DIY or Prefab? Portland, Seattle and Success in American Soccer Culture
On July 23rd, the City Council of Portland, Oregon approved a plan to renovate PGE Park, home of USL-1 side Portland Timbers. The renovation and expansion of the long-time home of the Timbers was a point of contention – a requirement if the Timbers were to host MLS games at PGE Park, but one that required city financing. And so, as the mayor was paraded before the raucous Timbers Army, Portland’s supporters’ umbrella group, and the club-record 14,000 in attendance, fans rightfully celebrated their impending berth in North America’s top-flight soccer league.
However, with the good news there will now come inevitable comparisons with the Timbers’ primary rival, and MLS expansion case study, the nearby Seattle Sounders. And these comparisons make Timbers fans bristle. You see, while Seattle’s inaugural MLS season has been an undoubted success, Portlanders are suffering through what amounts to a sporting version of the overlooked younger sibling. They have been toiling away in the deep darkness of USL soccer for years, growing one of the largest supporters sections in any league in the US, and all through grassroot organization. But in a few months of Seattle Sounders MLS soccer, Portland has been overshadowed by what is, by all accounts, MLS’ most successful expansion to date.
A Historic Rivalry
Soccer in the two cities shares a similar history, dating back to the mid-seventies halcyon of the NASL. The Sounders and Timbers were admitted as expansion franchises in 1974 and 1975 and folded in 1982 and 1983 respectively, as the league disintegrated.
In the years after, as North American soccer died and was reborn and moved inside and back outside and died again, seemingly without end, teams from both cities competed in the alphabet soup of interim leagues, like the WSA, WSL, ASL, and ASPL. It was not until the USSF firmly established the United Soccer Leagues and a federation-run pyramid that the teams found stability. In the USL A-League (the nation’s top-flight until MLS was formed) the Seattle Sounders name and logo was rededicated in 1994, and the Timbers followed suit some seven years later in 2001.
In the A-League (later renamed USL First Division), Seattle proved to be a strong force, winning four League Championships and reaching US Open Cup semifinals three times. Portland, on the other hand, struggled mightily, never winning the league, or making it past the 4th round of the Open Cup. The Timbers’ greatest success was winning the 2004 A-League Western Division.
Off the field, however, the results were reversed. Seattle struggled to attract crowds over 3,000 for their entire existence, averaging closer to 2,000 around the turn of the millennium. Their highest average attendance came in their inaugural A-League season, 1994, with 6,347. Otherwise, the average for their entire existence in the A-League/USL-1 was 3,194.
Compare that with the Timbers, who’ve averaged nearly twice that in their seven years of USL soccer: 6,235. In fact, in ’07 and ’08, the Timbers have been the second highest drawing team in USL, behind only Montreal (who miraculously draw well over 10,000 regularly because French Canada is just inexplicable). The Timbers also became considerably well ingrained into the city’s sports consciousness, having only to compete with NBA’s Trailblazers and Triple-A baseball.
Crowning the large crowds (large by our modest standards, of course) is the Timbers Army, who occupy the North End of the stadium and have built a reputation for being among the most active supporters in any league in the United States — a recent “animated” tifo display, in which a 20-foot lumberjack clad in Timbers green chopped down a replica of the Seattle Space Needle, made waves in the deep recesses of the internet reserved for American soccer talk.
Guerrilla Marketing
All of that work, though, and the Timbers Army’s brick-by-brick construction of their club’s identity, has been eclipsed by the sudden appearance of a soccer marketing giant to the north, where before there had been little comparison between the two.
Seattle Sounders FC is going gangbusters since their “promotion” to MLS this season, both on the field in MLS and in the stands (and in the bank and in the city and in the news). In contrast to their meager USL days, the MLS Sounders have drawn average crowds near 30,000 in their 10 home matches this season. Yes. 30,000. You read that correctly (the semi-official number is 29,983.90, but all those zeroes look better in print). You may be doing some quick math in your head right now, so I’ll give you a moment to work it all out.
In the meantime, note that MLS’ previous best-team-ever-everybody-look-at-that, Toronto FC, are averaging 20,277 (probably as a function of stadium capacity – they’d draw more if they could). Have you done the math yet? The MLS Sounders are drawing almost ten-times as many fans than they did just last year, in the same stadium, with the same name. So what gives? Well, that’s what the Timbers Army wants to know when they chant “Where were you last year?!” at the seas of Sounders fans at Qwest Field.
A perfect storm settled over Seattle in 2008, at least as far as Seattle Sounders FC ownership group (faced by mascot Drew Carey but mainly backed by Hollywooder Joe Roth, along with Adrian Hanauer and Microsoft founder Paul Allen) were concerned. Seattle’s oldest sports team, gridiron’s Seattle Seahawks, were suffering a miserable season winning only four games and missing the playoffs by a mile and a half. Baseball’s Mariners had been nothing more than mediocre for some time. Most importantly, however, was the departure for Oklahoma City of the city’s most successful and nationally renowned sports team, the NBA’s SuperSonics. That left a huge gaping hole in Seattle’s sports consciousness.
The Sounders plugged that hole with scarves. In a “guerilla marketing” maneuver, engineered by Seattle-based Wexley School for Girls (a jocularly named “alt” ad and marketing agency), thousands of Seattle Sounders FC branded scarves were disseminated around the metropolitan area and fans were encouraged to display them publicly in a Scarf Seattle campaign.
The maneuver worked, and the city’s mailboxes, balconies, and shop windows were all a-flutter with the blue and green scarves. Through special offers to groups, Seahawks season ticket holders, and the like, the Sounders managed to sell 13,000 season tickets in a matter of weeks. While some of the announced tickets were actually Seahawks holders who had simply not-yet-passed-up their special offer, the number created buzz, and the momentum kept the sales sky-rocketing. By season’s start, there were nearly 20,000 legitimate Sounders season ticket holders. Throughout the city, posters, schedules and bar signs began popping up and a giant scarf was hung from a highway overpass. It was a perfect modern marketing gimmick: make the buzz, and the buzz makes sales, even if the product is totally unknown.
And therein lies the rub for the Timbers Army and their DIY culture down the road. Seattle’s initial success was the result of expensive marketing. John Keatley’s blog is an insider’s look that innocently enough details a stage of the campaign in which, since there were no available press photos of Sounders fans, a cartoon modeling company was hired to make the background for a billboard. Tellingly, Portlanders refer to Sounders fans as “customers,” characterizing them as simply having been the victims of good advertising. But the complaints go deeper than street-marketing.
Do It Yourself
In the strange marketplace and cultural space of American soccer, the idea of authenticity has become vital to supporters and fans. Many fan groups around the country have struggled hard to develop an identity, often at odds with the management groups of their supported clubs that, in the early days, insisted on clean family-friendly atmospheres, hoping to cash in on the soccer-mom and youth team market. This has made the DIY ethic a point of pride for many North American supporters groups, who view the trials and tribulations of the past as battles won. For example, many supporters groups in MLS have had to make their own team merchandise and even large flags and banners, paying out of association dues. The Timbers Army are perhaps the epitome of this sense of DIY pride, especially considering that they’ve labored in anonymity in the lower divisions. In many ways, to Timbers supporters, the sudden success of Seattle Sounders FC seems to represent the opposite of this mentality.
Timbers Army Banners
Meanwhile, within the stadium, Seattle’s games are conducted under much pomp and circumstance – a marching band, the Sound Wave, marches with fans into the stadium prior to kick off, green and blue confetti is shot from cannons overhead as the team is announced, and canned music blares out of the PA throughout the proceedings. The stadium announcer reads a dramatic script in a (presumably authentic) posh English accent, not unlike Robin Leach of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. And amidst all this, fans hold aloft their uniform team-granted scarves. Overhead, large branded tarps cover unused seats in the top tier — a good use of dead space, except that one of them features goalkeeper Kevin Hartman, who plays for the Kansas City Wizards.
The whole ordeal feels as orchestrated as The Lion King On Ice. It is, without a doubt, a choreographed and controlled game experience – the antithesis to the anarchic, heady and wild experience so many supporters groups have struggled for years to engender in other stadia, not only in Portland, but also in Chicago, DC and other MLS markets. It’s no wonder the Sounders Experience has been derided as plastic, prefabricated, and shallow.
Seattle's Marching Band
That said, such derision is in some sense the product of envy. Seattle is what every American soccer team strives to be – appreciated by the city and treated as a sporting equal to other major sports, supported by regular sell out crowds, carried on local broadcast television, with a highly visible presence in the market. Seattle is strewn with Sounderphernalia, from team gear in the Space Needle gift shop to a branded Budweiser sign in every bar. Restaurants advertise televised games to draw customers. In most MLS cities, teams are lucky to have more than one “soccer bar” through which to market and build community, and it’s rare one can find merchandise available anywhere but at the stadium.
Teams in MLS sit across an uncomfortable dichotomy: one at play in the Northwest, but representing the entire soccer culture — that between supporters (being those fans who participate regularly in supporters’ sections, singing, displays of tifo and pyrotechnics and the like) and casual fans. The problem is that there simply are not enough supporters in any given American market to alone make a team profitable. Instead, much like the majority of attendees at an NBA or MLB game are not season ticket holding, chest painting, laid-off Ford plant workers, the casual fan has long been the holy grail for MLS. Drawing a group of 20,000 fans — diehard supporters or not — each and every match is what will make MLS teams profitable, more pervasive in the sports consciousness, and permanent.
On the other hand, however, as in all sports it is the wildly zealous and colorful die-hard fans that generate a team’s sense of identity and make the experience unique. You need only look to two-team baseball markets to find how the cultures of teams differ from club to club. Soccer’s single biggest asset, the thing that makes it a unique sport experience (and thus a unique return on your entertainment dollar) are the supporters. No other sport in North America produces a similar fan environment to the supporters sections in MLS from DC to Chicago to the newer expansion teams, not even close.
Thankfully, many soccer teams in the States are beginning to realize this, and are slowly undoing years of adversarial relations by trying to encourage the growth of supporters sections. After all, while the moms and dads will be the largest paying group, none of them will pay as often and as repeatedly as the supporters, and none will broadcast the brand as fervently. The Timbers’ highest attendance came in 2008, the year the team finished dead last in the table. These groups are the permanent kernel of the team’s identity, which is absolutely vital to the survival of an underdog sport like soccer in America.
