Away Supporters Restricted in MLS
It was their second home game, but the first time there existed in the stadium that entity which really makes being at home meaningful: away support in numbers.
It was May 2007, and Toronto FC welcomed over 200 Chicago Fire fans who had made the 700+ mile journey north-east.
It was a hot day in the sun, but the atmosphere crackled as the Fire fans burst into song. The huddled ranks of Toronto fans responded, and when the Canadians scored their first goal of any kind, the stadium exploded. Seat cushions handed out as a pre-game freebie went flying through the air.
Toronto won the game, but apart from an awkward few minutes in the parking lot afterwards, the atmosphere between the fans seemed to promise a respectful rivalry in the making. Fans of both teams drank together after the game. All said it had been a hell of a lot of fun, home and away.
Later in the season, the Toronto fans came down to Chicago in similar numbers, and it seemed Toyota Park was just a little louder than usual that day. A buzz filled the stadium not present when Columbus brings a dozen fans or New England twenty. Any fan worldwide knows the benefit of a healthy rivalry in the stadium, and it’s not foreign to sport in America either, as a college football fan will tell you.
This budding rivalry in MLS could have doubled in intensity this season to something special. Section 8 Chicago, the Chicago Fire Independent Supporters’ Association, requested 500 tickets at BMO Field for the sole game in Toronto this season. Given Toronto are taking 2,000 to Columbus for the opener, they’d surely have matched that 500 themselves in Chicago.
But it won’t happen. In fact, Chicago will take only around 100 to Toronto, and Toronto should be restricted to the same number in Chicago. An opportunity to build atmospheric games and rivalries that MLS badly needs will be lost.
Why? Because of the short-sighted nature of one front office and a notable lack of interest in the issue of away support emanating from MLS headquarters. Section 8 Chicago have more-or-less been told they’re lucky to be getting even 100 tickets this season for Toronto, even though the request has been standing for some time.
And despite being pressed tirelessly by the Chairman of S8C, Ben Burton, MLS headquarters seems to see the issue as far less pressing than arranging David Beckham’s next shoe-shine (MLS headquarters did not respond to a request from me on the issue made several weeks ago).
The paradox is MLS will use supporters’ groupings such as Section 8 and Toronto FC’s Red Patch Boys and U-Sector to market the league. They’ll post photos on their websites of the dynamic support, they’ll speak of the passion shown by the hundreds of TFC or Chicago fans heading to Columbus, they’ll pose for photos with the Sons of Ben when they announce Philadelphia’s expansion. They’ll say it’s what marks soccer out from other professional sports here.
And then they’ll do little to promote this by supporting those who wish to travel in numbers, in terms of organisation and security, surely a growing issue.
Ben Burton, S8C Chairman, told Pitch Invasion of his frustration and concerns it could eventually lead to safety problems if away support is not properly organised as the league grows:
I’ve been in discussion with the front offices of different teams and the league about this issue for over a year because my organization has been concerned with the lack of direction coming out of the league offices for quite some time. While there has been some movement on the part of MLS over the past year, we’re really concerned that it will take a serious security issue before MLS really decides to speed up their glacial pace.
With the league growing into more cities and smaller stadiums, the percentage of away support is going to grow. By stifling it, we’ll run into much bigger problems later. MLS is adding Philadelphia, a city close to three or four other MLS cities. How is that going to work if away support is limited to 100, even 200 people? It’s silly. Supporters and fans will find their way into stadiums through other means and end up sitting in places that cause problems, problems I’m working to avoid.
That said, I haven’t even be able to get the interest of supporters’ groups around the league to unite for the cause.
The league needs to listen to supporters and institute some kind of policy about away support. Equally, other supporters’ groups also need to pressure their own front offices and MLS for reciprocal away support accommodation. It’s an issue that cries out for collective supporter action.
What should be done?
Leaving it up to individual teams to decide entirely on their allocations makes little sense. Of course Columbus will offer up their whole south end to whoever wants to take it, but those teams closer to filling their stadiums regularly are much more likely to restrict away support as far as they can get away with, as we’re seeing with Toronto.
