then you are in for a world of hurt if the one time, all-or-nothing experiment fails.

 

[Regs]

I don't really have an issue with not opening up the top, it's the artificial lower bowl 'sell-outs' that get to me... open that up to full capacity for the great match-ups (Seattle, Portland, LA and maybe NYFC) - so far they haven't even tested that use-case!

 

[dezza]

100% agree with Regs. I read somewhere the lower bowl covered seats total 6000.

 

[Regs]

Seating capacity in the lower bowl is greater than $27K so that sounds about right @dezza

 

[STD]

I think they have been opening up more seats for some games but still calling it 21,000. Just a guess but sometimes the area with tarps seem a little smaller and I am not just talking about the visitor section. Anyway they are not doing as bad as some people say they are. I know I have never had a problem getting a seat.

 

[cascadesoccer]

I believe I already said I think they set their ticket prices a bit high and they are making up for it slowly by: A) giving season ticket holder 12% discount on early renewal. B) not increasing prices so letting inflation close the gap. C) restructuring the price points behind the net. Where I disagree with you is that opening the stadium up and making tickets dirt cheap will fill the stadium other than maybe a few select games. Florida Panthers are a great example of this not working. They figured by giving tickets away they would create a fanbase that would be willing to pay for tickets down the road. Instead you end up devaluing your product.

Anyway I would like to see them slowly open up more seats in the lower bowl and only open the upper bowl if they feel they can get 40,000 say for a playoff game.

Don't forget we get a sweet new scarf every year!! absolutely perfect for those mid summer games.

 

[mtkb]

interesting discussion, but I think it's actually far simpler than the above... this city is a frontrunner, period. Look at all the empty seats at Canucks games, and they're probably going to make the damn playoffs! A generation ago that would be a miracle... now if the team isn't contending every year, people want no part of them.

Add that to the mess the Lions are (I can say that, I went to the playoff game in Montreal), and the Whitecaps would have no trouble selling enough tickets to justify opening the upper bowl if they put a contending team on the field... open roof (sort of), great weather, no legitimate competition for the summer sporting dollar... Vancouver didn't just love soccer that much more in the heyday of the NASL...

 

[RL RCD]

Drop prices by 50%? Seriously? You really think that they will double their draw just to make back that loss? I think you need to go back to Economics 101 and study the Law of Decreasing Returns.

The pricing isn't the problem. The problem is that there isn't as large a market as we in the soccer community think. It will take years to build anything close to the long term loyalty the Lions have, or the star power the Canucks have.

There may- MAY- be a case where, for marque matches they make portions of the upper bowl available at a discounted price, laike maybe your 50% off scenario. Paper half the joint with free tickets to youth soccer clubs, sell the rest. Thus, you really still are limiting the amount of tickets available. Accomplish two things:

1. You are capturing the young fan at the earliest possible stage.
2. You give yourself real, live marketing feedback. If they do manage to actually sell-out the limited number of tickets they make available, they know they have either priced it too low, or that a secondary market for less expensive tickets does exist. Maybe both, if they sell them fast.

You can't just dive into this, you need to find a creative way to slowly move into it while getting yourself valuable feedback, and other benefits. If you just open it up wide, and hope to hell that by dropping prices you'll fill the joint, then you are in for a world of hurt if the one time, all-or-nothing experiment fails.

Dude, when it comes to Economics 101 (and Marketing) I know what I am talking about but you are not paying attention to the fact that I am constantly talking about playing in a stadium that has 55,000 seats (28,000 lover bowl + 27,000 upper bowl).

When you have a 55,000 stadium the goal SHOULD BE to put as many butts in those 55,000 seats as possible but Whitecaps are not doing that. They are trying to artificially create a demand (by limiting the number of seats to 21,000 and ridiculously calling it a sell-out any time they reach that number which alienates a lot of people). They are greedy and they are trying to keep higher prices than necessary.
From that stand-point I am talking about slashing the prices (but Whitecaps are now 5 years too late for that). You cannot build a soccer fan base the same way Canucks built their "fan" base (and Canucks' fan base is really not a fan base; it is a corporate sponsorship; simply, Joe Average, a real fan, cannot afford Canucks season tickets which really shows at Canucks games where half "fans" are checking their e-mails every 30 seconds and not paying any attention to a game).

Did not Whitecaps (5, 6 years ago?) hire actually a marketing guy from Canucks (if I remember)? So, if that is the case (and I believe that is exactly what happened) what could you expect from a marketing guy who was used to promoting tickets to corporations!?
I keep saying that a huge soccer fan base (here in Vancouver) cannot be built like that. In a 55,000 stadium the goal should have been to put that many people in those seats! If you say impossible I'll ask you: Why? How many fans did Whitecaps have during their NASL years? Why would that be impossible now?

Bring a marquee name player, offer cheap season tickets (whole lower bowl so the best seats), sell out those 28,000 season tickets, and then open the upper bowl for general public. It is obviously not working perfectly well at this price structure.

However we look at all this, calling 21,000 a sell-out when even a lower bowl (28,000) is not full is just ridiculous.