Of course, Qwest Field in Seattle is not exactly populated solely by Mariners fans who wandered into the wrong stadium. The Emerald City Supporters group was founded in 2005, back when the Sounders were a USL franchise. Still active today, the ECS has grown into an umbrella organization representing various supporters’ clubs that occupy what has become known as the Brougham End, behind the southern goal. As do all other supporters groups, they organize tifo, stand, and sing, and just as Qwest Field is near capacity, the sections occupied by the ECS have been full for every MLS game — even if they get their tifo upside down upon occasion.
Scarves Up in Seattle
It is at the intersection of these two sectors where MLS pay-dirt lays. For while ECS and Seattle’s soccer-knowledgable hard core perhaps face an uphill battle to impart some personality on their squeaky clean new top-flight team, the Timbers Army will face a struggle to meld their raucous, foul mouthed energy with the family crowd the Timbers will need in MLS. In a recent interview in the Oregonian, Timbers owner Merrit Paulson saluted the Scarf Seattle campaign as a huge success, saying it will “go down in history as one of the all-time great marketing campaigns… that campaign, ultimately resulting in everybody bringing all the scarves to the games, was in my mind of the great examples of brilliant marketing. And we may take elements of that.”
It’s no secret that the success in Seattle has made every MLS executive sit up and begin taking furious notes, hoping to glean some bit of knowledge or luck that will draw that elusive beast, the average American sports fan, out of its armchair. Portland will want him just as much Seattle does, as will Vancouver and Philly, and as does the frustrated bulk of MLS teams from floundering franchises like New York and Dallas to clubs on the cusp like Chicago, Houston and DC.
So while the Timbers Army can bemoan having been overlooked, and MLS fans can have a go at Seattle’s preposterous game day fanfare and the newly minted fans with their team supplied scarves, Seattle is still out drawing all other MLS markets by a long shot. Here’s the rub, and the moral that risks going unnoticed. The true goal of all MLS teams, Seattle and Portland included, should be a melding of these two approaches. After all, marketing puts asses in seats, but the atmosphere created by dedicated, Do-It-Yourselfing supporters, the thing that makes soccer unique against an increasingly noisy sports market, gets them to come back. Shooting confetti from cannons does not.
For more trenchant cultural analysis of just about anything, catch Benny and friends at Running Downhill
Of course, Qwest Field in Seattle is not exactly populated solely by Mariners fans who wandered into the wrong stadium. The Emerald City Supporters group was founded in 2005, back when the Sounders were a USL franchise. Still active today, the ECS has grown into an umbrella organization representing various supporters’ clubs that occupy what has become known as the Brougham End, behind the southern goal. As do all other supporters groups, they organize tifo, stand, and sing, and just as Qwest Field is near capacity, the sections occupied by the ECS have been full for every MLS game – even if they get their tifo upside down upon occasion.
It is at the intersection of these two sectors where MLS pay-dirt lays. For while ECS and Seattle’s soccer-knowledgable hard core perhaps face an uphill battle to impart some personality on their squeaky clean new top-flight team, the Timbers Army will face a struggle to meld their raucous, foul mouthed energy with the family crowd the Timbers will need in MLS. In a recent interview in the Oregonian, Timbers owner Merrit Paulson saluted the Scarf Seattle campaign as a huge success, saying it will “go down in history as one of the all-time great marketing campaigns… that campaign, ultimately resulting in everybody bringing all the scarves to the games, was in my mind of the great examples of brilliant marketing. And we may take elements of that.” It’s no secret that the success in Seattle has made every MLS executive, and those yet to be, sit up and begin taking furious notes, hoping to glean some bit of knowledge or luck that will draw that elusive beast, the average American sports fan, out of its armchair. Portland will want him just as much Seattle does, as will Vancouver and Philly, and as does the frustrated bulk of MLS teams from floundering franchises like New York and Dallas to clubs on the cusp like Chicago, Houston, and DC.
About the Author
Benjamin Kumming
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Trackbacks
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Great stuff. I also wonder what your thoughts are on travelling away fans (and hence their segregation) if there are teams in nearby cities. It’s hard to work that out in the US for now, but when Portland becomes an MLS side it should become a thought that could keep the executives busy.
That’s a great piece.
I think the wider American soccer public will be introduced to something new to them when Portland ascends to MLS. The rivalry between Portland and Seattle is something that can’t be created, it has to be born and I think it’ll pull a lot of people in when they witness the intensity of it.
Coming from Charlotte, NC I can somewhat understand how Portlanders feel. Charlotte and Portland are very different, but also very similar in that they both sit in the shadow of more well known cities (in Charlotte’s case, Atlanta) and get compared to that city by outsiders when in reality they couldn’t be anymore different. It can be somewhat annoying.
The DIY-culture you explained is what’s going to make soccer pop in this country, you’re seeing it all over the place now, even in a place like Cary, North Carolina where the Railhawks have a grassroots group that stand in their stadium’s south end.
Great article. One correction: Portland Timbers entered the NASL in 1975.
Great Piece. A few thoughts:
- I don’t think the Timbers Army bemoans their lack of attention viz the MLS Sounders: we’re pretty happy doing our thing, loving our club and blazing the trail for supporters culture in America. One truly glorious thing about the Timbers Army is that we mobilized as a grassroots political movement during the political wrangling for stadium funding, getting our point across at all levels of city politics, and, I truly believe, affecting the outcome of the process.
- The TA is at this point not a dues collecting organization.
- The Whitecaps will undoubtedly enjoy the same sort of 10x attendance boost when they move from Burnaby to BC Place, which can hold 60k.
- While it may have been possible to build a larger MLS stadium somewhere outside Portland, PGE park will be a special place to play.
- L’Impact are, shall we say, slutty with their tickets. No doubt there are many paying customers, but I’d wager a fair bit that 1/3 of every crowd paid nothing or close to nothing to attend.
- The Timbers won the Cascadia Cup this past weekend, from the Whitecaps. I was reminded that the Caps supporters hate the sounders almost as much as we do, and TA/Southsiders relations are properly genial pre and post match: I think MLS Northwest is going to be a special place.
I do resent that the conclusion you drew was that the Scarf Seattle campaign has something to do with my fandom, and that the ECS guys who work their asses off every week are somehow less valid than Portland’s fans (and that everything they do were put there by marketing executives). I know you’re in Portland. Did you talk to someone in Seattle before this? Have you come to a game here?
Other than that, it’s an interesting article, with some very good points.
Abby — why do you think the author is “in Portland”? I’m curious, because you’re wrong.
I thought I’d read an article here from an author in Portland, in all honesty, and thought it was the same guy. I was wrong and I rescind that.
I think this piece is a wonderful, objective look at the dynamics of soccer in the states, using the NW to illustrate the particulars.
Portland’s in a great position to produce success at the turnstiles. Double the existing everyday gate and you fill the stadium. Seattle was in a very different spot moving from USL to MLS. Consider trying to fill just third of a massive stadium when you know you only have 3500 people who cared about the USL team? They were right to go mad whoring to get people to the gate. And Seattle fans will hopefully fall in love with their rave green whore and support her for years to come. But Seattle’s track record is not full of support for teams that struggle and I fear that when MLS Seattle fails to produce a competitive team in the future that attendance may drop considerably.
Can’t buy me love.
This is great writing. Refreshing to see an author look fairly at both clubs. What I personally love about the Timbers Army is that, as our members have said, “If you want to be TA, you’re TA.” We also are on good terms with the front office after a period of the kind of tension you mentioned in the article. A good working relationship with club executives is IMO a big part of having a successful supporters group for any club.
@RR: Executives here in Portland are working on this even now. You’re right about other clubs needing to take a good look at this important matter.
@RR:
Yes, executives already had to work, long, hard ours to make sure the Seattle fans were properly supervised in July. It took a LOT of work.
I think much of what you labeled “corporate marketing” is unfair to the fans and the FO in Seattle. The march to the match was a fan tradition in Seattle before the FO got a hold of it. Sure, the FO pushes it as a marketing ploy toward new fans, but the tradition has it’s roots in DIY culture of the supporter groups.
While those outside the bubble of the Sounders fans focus on the marching band and the air cannons as examples of the fake fandom in Seattle, they tend to ignore that the fans have tried to get these removed or stopped. Most think they are just as fake as the critiques that want to slam the Seattle fan for them.
The critques also ignore the DIY banners and flags created by supporter groups independent of the FO. Over 1000 hand made flags were distributed in the stadium this year with no FO support behind them. Yes there is a DIY culture flushing if you know where to look.
I’m sure Portland will have their share of marketing ploys and corporate organized faux supporter give aways (was that TA scarves I saw on sale in team pro shop last time I was there). I’m sure the TA will think they are legit expressions of true DIY fandom.
The second sentence in the Historical Rivalry section should read: “The Sounders and Timbers were admitted as expansion franchises in 1974 and 1975, respectively, and folded in 1983 and 1982, respectively, as the league disintegrated.” Thanks for so quickly making the prior correction.
Great article!
As a member of the San Jose Ultras and as fan who has attended games in Portland and Seattle this year, I can’t agree more with your assessment.
One thing Seattle does is put lots of warm bodies in their seats. I talked to a couple of them this spring and many said they were primarily Seahawks fans who loved their NFL team so much that they wanted to just be in Qwest field during the summer. Also, many didn’t know that the Sounders played there before this year. Overall, Seattle felt very very Disneyfied and there was a sign on the back of the seats that reminded people to keep the game G rated – with a 1-800 number you can call to Narc out people who use bad language all Homeland security like.
And in Portland, I stood near the Timbers Army – they are incredible, but in the stadium they had only half as many fans in the stadium as in Qwest field. When I watch on FSN, there are plenty of empty seats in the stadium. I guess you have to remember it is still a USL team that is a year and a half from their MLS Debut but how are they going to fill the stadium without the measures that Seattle used?
I guess it’s the classic Quantity versus Quality question.
For my money, when I get the chance to travel to an away game to either city, I’d choose to support my Quakes in Portland vs Seattle any day. I think that since Portland’s stadium isn’t as giant cavernous as Qwest, it will be a fair matchup for away fans where we can make our presence felt and have a good give and take in the stands with the Timbers Army. In Qwest field we were stuck in a corner, and frankly the Sounder fans gave us a lot of trouble outside the stadium – over the top and almost violent. Portland fans seemed to be a lot more gracious and more into supporting their club than fighting.
Anyway, thanks for a great article and giving me the chance to rant about my soccer tourism to the Northwest this season.
It has been conjectured that Seattle Sounders FC uses their PA system to prompt chants, songs and applause. Piping in crowd noise and the like. Any truth to this?
The Seattle-Portland is the largest, and most intense soccer rivalry in American soccer.
I am a soccer fan from NY, never been to either cities, the press I hear about this rivalry is quite a bit.
Cannot wait til 2011, I am flying in from New York to attend this game!