In other countries, such as England, a certain proportion of the stadium is guaranteed for away support in all competitions: in the Premier League and Football League, it’s 3,000 or 10% of the stadium, whichever is lower. It’s true that there would be little point reserving large numbers of seats for Kansas City fans in Los Angeles, for example — the distances and culture are different from Europe — but a sensible solution to deal with organised groups should be properly explored.
As it stands, if established supporters’ groups with a track record of away support are not given 1% of the stadium even when they’ve requested five times that and taken over twice that the previous season, something is awry.
The broader concern is that this speaks to MLS continual ambiguous relationship to the culture of supporters’ groups. Broadcasters turn the mics and cameras on them, yet their very presence is being restricted where it could do most for the atmosphere at MLS games.
Update: 48 hours on from this post’s publication, there has been massive interest on the general issue of figuring out a way forward on the away support issue, and I’d particularly like to thank those Toronto fans who have expressed their dismay at their front office’s decision. Building on this kind of collaboration in the coming weeks will be critical, and behind the scenes, supporters’ groups are working on figuring out a proposal for MLS. We will have a post with more details on this soon.
The one difficult issue that has caused conflict so far regards the possibility — and I should stress that as far as I know, nothing has been decided — that Chicago might limit Toronto’s allocation as far as Toronto limits Chicago. But I would say again the situation is fluid and let’s work on finding a solution that would mean it wouldn’t even need to be considered and indeed (with a league-wide mandate) would make it impossible in the future. It should certainly be an absolute last resort.
Thanks to everyone who has offered comments and thoughts on how to proceed, please check back in the next day or two for a further and more detailed discussion on the way forward.
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- A Budding Problem « Fighting Talker
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- Pitch Invasion » Lead Story » Restricting Away Support in MLS — The Reaction
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- Biggest CUNTS in MLS series: Toronto FC (TFC) and their fans « Footballers Lives
Tobor, yes, it was an issue back then, hence why he was contacted. Section 8 had to turn away dozens of fans as TFC’s allocation was insufficient in 2007 as well. Moreover the same issues in principle — about developing a league-wide mandate and working on safety issues — stood then, too. Your faith in Garber is great, and I think we will hear something this year, but only because we’re pushing MLS. They just wouldn’t figure this out off their own bat — trust me on that.
I strongly believe that as the league grows to closer to twenty teams this will become a much larger problem. In California it will be so due to having three teams within a 6hour drive and the rivalry of having close connections. In the tri-state area we now have supporters that can easily travel. In the great lakes area we now have supporters that want to travel, which will then trickle southward as St.Louis gets the next team.
This shows the lack of forsight in the front offices of these clubs. They are not owned entirely by futbol people. These clubs need to do more to get their colors in other stadiums. I find it very interesting that i was talking to a friend about soccer support in the u.s. The basic point was that he was in England and stopped by a 3rd division game with over 9,000 people singing the entire game.
Philly should not set its seating at 18,500, it should go for 20,000 and open up a section to D.C., N.Y., Columbus, N.E., and Chicago. The same goes for D.C., they are in talks for a stadium; this team should be inviting supporters from other teams. Maybe even the supporters groups themselves should become more involved vocally with the clubs to get other supporters groups in the stadia of our league.
We have not been around since 1886, but we can make a larger impact as our league grows larger and closer.
Tom,
Is this the first time that Section 8 has tried to get this number of tickets for an away game or is this typical of Chicago’s travelling support?
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=514368&root=mls&campaign=rss&source=soccernet&cc=5901
An interesting take by Ives.
While it is easy to see Toronto FC wanting to hold on to as many tickets as possible considering the club is regularly selling out BMO Field, turning away potential visitors to Toronto doesn’t seem like a smart idea either. You would have to wonder what the city of Toronto and its tourism board would have to say about hundreds of potential visitors being told not to bother visiting. Considering the city contributed to a portion of the cost of the stadium, and technically owns it, I can’t help but think Toronto city officials wouldn’t be too keen on that sort of short-sightedness.
