Minnesota joins MLS

How do you know soccer fans from the Carolinas wont go to Atlanta games?.

 

No, it was a DC United game.

 

How do you know they will?

I'm sure some will. The question is if enough will to make any sort of impact on attendance.

Of that I am highly skeptical.

 

Still a one-off event, no?

 

Same difference, then. It was a one-off friendly. He wasn't playing for a club team there and drawing 30,000 people twice a week for six months.
People will sell out an arena or a stadium for a rock concert, but there's a reason bands are constantly touring instead of setting up shop in one city.

 

Soccer fans in this part of the country are very loyal, they have been waiting for a pro soccer team for a long time.

 

They still don't have one. At least not without driving four to six hours (for most of them) to get there.

We'll see what happens.

 

Ruben, I grew up in Central Kansas, a few hours from Kansas City. People there are huge, huge fans of the Royals and Chiefs, as loyal as can be. They watch every game on TV, listen to the pre and post-game shows on the radio, wear the gear, etc. But to actually get in the car and drive to a game, for normal people, that's maybe a thing you can do a few times a year. It's a mini vacation. I don't care how much you love soccer or football or baseball or marbles, the vast majority of people can't or won't spend hours in the car and hundreds of dollars dozens of times a year just to get to the games. Maybe a few will, but you are talking hundreds (more likely dozens) not thousands of people. You want asses in the seats, you got to be able to count on people in the metro area where the stadium sits.

 

Your anecdotes indicate a likelihood that there is a small corps of people who would do as you say - travel regularly to Atlanta for the MLS. I don't think anyone is questioning you on that point.

Your anecdotes do not support the claim that thousands of South Carolinians will be traveling to Atlanta on a regular basis for MLS soccer. Your claim lacks credulity. It is a 7-hour-plus round trip from Columbia, Charleston, the Pee Dee or the Low Country. For your claim to have any credibility you'd have to be counting on thousands of Greenville-area fans willing to make the four-hour round trip. There are very few, if any, NFL teams drawing "thousands" on game day from that kind of distance with any regularity.

Can you provide any evidence? Hint: Saying "Trust me, I'm from there and know the soccer community there" isn't evidence.

 

I live in Columbia, Atla is 3 hours from here, Greenville isnt too far either.

 

I used to live in Columbia, too, and in the Upstate, and I grew up in Atlanta. I know how far it is.

I remain skeptical that fans from the Carolinas will move the attendance needle at all for an Atlanta MLS franchise.

 

I disagree with you, I think a good number of sc soccer fans will make it to a good number of games, considering most soccer fans around here are middle class, they could easily flight.

Another good point somebody had was about the National team playing in Columbia, we have a big military base in here, a lot of retired veterans that make the state the most patriotic in the country, why isnt the national team scheduling games here?