Joe
NY, NY
The only time the PA is used is for the 74th minute chant. Nobody actually chants along with it, but those that want to throw feces; latch onto is as if the whole crowd would be silent without the jumbo tron masters. When in fact, the exact opposite is true.
@Blakec
“was that TA scarves I saw on sale in team pro shop last time I was there”
Nope. What you saw was something from here: http://pgepark.com/merchandise/index.html?c=80
The TA scarves can be found over here: http://www.soccercityusa.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=merch Sponsors of sets for order number 7 of the season are being listed right now.
Bruce- that’s nonsense.
Pauol- so were Seattle fans aggressive and over the top, or were they Seahawks fans wanting to sit in the stadium in the summer? You paint two different portraits of the stadium and the fans. By sticking in the corner that away fans are put in – nothing we can do about that, sorry – you get a very different look at what goes on. If you were to dig a little deeper you’d see something very different. And I’m pretty sure those 1-800 numbers are never used. (At least our field isn’t on a college campus and about to collapse.)
A game day in Portland in the MLS is likely to be much like Seattle is. They’re going to have to broaden their marketing to get the rest of the city in, just like Seattle had to. I’m looking forwards to seeing the people here claiming that Portland is so much more ‘authentic’ bending over backwards to justify the same methods.
@ Blakec — The classic Timbers Army/No Pity scarf has never been sold anywhere except hand-to-hand one supporter to another or over the bar at one of the two pubs that the TA has called home. And it has never cost more than $10. (As of this season, there are more than 5000 in circulation.)
One question I have never heard a legitimate answer to, and I ask it here in the spirit of equanimity in which this article was written:
WHERE WERE ALL THOSE SOUNDERS FANS WHEN THE TEAM WAS IN USL?
If you find this question offensive, that’s not its intent. I seriously want someone to explain why a successful minor league franchise drew as many fans as avant garde opera and then suddenly — POOF! — tens of thousands of new fans show up for an untested product.
In sincerity: can anyone explain this?
Abby,
First off, let me welcome you to MLS and wish your Seahawks good luck this season. You must start to get really excited around this time of year.
But wow, this article is about Seattle and Portland, I agree with the author and you take a swipe at San Jose’s unfortunate stadium situation as a jab at me?
Thanks for adding one more data point to the trend line that shows that Sounder fans are jerks. You might not like the article or the fact that I recounted my actual experiences with your club, but is your way of dealing with it attacking me? You’re not helping your cause.
Look, if you are at all associated with the ECS, I’m sure you know that there was violence and one of our traveling crew was attacked by a few ECS. As I mentioned, that was outside of the stadium and consisted of about 100 Sounder fans. While inside the stadium, tucked into our away corner, we were surrounded by a sea of geriatrics wearing seahawks gear. Them’s the facts and those facts have nothing to do with our interim stadium situation while we await completion of our – oh that’s right – soccer specific stadium, with what? Real grass, that’s right.
And maybe you are right – the 1-800 numbers might not be used because they are unnecessary because security is crawling all over the place. The Disney patrol deemed our “Man Boobs FC” banner to be too offensive for the Seahawks fans sitting around us so they confiscated it.
Face it, the author speaks a truth that hurts you deeply but that is patently true. Instead of being as vicious as your fellow supporters are to away fans, maybe see what you can do next year (during your second year as a soccer fan) to develop more authentic support.
- Go Quakes!
As a seattle resident the best i can do to explain your question is say that Seattle is a major league market. The people of Seattle approved the funding for Qwest Field because we were told we would be an MLS team there… I think that shows that the support for soccer in the city was there. However, the people weren’t going to flood the stadium for a league most people thought of as Minor League. Its sad, but pretty true unfortunately. We came out in pretty good numbers for open cup games against MLS teams but you’re right in saying the USL support was not up to par.
Wow, Pauol, you’re remarkably thin-skinned. You insult our stadium and our experience, and then can’t take it when it comes back at you?
Look, all I’m saying is that you got a very small glimpse of the overall Seattle experience. And yeah, I don’t like it when it’s implied that all the time that I and the people I know have spent on our team was provided, supplied, and directed by a corporate office, while the other teams offer some mystical authentic experience. Yes, there are going to be Seahawks fans there. I’m proud that they’re at least giving the sport and the team a chance, which can’t be said for a lot of other cities. But it’s not all there is.
I also like the way you immediately make assumptions about me, my history, and my awareness of the game because I said something that made you sad. Grow up.
Timber Bickle: I can’t say, honestly. The only answer I have for you is that the USL Sounders were as poorly advertised as the current Sounders are highly advertised. I know that can’t be everything, but it’s probably a start, at least. Many observers and writers on all sides have tried to explain what’s going on in Seattle and no one can get to a single consensus. I’d like to know that myself.
Seattle resident here…
Been to one game this year, so not exactly ECS material.
Have to say, noise was piped in. Right after halftime, as teams were warming up. Heard a huge noise, so looked up towards the field, and nothing was happening. Looked straight up in the air, and the speaker was blaring cheers.
Sorry. But true.
Glad to see the city embracing the team though!
“Look, all I’m saying is that you got a very small glimpse of the overall Seattle experience. And yeah, I don’t like it when it’s implied that all the time that I and the people I know have spent on our team was provided, supplied, and directed by a corporate office, while the other teams offer some mystical authentic experience. ”
Well I agree on the latter point, but who paid for the entrance fee for MLS? Who pays the rents and bills?
Did I miss something, did all the residents of Seattle get together and form a true soccer club and pay for everything themselves?
I’m not implying, I’m flat out saying that all MLS teams were supplied by very rich men trying to pry money out your back pocket for your loyalty and idealism. Just like every other sport FRANCHISE in the United States.
As for others supporters group making fun of you, well…….if being called corporate is gets under your skin, then I don’t know what to say. Other than get used to it, it could be a lot worse.
If Portland is so happy and successful in the USL why don’t they just stay there?
Because MLS needs Portland to come into the league and show it what REAL fans are.
A. Ruiz: exactly. And it’ll be the same when Portland moves up to MLS, for them. I object to more the view that everything Seattle fans do is put on. There’s the same level of corporate vs. not-so-corporate as you’d find in any MLS ‘franchise’. Or any team in any top league in the world, for that matter.
I guess I just feel like I have to stick up for us. It’s not so bad and I know I’ll hear worse, but I’m hearing this now.
A few points…
There’s a huge problem with this article. The basic facts, as laid out in this passage, are WRONG, and the conclusion that the author therefore draws is wrong as well.
The maneuver worked, and the city’s mailboxes, balconies, and shop windows were all a-flutter with the blue and green scarves. Through special offers to groups, Seahawks season ticket holders, and the like, the Sounders managed to sell 13,000 season tickets in a matter of weeks.
The “Scarf Seattle” campaign started in EARLY MARCH, just a week or two prior to the first game. The season ticket holders were indeed mailed scarves, but nobody had known that was going to happen when they ordered their season tickets.
And much more importantly to the thesis of the article… by the time the “Scarf Seattle” campaign started, the Sounders FC had already sold over 20,000 season tickets. By the opening game they’d sold OUT of season tickets, thanks to the cap of 22,000 season tickets.
For proof of these assertions, see these sources on the web:
(season ticket sales approaching 19,000, published January 31, 2009)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sounders/2008690099_sounders31.html
(season ticket sales almost 20,000, published on February 18, 2009)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sounders/2008754174_sounders18.html
(season ticket sales over 20,000, published on February 25, 2009)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/stevekelley/2008782198_kelley25.html
(season ticket sales being capped at 22,000, published on March 2, 2009)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sounders/2008803898_sounders03.html
(first mentions of Scarf Seattle that I could find- published March 5, 2009)
http://www.myballard.com/2009/03/05/sounders-scarves-all-over-the-place/
http://www.examiner.com/x-413-Seattle-Soccer-Examiner~y2009m3d5-ScarfSeattlecom-Sounders-FC-have-Seattle-around-the-neck
http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/archives/163493.asp
(about the Scarf Seattle campaign and when it started- published March 17, 2009)
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Alternative_media_43/Draping_a_city_in_scarves_for_a_new_team.asp
Now, the reason this is important is that Kumming, the author of the article, claims that AFTER the “Scarf Seattle” campaign, the team sold 13,000 season tickets “in a matter of weeks”. The reality is considerably different; in reality, by the time that the ScarfSeattle campaign began, and before ANY season ticket holders knew they were getting scarves, the SSFC had already sold around 20,000 season tickets.
In other words, 20,000 people ponied up their money for season tickets when the only thing they knew for sure they were going to get was 18 games.
In fact, the Feb 18th article makes clear that the SSFC had already sold 19,800 season tickets before the announcement of either friendly opponent (the first one announced was Chelsea).
Hopefully this puts to rest the continually reported but incorrect assertion that the scarves are what sold season tickets. The reality is that over 20K season tickets were sold before anyone in the city (besides the marketing people planning the events) knew anything at all about the scarves or “Scarf Seattle”.
Now, the demonstration that the article is grossly wrong in the whole “guerilla marketing” campaign driving season ticket sales won’t impress some. The reality is that the team WAS doing other marketing, of course, and they apparently spent their marketing dollars quite wisely. But there’s a few other rumors about the ticket sales that I’d like to address.
First, Seahawks ticket holders were NOT forced to buy SSFC tickets or risk losing their seats. The Hawks fans who hold charter seat licenses were given first option of buying their same seats for SSFC games, but if they turned it down, they still retain their rights to those seats for the NFL seasons.
Second, the stadium was ALWAYS intended to be used for soccer. That was part of the deal that got the stadium built. It’s not “soccer on an American football field”, it’s truly a field that was designed from the get-go to be dual use. Other than the artificial turf, which the soccer purists still turn their noses up at, it’s a gorgeous soccer facility.
And third… the noise during games is NOT piped in. That rumor has been bandied about in Hawks games and since. While there is sometimes noise during halftime, those paying attention will notice that it’s part of the bigscreen stuff- if you hear a crowd cheering and look at the screen, sure enough, there’ll be an advertisement with a crowd cheering. And that’s NOT during the run of play; it’s pregame or halftime or postgame.
During the game itself, the noise is 100% fan-generated.
The reality is that Seattleites just came out of the woodwork to embrace the Sounders.
That Seattle has a warm spot in its heart for the franchise cannot be denied. While the “Sounders” team didn’t draw well in the USL, back in the NASL days the Sounders actually drew quite well and were among the top of the league in attendance.
Tons of people in Seattle play soccer- it’s got one of the largest per-capita adult player populations in North America.