“Also remember that not every team is as needy for fans as Columbus. One doubts Chicago will be offering Toronto fans more seats at Toyota Park than Toronto are offering Chicago at BMO Field as a matter of reciprocity — so this directly impacts on TFC fans who want to travel, too.”
I don’t see the benefit of two clubs getting into a pissing match. This is an opportunity for the Fire to show class and shame MLSE. A
Anyway - whatever - as noted above the issue is picking up steam and will have to be dealt with now.
Next.
Very good points made by mostly all bloggers, and an excellent post.
My initial gut reaction is to be more concerned with the unknown, and the lack of physical safety that venturing in to the unknown allows for. Away supporters sections do provide an excellent harbour for safe support in areas where safety is key. I would like hope that true hooliganism (football factories and firms) are things that we don’t adopt from the rest of the football world, but the hopes for peaceful rhetoric being the extent of violence at footy matches doesn’t prevent those prone to using their team as an excuse to engage in violence from being violent. It’s a sad state, but the truth is the consideration needs to be made that away supporters may need a section of their own if there is a perceived reality that things may get out of hand during a football match.
League owners I am guessing don’t deal in the unknown, and work with facts. I suppose that not having a dedicated percentage away supporters section is understandable (Under certain condition - see below - this isn’t right, but right now it is understandable). Perhaps the league management doesn’t anticipate that safety will be an issue, as evidenced by the numbers of away supporters for most MLS teams (which aren’t staggering) - security on hand can usually deal with anything that arises present day, I would think. On top of that, and you all have said it, money IS an issue. What business owner would complain when 2000 happy and rabid fans want to come spend their money with an away team, especially when they are having trouble filling the place without them?
The facts in this case seem to lead me to believe that the finances (the only thing that matters to the owners) don’t support the dedicated percentage. Yet. In cities like Toronto I can assure you we would love to have more seats to ourselves, so giving them away for an away side often stings because they are being taken away from us. I am sure that MLSE is already hearing calls for expansion of BMO field to accomodate this problem. I can imagine MLSE owners are hard pressed under these circumstances, so are forced up to give up the away seats to their fans (aka their best customers). It is simply good business, and keeps football alive in the city. In Columbus, Kansas City and some other MLS venues, the problem is the opposite, so the owners accomodate to keep the Football alive in that city as well.
Keep in mind everyone - if the seats aren’t filled, the team won’t be there long. There’s no profit in dead air and cold chairs. The team will do whatever it can to fill seats, and do that regularly. Nobody can argue with the fact that having an away supporters side adds a lot of fun to the game, though, and that the flavour just isn’t the same without it.
With all things being equal in other venues (rabid, dedicated fans filling the arena like we all agree they have in Europe), a dedicated section is undoubtedly a safe and smart business move - the seats will fill. I am sure the owners will come around to this fact when the league as a whole gets to where everyone agrees it will be - a rousing, amazing, home-fan-seat filling success.
Tobor — it’s not about a “pissing match”, it’s about a principle being at stake. Now, you might well be right the Fire should do the reverse and shame MLSE by offering TFC 500 tickets, but I don’t think you’re characterising my point fairly there. But as I’ve said, the Fire have announced nothing yet about TFC’s allocation so let’s focus on the negotiations now.
Question:
Why do so many TFC fans turn to the “sell out your stadium first” argument? What does a game being sold out/not sold out in Chicago or anywhere have to do with traveling fans? Over in the UK I’m sure there are many ManU, Liverpool and Arsenal supporters that have difficulty finding tickets.
If TFC is only going to offer a paltry 100 tickets then they should expect the same from Chicago and other clubs.
Micah,
Great question, but I don’t think the fans are the ones with the philosophy. As is demonstrated by TFC supporters commentary above, the philosophy is actually different in most cases. From what I see,TFC fans want a larger supporters section for the flavor of the game. The issue doesn’t appear to be in the hands of the fans to control, rather is controlled by hard finances, and what the owners feel is good for business.
