Unless you own land within a few blocks of the proposed site you won't be paying anything towards the building of the stadium. Regarding MLS's ranking among sports leagues in the US, it will be a very long time before it can challenge any of the big three leagues, if it ever does. Even the NHL at this point generates about twice as much revenue as MLS. But the league has shown that it's viable and can survive in this country.
I'd like to know how you came to that conclusion. There's a huge number of Hispanic fans that currently go to Dynamo games. Of course who needs facts when you have stereotypes to go on.
I don't measure popularity in revenues. Which games attract more people? Which games have more people watching? Baseball large revenues is based more on number of games than on people watching a particular game. Granted I'm surprised that baseball's total revenues are so high. I would guess that a disproportionate amount of the revenues are from NY and Boston because I see a lot of empty seats in other stadiums in which baseball is actually played.
I don't get this article. Maybe because I am pretty new to all this, really just enjoying soccer after watching soccer after seeing a few Dynamo games, but hasn't the MLS been around for about a decade now? Given that fact and the truth being that soccer is getting more and more respect (thanks in large part to immigrants both from south of the border and other parts of the world) over the past couple of years, why would the increase of ticket prices for the three major leagues doesn't mean that the Dynamo or the MLS in general are in major trouble. Soccer isn't popular in the US, but it has its fans and the only real competition for MLS is international soccer leagues, which MLS teams will occasionally play anyway. The fact is the Dynamo play games at a college stadium and their ticket prices aren't that high to begin with. I doubt that the bad economy will really effect the real faithful fans of MLS teams in most areas, as it isn't as if the ticket prices will jump to something unreasonable like that fans will have to pay at the new stadiums of the New York or Dallas NFL teams are sure to 'enjoy' next season. The Dynamo hopefully will have their stadium soon, but it probably still won't cost as much as it does for a good seat, in other sporting events. Soccer may never become the third most popular sport in the NA, but I think it is a lot more respected now, then it was 10 years ago and if the progress continues, it will probably eclipse the likes of the NHL and most Arena football organizations with 5 or 6 years.
baseball is a part of the american fabric. period. i consider myself a decent soccer fan, but it will NEVER overtake baseball in popularity in this country.
Put the numbers up. Pick whatever measure you want. Look at TV ratings for championship series and compare it to NBA or the rest. Baseball attendance has never been higher than it's been in the last 5 years or so. Your Houston Astros draw around 3 million fans per season, averaging around 37,000 fans/game. The number of games thing works both ways....it reduces the sense of premium on any one game's ticket. But look, with revenues around $6 billion, the game ain't losing popularity. That's only said on basketball internet forums based on antecdotal stuff...or their own feelings about the game.
TSU? Please that was a publicity stunt that everyone saw through. TSU can't even afford to pay their electricity bill.
Too bad the stadium will be mixed-use for soccer and football with TSU as the co-tenant for football. How about you research the specifics of the stadium deal before responding. TSU gave the Dynamo the political clout that was needed to get the deal done. I'm not saying that they have any money to pay for it, but money alone can't get things done in city politics.
The amount of fútbol hate in this thread amazes me. The MLS is doing fine, and will be fine. There are a lot more fans than the haters think. Games get sold out all the time. Who cares about TV ratings. The reason they are so low is because all the true fans are at the games. I agree on the Mexican thing though. USA vs Mexico at Reliant is 95% Mexican. Soccer isn't dead in the States. Your bring the World Cup back here, you will get the same numbers as you did in 94. "The average attendance for the tournament was 69,000 while the total attendance was 3.6 million. The 1994 World Cup holds the record for the highest attendance in World Cup history. It was also the highest-attended single sport event in United States history."
You know the article is from the Houston Press not the Chronicle. The Houston Press regularly bashes and criticizes all of the local pro sports teams (Texans, Astros, Rockets, Dynamo, & Aeros) when they are struggling or on a losing streak then when they start winning big game after big game, they start jumping on the bandwagon so don't get too bothered by it. Chron > Press.
I think MLB is easy to overestimate when it comes to revenue because of the 162 game season skews everything. If the Dynamo had 81 home games and 6 months of season, that would increase their revenue astronomically.
But when did the Dynamo have a bad streak? Just because they didn't 3-peat? I get what you're saying, though. I think it was still a little out of bounds by the Press. I still miss Public News.
HEY I DON'T LIKE SOCCER!!! LOOK AT ME!!!! If you're going to try to get me to care about an article, try one where the author actually knows something about what they are writing about. Average Dynamo attendance in 2008: 16,939 (Reg Season) Dynamo Playoff Attendance in 2008: 30,530 Average Rockets Attendance in 2008: 17,524 (best ever for Rockets) So the NBA team in Houston averages around 600 more per game than the MLS team in the regular season. Yeah, the soccer team is in serious trouble. Oh, and despite Fatty's racist overtones in this thread, that's paid attendance by both Anglos and Latinos.
The whole marketing aspect is irrelevant - you're not going to get a huge audience in America if you don't have the best players in the world. Not to mention MLS soccer is dull, slow and the players lack vision and flair. You have a few players who can dribble well but the long passes are shoddy and there is little to no creativity. The overall flow of the game is discombobulated due to these shortcomings -- why would people want to see this, even those new to the sport? At the end of the day it's a poor product and personally I'd rather pay US $100 to watch a game at Emirates stadium (in London) then go to a Dynamo game for free.
You can't really call it a streak since some of them have been international tournament matches, but unfortunately, outside of a few earlier preseason games, the Dynamo haven't won for a few weeks, although they have mainly just been getting draws other then that one really bad loss.
i'll say it again...if you have 81 home games....and you're drawing 37,000/event to 81 events....you're pretty damn significant. $6 billion. Record revenues. Right up there with the NFL, which has been in its own stratosphere. Record attendance numbers for years and years in a row. baseball's fine.