So while the TA folks’ question is a fair one… “WHERE WERE ALL THOSE SOUNDERS FANS WHEN THE TEAM WAS IN USL?”… it’s also a bit misleading.
The reality is that all those fans- all of US fans and supporters- were here all along.
It’s just that it took MLS, for whatever reason, to get us to go to the games. I don’t know why, but I’m a typical case; I live immediately next door to the stadium and only went to a few USL games, but I bought four season tickets to the MLS Sounders. And my wife and I have no children- but we’ve had zero problems finding friends to go or takers for our extra tickets.
The assertion that Seattle’s all “prefab” support is wrong. The season ticket sales prior to the big marketing campaigns kill that rumor.
The assertion that fans were “bought” by scarves is wrong. Again, we bought more season tickets than Portland’s stadium can even hold right now.
While it’s neat and convenient for people talking about the Sounders expansion experience to wrap it all up in a bow and label it “corporate” or “prefab” or “all marketing”, the reality is considerably different and more complex. It’s partly the Sonics leaving and partly the Mariners sucking the past few years and partly good marketing and partly longtime connections by the owners and staff to the local soccer community and partly it’s homegrown supporters and partly a massive adult soccer-playing population and partly cost and partly a lot of different other stuff.
But that doesn’t make nearly as compelling an article or opinion piece, does it?
It’s a lot easier for the ACES nitwits and TA’s mouth-breathing members (which, thankfully, isn’t all of them) and yes, for Pitch Invasion authors to simply blow off Seattle’s success as being prefab.
I eagerly await a massive correction and rewrite to the article since the basic facts underlying the premise have been demonstrated to be incorrect.
Oh yeah, two more things I forgot. (Hey, it took me a while to write all that!)
The “Keep It PG” thing, with the warning on the seatbacks, started a season or two ago with the Seahawks. It’s because people were complaining of too much rowdiness, drunkeness, and generally obnoxious behavior at Seahawks games.
The cops had seen a jump in arrests over the past three or four seasons for fighting and whatnot.
In between the 2007 and 2008 season, the Seahawks went through and seriously cleaned house on their season ticket holders, too. They booted at least several dozen people who were continually generating the majority of complaints from surrounding fans.
And these were SEAHAWKS fans; they’d just taken the drunken, idiotic behavior to the point where the Hawks front office decided it was time to do something about it. This part of the campaign was undertaken very quietly, no public announcement or discussion of it, but ask true Seahawks fans and they’ll tell you that some of the biggest troublemakers are now gone.
The “Keep it PG” thing was part of the campaign as well, with the stickers added to the seatbacks for the 2008 (American) football season.
Well prior to the SSFC franchise opening, I posted on my personal blog about how soccer fans are often even more passionate than NFL fans are. I wondered aloud how that was going to mix with Seattle’s often laid-back reputation. I heard from an SSFC front office worker, via private email, that they knew that was an issue but that the plan was simple- the behind-the-goal area, where the supporters sit, was going to be considerably more free than the rest of the stadium.
In other words, it might be PG rated everywhere else, but in the supporters’ section more could go.
Unfortunately, the front office went back on their word a bit and requested that the ECS and other supporters tone down the f-bombs in the chants and songs and stuff. The reality was that once the games started, with the microphones for the TV audience and how gunshy broadcasters are about getting fined by the FCC, they couldn’t keep things as wide-open as everyone had thought.
But the point is that it’s not an anti-soccer thing that brought that about. It’s an NFL thing.
The OTHER thing I wanted to mention is the San Jose “ultra” who is accusing ECS of “violence.”
The SJC “Ultras Fight Club” intentionally set up their little band of a dozen or so right astride the March to the Match route. They did it intentionally. Most of them were cool, but a couple were outright looking for a fight, and told me so when I shot the breeze with them prior to the game.
They claim that they were attacked, but the reality is that they were being protected by Qwest security people as the March came by.
And the SJC guys were instigating, even prior to the march, with jeers aimed at preteen girls (referring to the later-proved-false rape allegation against Montero) and anyone walking by. They were flipping people off, and when the March came along started in with the f-bombs directed at all Seattle fans.
So forgive me, Pauol, if I don’t shed any tears for you and your dumber brothers.
Your guys didn’t suffer any real violence other than someone trying to pull off an ACES scarf, and when you consider that your guys were plainly there to try and start something (or do you think wearing a scarf saying “FVCK SEATTLE” isn’t provocative when it’s done right where Seattle’s main supporter group will be passing through?) I think they’re lucky they didn’t all get their butts whipped.
Out of all the sporting events I have ever been to, at home or away, there has been only one place that a fan has threatened my friends and I with a gun. Outside the dubiously named Safeco Field in Seattle.
@ Abby writes “A game day in Portland in the MLS is likely to be much like Seattle is. They’re going to have to broaden their marketing to get the rest of the city in, just like Seattle had to. I’m looking forwards to seeing the people here claiming that Portland is so much more ‘authentic’ bending over backwards to justify the same methods.”
Not really. Consider that the projected soccer-specific PGE Park will hold 22,000 maximum. The last six Timbers home games — four league matches, the US Open Cup match against Seattle, and an exhibition against Burnley — have drawn an average of 11,000. That’s half the stadium right there. When I think of the many folks in Portland (and, obviously, in Seattle) who won’t come out for USL but will for MLS, the remaining 10K-ish seats won’t be difficult to fill. Hell, I personally know of people who have bought *multiple* season ticket packages for the 2009 and 2010 USL Timbers and don’t intend on coming to a single match in those two years; rather, they bought ‘em (cheaply, btw, at $150 a pop) to make sure that they’d get first dibs on seasons tickets for MLS.
As for the experience these new fans will encounter, the Timbers Army is already fully organized (well, as fully as its stakeholders — *not* members — wish it to be) and fully supported by and integrated with Timbers management. There may, in 2011, be some effort on the part of the front office to offer a club-sponsored alternative to the TA, there may be rump groups raising their heads and voices elsewhere in the park, but the thousands of people who already count themselves TA affiliates will surely be the most visible and emblematic presence in the stadium. And the culture created and fostered by the TA will have a definite — if not definitive — impact on the culture brought in by management, sponsors, kit manufacturers, etc. The TA is already being consulted by management and sponsors to determine the optimal stadium configurations, merchandising, marketing, gameday experience, even arrangements for visiting supporters (basically, take the Qwest example and do the exact opposite in everything — you haven’t seen the reality of the cliche ‘jackbooted thugs’ until you’ve been a visiting fan at Qwest). Within the Portland community, it is widely recognized that the size, organization (such as it is), passion and communitarianism of the TA helped sway the city council to vote for the franchise and stadium deals. And the TA is busy creating a way to pay the community back for its support through a civic effort conceived and executed in the ground-up fashion of every initiative the TA has ever undertaken. Timbers ownership may be a lot of things, but they’re not insane, and they won’t scuttle the TA boat or try to swamp it with something dreamed up in a focus group.
Seattle, on the contrary, had no significant supporters presence before MLS — 150 souls tops, and I’m being broadminded — and so management was forced to create one. Everyone can understand that, more or less. What’s amusing to note (and, apparently, painful for some in Seattle to acknowledge) is the fervor with which people who ignored a championship USL team for a decade now declare themselves Sounders Fans For Life. (‘I was here but I was dormant’ isn’t much of an explanation for the gap between the USL support and the MLS support; you’re a football fan or you’re not.) Will something native to Seattle emerge from within the just-add-water culture that management created and marketed? It’s certainly possible. But it’s kinda hard from the outside to differentiate strata among y’all right now; the Timbers Army of 50 people was more easily distinguished in PGE Park than an ECS of hundreds or more is amidst a sea of company-issued scarves.
But all that said, Seattle’s success adds water to the MLS lake, and all boats — and, indeed, particularly those of Portland and Vancouver — rise with it.
So bully for the marketing or whatever it was that got Seattle fans engaged.
And bully for a chance for civil conversation about these fascinating and heated issues.
Thanks everyone for the comments, first of all. I’m surprised it’s gotten this much attention. Firstly, let me state that I am neither from Portland, nor a Timbers fan. I did try to be objective and even-handed, although must admit to having a bias in how I prefer my supporters culture. This is a blog, not the New York Times, and I don’t think it’s out of order for my opinion to find its way into this piece. What I wanted to do, and attempted, was to look a little further into the phenomenon I witnessed on my trip to the Northwest, because this sort of question is only going to become more important as the league expands.
Are there exceptions on either side? Of course, and I think I made sure to point that out. It’s great that Sounders supporters are pushing to have some of the more pre-fab elements of the game day removed – that is exactly the sort of DIY grassroots work that will keep large crowds honest. But let’s not kid ourselves, that large crowd is there because of a brilliant marketing campaign, not because Seattle is the only US city with 30,000 ravenous footie fans. When Portland enters MLS and the crowds balloon, it will not be 20,000 Timbers Army members either.
I think, however, that we’re losing sight of what I was really trying to get at, and that is that for MLS to truly succeed anywhere in the US, it must combine both experiences to make soccer both unique and profitable. No one wants to run a charity for 200 lonely supporters at the north end of a stadium but it’s important that supporters insist on having a truly organic and distinct American supporters culture.
As for the few honest questions in here about traveling support in MLS… distance may make it less feasible than in smaller European nations, but Portland and Seattle didn’t invent it. You might be surprised at how many people make it from Chicago to Kansas City, or Toronto to Columbus, and even further.
Of all the things I have read about soccer in the US over the past year, maybe years plural, this is one if the best.
Great writing!
There is one thing I do wonder about concerning Seattle’s success and something MLS needs to be careful about.
How much of the Sounders success is playing on the fringe of downtown at Qwest Field, where there are a multitude of places to go eat or drink before and after games.
As MLS has come to the conclusion that playing in their own stadiums is the key to make a team profitable, it also seems that the decision to build in places where the land is cheaper has taken teams from their cities cores and out to the burbs, and attendances are not as high as one would think.
Is FC Dallas hampered by playing 30 miles away from the city in Plano? Are Colorado and Salt Lake finding attendance smaller by having their new stadiums in Commerce City and Sandy, instead of close to downtown Denver and Salt Lake City? The Revolution is one of MLS better run franchises, yet their attendance has seemed to drop over the years with Foxborough being a drive for most fans in that area.