I also feel that you suggested “eye for an eye” philosophy on ticket sales might not be good for Business, even if the numbers are, as you say (and I agree) “paltry”. I would also suggest to keep in mind that the MLS doesn’t have a precedent for high ticket sales like there is here in Toronto, and that market conditions are not equal in all cities, so it is difficult for any club owner (let alone the league) to determine their approach without more facts and some history to build upon. The UK, Europe or anywhere else in the world (with the exception of potentially Australia) is an unfair comparison to make right now - their markets are evidently very different from ours, so it makes sense that they conduct their business differently.
I’m part of the LA Riot Squad, and have traveled to San Jose will do so again this year.
What MLS has difficulty understanding is the way that away support sells tickets for both teams in the stadium. The twice annual trips to San Jose were absolutely foundational in the early growth of LARS, and occasional fans frequently got off the bus and turned into season ticket holders.
At the same time, away support in the stadium creates the kind of atmosphere that makes the casual home fan want to come back. ESPN and MLS can see this well enough that they make sure every derby the Galaxy play with Chivas gets televised. We had the same kind of electric atmosphere when we played Pachuca in the SuperLiga final last summer. And this is not unique to LA. My son and I were in Chicago last summer and attended the TFC/Fire match. A really dreary match, preceded by $15 to park on gravel, was saved and enlivened by the two supporters groups. I’m really at a loss to understand why MLS cannot/will not see this more clearly.
Yes, there have been problems with away support - PZ above referenced the beatdown we received at the hands and batons of the San Jose State campus police - and we were attacked before and after our last derby match by Chivas “supporters”. But both instances could have easily been prevented by more proactive and knowledgeable action by the stadium personnel. (That said, my conversations with Galaxy and MLS officials after the Chivas match do not make me very confident this will be fixed very easily)
Several above have mentioned that there is no tradition of organized away support in the American professional sports - but MLS should view this as an advantage that would better define soccer’s place in the sports landscape. We’re hoping to take a very large group to Oakland when the Galaxy play the Aftershocks there in June, and we’ll be traveling to see the Galaxy play MLS soccer. We’re not going to see the David Beckhams play thrown together Asian teams, which was just done to underwhelming response.
It seems that the way forward is:
- for each team to hold tickets for away support
- for each club to take the lead to organize and enable travel to the nearest rival(s)
- for the stadiums to anticipate difficulties and have league-wide policies for supporters sections
Come on MLS - away support will sell tickets, build atmosphere, and raise the profile of your league. It’s not rocket science - get with it.
Hmmm, and now it appears that the Dallas leg of the Texas Derby has been moved from a Saturday in August to a Wednesday in May, that puts a hardship on getting a big turnout from the Texian Army and El Batallon.
What team in their right mind would limit tickets to anyone when they’re stadium has not sold out?
‘Cause that would be stupid.
Toronto FC has by far the highest amount of season tickets sold so far this year.
Gere is full report from The MLS Zone:
http://themlszone.blogspot.com/2008/03/season-ticket-numbers-released.html
1. TORONTO FC - 16,641 (+34%)
2. Los Angeles Galaxy - 7,915 (-15%)
3. D.C. United - 5,976 (+27%)
4. Real Salt Lake - 4,632 (+5%)
5. Houston Dynamo - 4,116 (+87%)
6. New England Revolution - 4,001 (+14%)
7. San Jose Earthquakes - 3,822
8. Columbus Crew - 3,227 (+1%)
9. New York Red Bulls - 3,170 (+33)
10. FC Dallas - 3,002 (-4%)
11. Colorado Rapids - 2,968 (+59%)
12. CHICAGO FIRE- 2,759 (+8%)
13. Kansas City Wizards - 1,539 (+232%)
14. Chivas USA - 837 (-2%)
It is not easy to get tickets in Toronto,and as far we know TFC has offered extra 150 tickets to Sec8 so we are talking 250. I wonder how many will show up after crying like a babies all over the net 110-150 top.
Hey, very interesting post.
My written English is not so good so I write in German:
“Lieber den Spatz in der Hand, als die Taube auf dem Dach.”
Yours sincerely
Luxus
Very good written. I’ m loving reading these articles , it is such a rich topic, and a great chance for fans to share their knowledge & passion!
R.Vinello
I like two things when looking through your blog - pics and the way you write)) love the third photo, so many people are involved)