Locally I hope DC Untied makes a wise decision on where to build any new stadium they are contemplating. Its going to be expensive for them to build in DC proper or inside the beltway counties in Northern Virginia and Maryalnd. No government here is going to cut them a break on the land or build them 100%—or even 50%— publicly financed stadium. But I think they should resist going out to the far suburban communities of Montgomery County, Md, or Fairfax, Loudoun, or Prince William County’s in Virginia to build because I think they will lose a large chunk of their fan base that currently drives of takes the bus and subway to RFK. I don’t think fans will drive in large numbers to a place that has no socialization infrastrcuture or public transportation within walking distance of a stadium.
DCC
A fan’s a fan same as a supporter is a supporter. Get over yourselves. I am sure all the Euro supporters are looking at all of us and snickering. Seriously. Just enjoy the game and your team.
Isn’t it entirely possible that the “DIY” supporters culture and the rest of the warm bodies in the seats at Qwest are symbiotic? The ECS existed before the MLS Sounders (small but dedicated) and their numbers have rapidly increased since (dues-paying members) the new incarnation of the Sounders. Now the ECS is a significant supporters organization with subgroups under their umbrella as well. So what if they were half the size of Timbers Army when both were USL? They have benefitted and grown along with and because of the other warm bodies at Qwest. Is that such a bad thing? The marketing was effective and the city was in the midst of the perfect storm for the entrance of a new professional club and that has helped the supporters culture grow as well. Thats symbiosis at its best. The ECS creates the best parts of the atmosphere and grows because of the unaffiliated fans there seeing what’s going on and wanting to take part. Besides, as has been mentioned before most fans highly dislike the Golden Scarf ceremony and the other fabricated parts of the atmosphere. Though I, for one, happen to quite enjoy the Sound Wave.
Oh, and I bought my own scarf.
@DCC
That’s actually an excellent point. I don’t know how much it increases the numbers of people who come to the games (I’d guess very little) BUT I will say that it has made the pre- and postgame atmosphere in SoDo around the stadium absolutely incredible. Just like at Seahawks games, you can find huge numbers of Sounders fans in every bar and restaurant for 3 blocks in every direction. I went to Pyramid Brewery after the Barcelona game last week and I swear every person in the building was wearing a Sounders jersey and they had to kick 200+ people out at closing time. The only real weakness there is that the traditional soccer bars of Seattle are all located around Fremont and not too close to downtown so its kind of a bummer for them. For instance, the George and Dragon Pub is where Drew Carey and crew first announced the team but not much has been done there since then.
i don’t understand why the Portland fans always point-to and cite how long the Seattle Sounders season-ticket holders have been fans.
since when does that have any basis on anything? Someone isn’t a real fan because they started following the team this year? It isn’t bandwagoning… Seattle didn’t win the championship last year. The fact is 30k+ people have paid for season tickets.
Does it matter when people started watching? It’s the team’s first year in MLS, and they’re drawing record numbers. Timber fans should be enthusiastic about this response in the PNW toward the MLS and Timber executives should be taking a page from the Sounders book. I’m sure being such a rich soccer region, that Portland will enjoy similar success.
You won’t see me asking how many of Portland’s fans were there before. It doesn’t matter. What matters is who is watching & a fan right NOW.
Kudos to all who support MLS soccer. I don’t care what your motivations are, as long as you are watching enthusiastically & giving the sport your support.
I will be curious to see what happens to fan support next year if the Flounders fall out of the playoffs this year, and, even more so, if they then have a ho-hum start to the 2010 season.
As much has I love bashing on “Those-up-North-that-smell-like-fish,” I will wait to either rubberneck the carnage or eat my crow for another year. By 2011, the derby will be even more intense, or there will be a lot of seats for the thousand or so Timbers fans that will come to Qworst.
@ Rob
I think the reaction you’re wondering about comes from an unfortunate tendency — not evident in this conversation, mercifully — for some Sounders fans in the media and on message boards to claim all sorts of glories and firsts for themselves (having “revolutionized” soccer chanting, for instance; too busy to find the link, but trust me, if you will, that it was said). No one can deny the success of Seattle’s launch, but the game and its culture actually existed before this spring, despite what some folks in King County think.
But, as you and I both say, viva the Pacific Northwest, home of the most rabid soccer culture north of the Rio Grande. Our derbies will rock MLS’s world.
All I know is that 2011 will be an absolute riot between these two teams. There will be no other rivlary in soccer like this one. The day I see the MLS schedule come out, the day I am buying my plane ticket to these cities.
Fran Harris
KC Wizards fan
KC, Mo
Fvck Shittle. C’mon someone had to say it!
I’ve been to Qwest for a game this year. There’s no doubt that the atmosphere is largely synthetic. This article absolutely nails the difference between the two clubs — one sells the most tickets in MLS, one is the best supported club in the country. The TA — and for that matter all Timbers fans (except those dolts up in the MAC club seats
) — are arguably the most knowledgeable, authentic fans in this country.
Most of the customers up north really never even had any idea the city had a team before this season. But to be fair, that doesn’t matter now. I really hope that as time goes on the Flounder customers learn from Portland and do in fact begin to become true fans. Because what is already an incredible rivalry, will become epic. Which is exactly what the MLS and US Soccer in general need. Authentic, passionate, loyal-to-the-death supporters.
Timber Bickle – i understand your point, but i can tell you’re intelligent…. so let’s look back at what’s happening. You have a few “unsound” Sounders fan popping off on the internet about something – which chances are, were retaliation from some other attack. (i have yet to see seattle fans start isht about another soccer team WITHOUT being instigated first). Further, you and i both know there are stupid fans on both sides – why let a few rotten apples ruin it for the bunch? Don’t base your assessment on the entire fan base due to some poorly-chosen words by one fan on the internet.
back to my first point – how many sounders fans do you see commenting in other teams new stories bashing other teams? How many sounders fan do you see going into other threads, sites, or even portland territory to start isht online? You don’t see many *starting* isht (personally, i haven’t seen a *single* instance). Should seattle fans NOT retaliate? yeah, i’d love for everyone to take the high road and not say anything back, but the fact is when some idiot starts isht with us, one of our idiots will pop off back. I won’t deny it, there are idiots on our side too.
The problem is you (and others) are quick to point at the reaction, and not the instigation. Every single story about the Sounders on MLS-Rumors has a comment near the top “ACES”. on EVERY. SINGLE. STORY.
is that sounders fans being babies or telling others how great they are? Not at all. Is it likely a Timber fan trying to start stuff? most likely. So while i agree with your assessment how some sounders fans can be, i don’t think you can be throwing stones when you ARE the glass house, if that makes sense. Most of the stupid comments from sounders fans were instigated by a timber fan. that’s just how it goes i guess.
i don’t think all sounders fans should be forgiven – just sayin you must consider the situation each time. but like you said, it is nice to be able to talk with fans of other teams without there being mud-slinging. soccer isn’t about brutality & hate, but it seems some Timber fans want to make it that way. This is evidenced by the Timber fascination with us, and not the other way around. I honestly could care less what is going on with your team right now (not meant as an insult, just that i’m busy following MY team), yet you have timber fans all over the internet covering sounders happenings & stories. Now why is that? i just think the Timber fans should be more worried about their team and less worried with what Sounders fans are doing.
:beer:
RW – you say we have attendance, but the Timbers have the “true” fans, and the “best support in the country”. Explain to me what makes your fans true and ours not? What makes YOU better supporters than us? Are you counting ticket sales? We have more. You counting jersey sales? We have more. You counting TV airings/ratings? Ours are higher. So what basis are you concluding that you have the best fans? You had higher USL turnouts, yes. i’ll admit that. EVERY sounder fan will admit that. but we’re not in the USL now. We’re MLS. Leave your glories of yesteryear behind, man.
So back to how our fans are not “true” or “good supporters”…. .why is that? Because some of our fans weren’t there in the USL? Would it be fair for me to point to all the people that attend Timber games in 2011 that are above the 6k or whatever normal game attendance you have now as “not real fans”? No, of course not. Let’s grow up and be real. You guys should stop fixating yourself on Sounders fans. i don’t understand what your fascination is with us. I personally could care less about what Timbers fans are doing, how long they have been fans, or anything about you guys. nothing personal, i just don’t care. why can’t you take the same approach? The MLS isn’t about fans versus fans. It’s about the teams, the players, the sport.
RW – So Sounders sell the most tickets in the MLS, but Portland is the “best supported club in the country”??
care to back that up with ANY information? The only thing Portland out-did Seattle on was attendance IN the USL… and we’ll all agree. However, now things are different. Seattle sells more tickets to each game, have a greater share of ratings for televised games, have more in jersey/merchandise sales, etc…. how do you qualify your statement?
You then say that we Sounder fans aren’t “true” fans. care to explain to me what a “true” fan is, in your eyes.
would it be fair to call the Timber fan who’s been a fan of the Timbers for 5 years not a “true” fan because he wasn’t a fan in 2003? Would it be fair to call the Timber fan who’s been a fan for 7 years not a “true” fan because he wasn’t a fan in 2001? My point is every fan for every team starts sometime. Citing the time they first started watching is no basis for quantifying if the fan is true or not. The way to measure that would be staying power – does the fan stick with the team over time? Even in bad times? I don’t think *anyone* can make a qualified statement on that right now. The only evidence you have is what you see in the stands, and what i see is a sold-out crowd every game, all wearing rave green.
call it what you want, but the proof is in the pudding.
TimberBickle – i understand what you’re saying, but i also think you’re taking a small few (one or two bad apples) as representative of the entire fan base. Everything I’ve seen is the opposite of what you’ve described, meaning every outburst by a Sounders fan that was uncalled for as being instigated everytime by another fan of another club… and most often, by a Timber fan. You’ll be hard pressed to find a Sounders fan being the source of a disagreement in any thread or blog when NOT instigated first. Should they retaliate? probably not, but you can’t control everyone. You putting all Sounders fans in that bucket is just as fair as me putting all Timber fans in one bucket. Everyone has their merits, judge each on their own. :beer:
Rob, Timbers fans have been all over the internet discussing our team for YEARS. Now all of a sudden 29,000 customers have discovered soccer in Seattle and are plastering these same sites on the interet with their ignorance and assertions that they have invented soccer support in the States. I can excuse the ire of several thousand Timbers fans, who have been loving the game and have been part of the online soccer community for a long time, who are fed up with the influx of Flounders customers who have no clue about soccer spouting some of the most ignorant drivel I’ve ever read.
Why are Timbers fans commenting on soccer blogs all over the internet? Not because we are fixated on your club, but because we’ve been there the whole time. You just prove the point that you (and new customers like you) are ignorant of the communtity that you believe you have created out of thin air this year.
You seem like a smart guy, but you are blinded by the same arrogance that you say only a small number of Flounders customers suffer from. You didn’t create soccer support in the US, you didn’t create discussing soccer on the internet and you most surely didn’t create your own atmosphere.
January 1, 2008
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004102027_soccer01.html
“more than 10,000 season-ticket deposits have already been made.”
April 4, 2008
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/soccer/mls/2008-04-08-seattle-teamname_N.htm
“The Seattle MLS team already has deposits for nearly 14,000 season tickets.”
May 29, 2008 (This is the day the jersey was first revealed.)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sounders/2004444715_soundersfc29.html
“Sounders FC has surpassed the 16,200 mark in sales of season-ticket deposits”
By January 1, 2008, 10,000 season ticket deposits had already been placed. What level of marketing was done between the announcement of the MLS franchise on November 13, 2007 and this date? That is 6 weeks = 10,000 season tickets.
November 13, 2007 (annoucement of moving to MLS)
In the next 6 weeks, with little to no marketing, 10,000 season ticket deposits are placed.
January 1, 2008
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004102027_soccer01.html
“more than 10,000 season-ticket deposits have already been made.”
April 8, 2008 (announcement of name)
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/soccer/mls/2008-04-08-seattle-teamname_N.htm
“The Seattle MLS team already has deposits for nearly 14,000 season tickets.”
May 29, 2008 (revealing of jersey)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sounders/2004444715_soundersfc29.html
“Sounders FC has surpassed the 16,200 mark in sales of season-ticket deposits”
@Rob
The reason Timbers fans consider themselves real fans is because they support their team no matter what league they are in. Doesn’t matter if they are in first place or last place Timbers fans support their team. Are we all excited that the Timbers are moving to MLS? HELL YEAH WE ARE. But if Portland wasn’t awarded an MLS team would we not still support a USL team. NO. That is the difference between us.
Now that being said it’s great to see the Sounders get 30,000+ right now. My big concern is will it last, or is it just because they are the new cool thing in town? There is a very real chance that the Sounders will not make the playoffs this year. They fell from 2nd to 4th in the west this week (with the 5th place team having 2 games in hand on them) and 8 out of their last 11 games are on the road. If they miss the playoff will people still turn out to see them? Given Seattle’s history with their other teams I would say no.
Seattle isnt the first MLS time to go from poor USL support to success in MLS – Toronto has done the same. The Lynx drew far lower than the USL Sounders – yet the same criticism for “new fans” and “where were you” isnt thrown at the Red Patch Boys north of the border. The success of the MLS Sounders validates what the USL Sounder fans maintained for years – once the impression of minor league was removed the support would come out of the woodwork, and it has.
Portland has done very well supporting the USL side, which makes me wonder if they will see as big a hit when the MLS train comes to town. I have a feeling that the upswing may not be as great, as the minor league issue hasnt been a barrier to success at the gate for MP and the Timbers.
now, I know USL1 is not a minor league, but fully professional blah blah blah, but perception is reality, and the soccer saavy crowd in Seattle has know that a higher tier existed in the states, and the USL Sounders were not the highest level. those folks saved their cash and their passion for – what the viewed as- the real deal.
If Seattle crowds were simply johnny-come latelys that werent true fans then Chelsea Blue and Barca claret would have dominated the stands – but that wasnt the case at all.
Everyone wants to find an excuse for Seattle being successful in MLS but it is a far simpler explanation… Seattle was hungry for MLS, and now we are getting the chance to eat our cake. Look for more of the same next year – this city loves our team. This city supports the team. And here in Seattle the Sounders are relevant and treated with focus and attention that most MLS teams could only dream of. Read the comments from visiting coaches and players – the response has been outstanding as well. A good marketing department and a sound business plan can’t take that away.
I hope that the Timbers Army are prepared to accept all of their potential new fans that havent been there for USL when they arrive on the big stage in 2011. When the new comers arrive with their team provided scarves for season tickets I hope they are welcomed warmly – but they will more than likely be labled as corporate whores who should have been getting drunk in 107 on thirsty thursdays.
Rob–”Seattle sells more tickets to each game, have a greater share of ratings for televised games, have more in jersey/merchandise sales, etc”
My point exactly. Those are all corporate touch points. A true fan supports their team no matter what place or league they’re in. And whether or not a gameshow host gives them a scarf. And it goes farther than just attendance. Until this season not only was attendance at Flounders games pretty dismal, there was no real passion around the team, and it certainly never registered on the Seattle sports radar. For that reason, I actually thought putting a franchise in Seattle was a mistake for the MLS. So far, I’m actually glad to be wrong. Like I said, none of that really matters now, I know. I’m glad the Flounders are doing well, and genuinely hope that they continue to do well, so that we can kick your sorry arses every chance we get. Because like any true Timber’s fan, I love to hate Shittle! Nothing personal
.
Here is a post from Pitch Invasion. November 14, 2007. The day after the move to MLS is announced.
http://pitchinvasion.net/blog/2007/11/14/mls-in-seattle-season-tickets-selling-already/
“Wow. A day into launching their website and not long after announcing they’d be MLS’ fifteenth (current) team, Seattle have already sold over 3,000 season ticket deposits at $50 each.”
Oh. And one more thing that I would think any fan could agree on. Yes, $2 dollar beers on “thirsty Thrudays” are far superior to the $9 dollar variety I encountered at Qwest.
Alright, there’s so much partisan bullshit in this response thread, its tough to know where to begin. Note: I am an ECS member.
First, I am a new Sounders fan. I admit it, I went to one USL game in my life. Truth of it, though, is that I simply didn’t have the money to go before. Now that I’m out of college, I can afford season tickets. This is likely true for many of the “new” Sounders fans. The popularity of soccer in my generation is simply greater than that of previous generations. I hope that the next generation has even more soccer knowledge than mine.
Second, every supporter had to start somewhere. Unless you had season tickets to your local teams’ games as a kid, or the first season that they were in existence, you have no authority to say that our ever-growing supporters group is prefabricated and not “true supporters” because we haven’t been going to games since birth. Chances are, neither has 99% of the people in your team’s supporters group. If you have been a supporter for life/ the life of your team, then hats off to you. You have helped grow soccer in this country and I thank you.
Third, there are jerk fans in every city. Yes, there are some in Seattle. Yes, there are some in Portland. Yes, there are some in Miami. You name a city, there’s going to be fans who want to pick a fight and verbally abuse opposing support.
Fourth, there is NO piped in noise during the run of play. I have sat in 4 different parts of the stadium and have yet to hear piped in noise during the game. I think maybe the “piped-in noise” that people are hearing is the band or just aren’t used to having so many fans at football matches.
Fifth, of course there are some aspects of gameday that are pure spectacle. This is true of any professional sports team. The most embarrassing of them is the band. I can’t speak for everyone in the ECS, but most dislike the marching band. At the start of the season they were located in the GA right next to us. We complained to the FO about it enough that they moved them away so we could create the atmosphere at the matches. The confetti, golden scarf, and whatever else the FO does along those lines is ridiculous, but it is a spectacle for the people who have not had proper exposure before. Like I said earlier, everyone starts somewhere.
Any team that sells out their stadium is a good thing for soccer in the US. I wish that every single team in the league and the USL would sell out their stadiums every game. If that means marketing to people who haven’t been exposed to soccer before, and trying to get them on the path to be loud-singing supporters, that’s okay. So long as soccer’s popularity grows, everyone wins.
We should all be concerned with growing the knowledge base of our communities so that soccer can draw crowds like baseball, basketball, or american football do; so our players can make a decent salary; so our teams in ten years will be of higher quality and our league will be respected globally.
Hello, customers. Great article. The quote from Paulson saying he may take elements from the cheesy flounders corporate campaign made me throw up a little in my mouth. I hope the timbers army get to do a march to the stadium, that sure would be the cats pajamas! Drawing 12k for a USL side, I don’t think he has to do much of anything to sell 8-10k more tickets when MLS comes.
@the pod – really, you have to pay to be a member? Lame. Do you get free tifo lessons with your dues? Maybe even a little booklet explaining what soccer is and that it wasn’t founded in Seattle in 2009?
How awesome is it that the fans are told when to cheer and chants are played over the PA system? Worst crowd atmosphere I’ve ever witnessed (which includes WNBA, lacrosse, bowling, and post payton/kemp sonics games). And before you ask, yes I have seen Sounders matches, in person, about a dozen times, and probably several years before most sounders “fans” ever saw a sounders matches. Fitting that Joe Roth has created a Mickey Mouse franchise.
Serious hypothetical question: would seattle fans fly to oklahoma to support the OKC sounders?
Good on you Seattle fans that have been around for years. Support your local club.
/\ This side up /\
El Capitano- so wait, you’ve been up to Qwest (because that’s what we’re talking about here) about a dozen times, even though you hate Seattle and have a team of your own to support? Were you one of those rent-a-fans for the Chicago game who care so much about hating Seattle that you were willing to support another team to do it? Your priorities are a little screwed up.
I’m sure Paulson will take a lot of inspiration from the success of the Sounders. I always find it funny that Portland fans who are so proud of their “DIY, anti-corporate culture” are centered around a team funded by Henry Paulson.
“Fifth, of course there are some aspects of gameday that are pure spectacle. This is true of any professional sports team.”
It’s not nearly as true of the Timbers as it currently is of the Sounders.
hmmn, a paid membership gets you stuff, you can be ECS without paying you dumbass.
so the Timbers are a Merrit Paulson Funded enterprise son of F-up the economy Paulson, should we call you sub-prime FC, great slagflation timbers, corporate money but not corporate team I call shenanigans.
How’s your MLB, NFL, and Division I school treating you? minor league rose city, I don’t give a shit about b-ball a bunch of overpaid showboaters anyways. Wait, we own that team as well and it is stocked with UW players.
46 seconds is all it took for our USL guys to score on you, this year’s USL-1 record has an asterisk and you know it. You are playing new teams, and USL-2 graduates. You are shite and you know you are.
34yfa
Dear athletic supporter, all I can say to that unnecessary comment is fvck you. While passionate, and admittedly partisan, up to the point of your comment, everything had been more or less civilized. But I guess you just further prove the point. Shittle = no class.
Speaking of class, here’s an interesting perspective from a rival that we actually have respect for:
http://aftnwebsite.blogspot.com/2009/08/awaydays.html
I’ve been enjoying the debate here, so lets keep it inbounds with no more name-calling, or I’ll have to close the comments, which I’ve never done before.
i’ll just close with i hope that someday the Timber fans can engage in a discussion about something related to the game of soccer, and not based on the sounders fan base or how “long” we’ve been fans. :rolleyes:
i also very much look forward to seeing how you guys treat all the “new” fans you get in 2011 when you join the MLS. With the bigger league you’ll get more money which will result in your own pomp & circumstance, increased fans, more things going on at the stadium. What will you say then? I’m not saying you can’t be happy for your future successes, but at least be reasonable. You can’t insult us for the same stuff you will be having and enjoying in two years. don’t throw stones, as the saying goes. and you i can see you claiming (for the sake of argument here) that you’ll give the same hazing to your own new fans. But you’re either lying to yourself, or being unfair to the new fans. When i sell a friend on one of my teams and we get a new fan (in ANY sport/team, not just soccer), i am excited. It is GREAT to bring new fans. I have NO idea why you guys are so anti-new-fan. You want to keep the sport quiet, a secret? Or do you want to see success for the MLS and success for soccer in america?
If you guys want to talk soccer, let’s talk soccer. How did Portland do against Seattle in the USL, cumulatively? How many championships did Portland win? i’m not mud-slinging here, i’m just discussing what matters: soccer. NOT the fan numbers or how long who’s been a fan of what. Honestly most of us don’t give a crap about how long anyone has been a fan of anything. The only people i see preoccupied on fandom are portland fans. seriously.
What matters is more and more people are watching soccer, which directly translates to future success for your franchise. I hope, at some point in time, you come to realize the bigger picture and put the stupid name-calling to bed.
“flounders”? really?
Rob… the idea of this piece I think was about the different types of support in our two cities, not the stats on the pitch, which everybody here in PDX knows all to well.
I think it was a great article, if it stated some truths that most of Seattle’s fans ( 98% had no clue or didn’t care for the sounders before 2009) find hard to swallow that’s too bad.
Great piece and great comments too I have to say, even from you guys up north, I tip my hat to ECS that where there from the start.
We’re not “anti new-fan” at all, we’re anti ” hey, look at us! where the best fans ever even when we didn’t give a rat’s behind about all those other years when it wasn’t “major” enough” for us” fans, but like somebody already said, you have to start somewhere. Support for our side is something we take to heart, win, loose in any league.
If it works in Seattle, if that’s what it took for people to care, that’s all good I guess. SSFC success will benefit us all, I mean, there’s already talk here and on other boards of people flying out from other parts of the country to see POR vs SEA in two years time. MLS will not be the same after Portland, Seattle and Vancouver are in the league. They are getting just a peek of what it is to come, and yes, thanks in part of your success.
As far for the name calling, 2011 will be much worse. Just sayin’
Great article. People should know the history of the rivalry.the plastic fans up north can see what being a true supporter looks like.we love our team in Portland and that’s all we care about.
@rob – our club already has financial success and there is no reason to believe that a move to MLS would hinder that. We don’t need or want your help, but thanks anyway to the flounders for whoring themselves out to help us sell tickets. K thx.
@ abby. In response to your comment, questioning my reason for having set foot in qwest or starfire, which makes you sound like a Seattle customer who knows nothing of your teams history (and quite understandably): prior to this year, Seattle and Portland actually played in the same league. Crazy as it sounds, I know. They’ve actually played in several of the same leagues over the course of the last 35 years. Again, crazy. And a couple times a year, those matches would be in Seattle or Tukwilla, because Portland and Seattle would play each other. Going too fast for you? As I didn’t bandwagon the Timbers at the start of the season, it would make sense that I have made trips in the past to support my club. In fact several, as I have been going to Timbers matches for several years. Had you read the nice article above, you’d know all this, except for the part about me having been a Timbers fan for multiple seasons. I wouldn’t expect the author to know I’ve been a Timbers fan for several years. Only many, many other supporters, who have also supported the team for years, would know I’ve also supported for many years. So that’s more of a personal note than a reference to the rivalry, sorry. Seattle soccer didn’t start in 2009, and the same goes for the rivalry. You should have the FO make a giant banner that says that for your guys. And hold it upside down.
In regards to Paulson, If you gave me two options, and said I could have a) a harvard business educated man, who understands the fans and works directly with them, has hands on experience in the sports industry, loves the club almost as much as we do, and made his own money working for the NBA and HBO or you could have b) man boobs. Which one would you take? I got no problem with him. He’s a DIY millionaire who didn’t rely solely on daddy’s bank account. Sure, he didn’t inherit a pillow plant, and he didn’t get rich from drinking beer on a crappy tv show while doing blow and hookers, and he didn’t run FOX or disney. But, we takes what we can gets, cause in the end, it’s a business, and this isn’t Green Bay. Some teams are just more Mickey Mouse than others.
@jock strap or athletic supporter, which ever you prefer, please refrain from direct personal attacks.There was a post earlier by a sounder that said the pod is a dues paying group, whether or not it is required of all customers was left unclear. I’m sorry if you are confused or the other guy is a liar or there are two levels of being a seattle supporter, and to be a super duper ultra extreme musketeer you have to pay (which wasn’t clarified to me, a guy who doesn’t really give a crap). How many disney dollars does it cost to be a podite? Just repeating what was said. But, Sub-Prime FC? really? that’s the best you could come up with? That’s almost as embarrassing as the sounders being known as Megan’s Law FC.
please don’t respond.
@ Benjamin, I won’t ask what club you support or town you’re from, as I don’t want to start another feud, but may I inquire, did you make this trip specifically to witness football matches in the west, or did you make the trip and happen to see a couple NW matches. I’m curious as to the origins or influence that caused this piece and how you came about choosing these two clubs.
No means no.
@Charolastra
“I think it was a great article, if it stated some truths that most of Seattle’s fans ( 98% had no clue or didn’t care for the sounders before 2009) find hard to swallow that’s too bad.”
You are jumping to conclusions about the fan base based on average attendance. Compare 3,000+ in Seattle from 1994 until 2008. That includes a bunch of stadium moves, two of which were in the far burbs. To 6,000+ in Portland from 2001 until 2008. In a downtown stadium. Portland entered the USL after Seattle had already peaked with 6,000 in the mid-90’s before dipping along with both MLS and USL teams during the late 90’s. The delta between the two teams’ average attendances isn’t that significant. Portland had more advantages logistically, and soccer was an easier sell during the period they entered the pro soccer scene.
Also, it is difficult to quantify how many fans casually followed the Sounders. Yes, maybe they weren’t hardcore and went to every game. But a lot of that average attendance consists of people who would go to a handful of games per season. That could reasonably translate into 10,000 or more overall fans from the USL days. And then add on fans from the NASL days. So there are old-timers throughout our fan base. But like all areas of pro soccer, some of the passion dissipated during the 80’s and 90’s, and didn’t really take on a critical mass until the new millenium.
“We’re not “anti new-fan” at all, we’re anti ” hey, look at us! where the best fans ever even when we didn’t give a rat’s behind about all those other years when it wasn’t “major” enough” for us” fans”
You are anti- your own imagination. Congratulations.
El Capitano: Thank you for explaining it to me. No, I really needed to hear that. I need to be told things by some self-important blowhard on the Internet. Since we’re explaining things, let me explain my original point to you. We are discussing the current state of a Sounders game, at Qwest Field in Seattle. You made claims about it, repeating some disproved nonsense about the piped-in noise, and yet backtrack and turn it into insults when it’s clear that you were wrong. I’m well aware that not all the games you mentioned were going to be ones at Qwest, but I hoped you’d be smart enough to understand a bit of hyperbole on my part. I guess I have to be much more literal when dealing with your types. (By the way, did you come up for Chicago? How embarrassing, that you care so much about hating another team that you travel and cheer for a team that isn’t your own to do it.)
If you think Paulson made his own money, and that Daddy had nothing to do with it (how did he get into Harvard? Who provided the money to get him into business? How come Daddy has a stake in the Timbers?), then you really are delusional. And your one thing to say about our ownership (or are you talking about Sigi?) is “man-boobs”? Wow, you’re a real master of debate. I am blown away by your command of rhetoric. Personally, I’d rather have Disney and Microsoft, despite their problems, than anything to do with the Paulson family. And it takes an awful lot to make me prefer Disney and Microsoft.
And since you’re a bit light on facts, let me explain a few things for you. Yes, the Emerald City Supporters is a dues-paying organization, which has been in existence since before the MLS team, with no connection to the ownership. For the dues one receives an ECS scarf and T-shirt and a discount card for a few bars and things around town. Really, though, what the money goes to is tifo and other useful group-related things, like capo stands. No one joins ECS who doesn’t want to, and you certainly aren’t just given membership for having a ticket. I’m not sure why you’re so up in arms about it, except that it’s different than what you do and therefore scary. I know, I know. Different things are frightening. Take a deep breath. You’ll get through it.
Or don’t. Really, no skin off my back.
El Capitano said:
“@the pod – really, you have to pay to be a member? Lame. ”
No you don’t have to pay to be a member. The ECS site has a FAQ on this (which I wrote a few years ago and updated before the MLS season, by the way). Quoting from http://www.weareecs.com/about/ :
“How do I join the ECS?
Easy. During the season just show up in our section at Qwest Field. We will stand in the south end general admission sections 121-123, also nicknamed the Brougham End. Before home games a lot of us will also gather at Fuel, a bar just a couple of blocks north of Qwest Field. During the off-season, sign up on our discussion forum and attend one of the off-season events that will be announced there.
Do I have to pay dues for joining?
No. However, we do have a membership package that includes an ECS scarf, an ECS t-shirt, and a membership card that gives you discounts at our sponsors. The membership costs $30 per year. See the join page for details.”
The ECS membership is actually a really good deal. We get a number of discounts, among other 10% off all drinks and food in our pregame bar (Fuel). That alone has saved me more money than that $30 that I payed. And the scarf and the t-shirt alone are worth a big portion of that $30.
So what the membership actually does for the ECS is that it gives money to fund things such as tifo and upfront payments for buses to away trips. However, that money does not come from the pockets of ECS members. Well, initially it does, but almost everybody ends up saving money due to the discounts we get at Fuel and other businesses, so essentially it is those businesses that give money to the ECS. It is a brilliant system, since all parties (ECS, ECS members, businesses) end up winning. ECS gets free money, members save on prematch drinking and some other stuff, and the businesses get business that they otherwise would not get.
I know that many other supporter groups in the MLS and around the world do a similar thing. The TA should really consider it. It might actually help you accomplish some large scale tifo.
To Pauol:
So in Seattle you stand in the away supporters section which is surrounded by regular fans, and in Portland you stand next to the home supporters section. Of course you will have a very different experience in the two games.
In every stadium where I’ve been as an away supporter, I was surrounded by home fans that the home supporters would probably be ashamed of.
@abby – Oh, are we talking about the current state of qwest? I didn’t realize myself and all posters are required to discuss what you want or that my original post in anyway even remotely addressed you and was based on anything other than personal experiences. Putting the SS back in SSFC since 2009. I thought the piece was about the rivalry, which isn’t limited to this season specifically and I could put my 2 cents in on anything timbers/sounders related that I wished, but oh yeah, most Sounder fans only think they have 5 months of history. I haven’t turned my back on my comments, nor do i see why you would insinuate that. They aren’t a Seattle sports franchise that has begun losing, so I am not prepaired to walk away from them yet. I stand by them and they aren’t formed from what someone else says, they are in addition and agreeance. Correct me if I’m misquoting myself, but, speaking on Paulson, I believe I said “He’s a DIY millionaire who didn’t rely solely on daddy’s bank account.” The word solely, in this situation would be an implication that he worked his butt off in school to get a masters from harvard (which I agree his dad likely did pay for) and he earned his positions with his former companies. Not sure if you’re aware, but the NBA and HBO are both multi-billion dollars corps and you don’t stick the son of some jerk off in an office with a multi-million dollar a year job if he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. This isn’t the U.S. presidency we’re talking about after all. Also, are you calling Sigi fat? That isn’t nice. I was very clearly talking about your ownership (and didn’t elude to anything else) in regards to drew and paul looking like they would have a heart attack from watching a footy match, let alone playing in one. And the “man boobs” wasn’t the only reference to your ownership. I also had a comment about FOX, drew carey and his drug/prostitute problem of yester year, Hanauer inheriting a pillow/down company, and Disney. I just can’t believe you automatically think of your coach when anyone mentions anything to do with being over weight. Classy. Do you tell him he has man boobs to his face? Ok, so you choose disney, I see your logic there, don’t agree, but nonetheless would you rather be affiliated with Paulson or sex offenders? Megan, look out! Please don’t respond (the questions I pose are for self reflection, not message board input).
@Finnfan. thanks for the clear input on how the pod’s supporters section works. We had something like that, where you pay money, and in turn get a pin and dinner with the players, etc, but I believe it fell out of favor as the TA grew over the years.
Fact: seattle ruined the cup of coffee, the doughnut and now are attempting to ruin footy after we were finally getting our image into something respectable. Might as well bring back shootouts, ref time outs and 10 minute golden balls to keep the 28,000 seahawk fans entertained.
I’m just saying, I’d rather be associated with guys who made their money, rather than a thirtysomething trust-fund dilettante who couldn’t keep the jobs his dad got for him and had him buy a sports team for him instead. Like hell he made his own money. I’m sure he worked very to rise through the ranks at HBO and won his position there under his own merits, just like he did in the NBA, which is why he stopped doing difficult things in his early 30s. You’re a little naive if you think that being the son of Henry Paulson didn’t get him special treatment. If he was any good at the jobs he did, you’d think that he’d still be doing them rather than moving across the country to a city he has no connection to in order to play around with their minor-league teams.
I thought that this post was about the present was all, which is why we’re talking about Qwest. But you’re a blinkered Timbers fan and all you have is the past.
And “please don’t respond”? Wow, you’ve really got the strength of your convictions and random classless slurs, if you can’t even face someone responding to them.
@ Timber Bickle
“WHERE WERE ALL THOSE SOUNDERS FANS WHEN THE TEAM WAS IN USL?”
I assume you mean, why do the Sounders have 30,000 people in seats for MLS games as opposed to the 2,000 – 3,000 fans when the Sounders were in the USL. Well, the simple answer was, they weren’t there. They weren’t there because Americans do not tend to watch or support minor league sports. Or maybe some people were just not fans of USL. Whatever the case, they weren’t there.
Just as I am sure that after Portland renovates PGE park and capacity has been raised to 20k+, you will see a larger boost in ticket sales – maybe even sell-outs – GASP – NO NOT THAT! So, when that happens, I will be sure to ask you and the TA: WHERE WERE ALL THOSE TIMBERS FANS WHEN THE TEAM WAS IN USL. It goes both ways Einstein. Unless of course you are promoting and advocating no marketing whatsoever of your new MLS franchise, then so be it.
Henry Paulson, the father of Merritt Paulson, has provided all the money for the Portland MLS bid.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aiY0Dfcik.8s
“Paulson is using $50 million of his father’s fortune for the $129 million project. The problem is that Paulson wants the city to sell $65 million of bonds to turn the downtown home of his Portland Beavers minor league baseball team into a soccer stadium that meets major league requirements, and erect a brand new park for the Beavers.
Building two new stadiums for the son of a millionaire is a tough sell in a town hit hard by a recession that deepened in part because Henry Paulson’s efforts to stave it off at the U.S. Treasury were unsuccessful. Oregon’s unemployment rate hit 10.8 percent in February, third-highest in the nation after Michigan and South Carolina, according to the U.S. Labor Department.”
Henry Paulson also has a 20% ownership stake in the current LLC’s for the minor league baseball Beavers and minor league Timbers.
I much appreciate the thoughtfulness of this piece. As a longtime (‘75ish) Timber fan I was astonished to see the waves of Sounders’ fans at at the Open Cup match in Portland. Previous years, we’d have seen a couple dozen. And this article gives me a sense of the mechanics of change. What I would put on the table, though, is to take a more longitudinal look at the issue. Will the Sounders MLS machine be able to keep those fans coming through less stellar seasons? Or will this be the ‘happening now’ of 2009 that is traded in for a reinvigorated Mariners or Seahawks campaign?
I am not a Timbers’ army member though I know many people who are. I treasure their passion and their creativity–even with some cringing at the directions they take. And they are simply the burning matchhead lighting the way for thousands of others who have Timbers’ blood and who are following ‘the boys’ whether or not they’re winning. One of the people whose path I cross in PGE Park is Roger Anthony, longtime journalist and sportswriter. I wrote for Roger in the late 70s and early 80s. He’s there at Timbers’ matches because he was seduced, as I have been, by the beautiful game and by having a personal stake in it. On a pitch in my hometown. Where on any given day, we are part of the game that everyone in the world knows and plays.
@finnfan
LOL OMG MY ECS MEMBERSHIP IS TOTALLY AWESOME I LOVE THIS FREE SHIRT IT SHOWS I’M REALLY “WITH THE TEAM” AND REALLY A “SOUNDER TIL I DIE” LOL SO GLAD I SPENT THE EXTRA $30 GO SOUNDERZ LOLZ
Personally, I can’t help but think that 2011 will give the Timbers Army the chance to show America how to legitimitely, passionately and earnestly root for a football squad without corporate sponsorship, kitchy gimmicks or puke-green jerseys.
ambrown – first you guys attack the fans as being corporate and not “true” fans. then you attack the ECS fans who have been around awhile because they voluntarily pay dues and create their own scarves (much like you guys do). I’m sorry, but if you’re going to start attacking ECS members’ fandom, then you lose any credibility in the discussion. Just like the TA, ECS has been around awhile. If anyone is a true football fan, it is people in the TA and ECS. I think even given the hate bred by the competition between the two teams, the TA and ECS have a mutual respect for each other – not necessarily getting along, but respect.
it really doesn’t matter what any fan of the sounders tells you guys on any website, blog post, or forum – you’ll hate and hate and hate either way.
what you’ll never see here or on any other site is a sounders fan going around starting crap about portland fans or what the timbers are doing, looking for any way possible to crap on it. at least *that* claim to fame is one-dimensional.
one more thing ambrown – i love your last paragraph.
in 2011 the 20k+ people attending Timber games will ALL be in the Timber Army, right? I’m sure all 20k of them will be more “legitimate” than our 30k. I also thoroughly enjoy your blindly subjective descriptions of “passionate” and “earnest” for rooting standards. I’m enjoying them so much, as a matter of fact, i’m even more enthusiastic to hear your explanation for your ratings system.
corporate sponsorship? the irony there is built upon the fact that your club is financed by the Paulson family…. nothing screams “corporate” more than that. Do i think there is anything wrong with that? Not at all…. but if you’re going to complain about something, it doesn’t do you any favors to indulge yourself publicly in a great slant of hypocrisy.
to me a “legitimate” soccer fan is one who watches & enjoys the sport. 30k people don’t pay to go to a game, cheer loudly, buy jerseys & scarves if they’re not “legitimate”. I’m sure the marketing campaign opened up quite a few people to soccer & the Sounders, but the decision to actually BUY tickets & merchandise isn’t dictated by marketing. It is by passion. You don’t spend your hard-earned money on merchandise & tickets unless you want to….. so i look forward to the explanation for that one.
cue the “well where were the fans last year” argument.
last year wasn’t MLS. and you know this country’s attitudes to the minor leagues – if you think i’m wrong here, prove me wrong. the USL sounders drew the same crowds that minor league baseball teams do up here. You guys have great USL attendance, probably the best, and no one ever tried to take anything away from that. Why you feel the need to focus on the attendance numbers and quality of our fans is beyond me, but it would be ignorant to assume that some of that hate stems from jealousy of the numbers. If 30k people yelling & cheering all while standing at a game is “fake” and “corporate”, i’ll take that any day. Oh, and i guess that makes the Timberwolves corporate, based on those criteria. :beer:
@abby. Right, so you take a coke head/street walker aficionado, trust fund baby, computer geek, and Disney over a trust fund baby. Check. re: your club and you not knowing anything about their history – this is not the first season the sounders have played in qwest, making my comments on the stadium in past years relevant to the discussion about qwest (which again, I wasn’t aware this was a discussion, but apparently the PTA has spoken). Nothing has changed. Darrell still operates under a Gestapo policy, the fans don’t sing or cheer unless told (except for the pod), the beers still cost 10 bucks, etc. This is only their first season of being MLS in qwest.
I don’t mind people responding if they have something worth while to say, but sometimes a flounder comes around and you just gotta say, “no means no!” At least I was kind enough to ask you not to respond in an attempt to end this stupid debate instead of telling you to “do the cobain.”
Going back to the article, I think the most important thing not coverd is a mention about the Timbers Army internet message board (which might sound strange or nerdy). For the first few years of the TA, and still, the board, along with the beer culture, was the driving force behind the group becoming so close knit and large. It is the heart and cause of our DIY and guerrilla marketing. The size of a supporters section isn’t as important as the relationship they forge with each other and more importantly the club. Passion is infectious, and if you, as a wise man I know once said, “spread the love,” the fans will come. And stay. If a person comes to matches without really getting emotionally involved, they can easly lose interest with a single losing season. With comrodary and love of your club, it’s easier to laugh away or console in each other about a missed chance or shitty year. Trust Timbers fans when they say that. This is a big part of the reason that even though we finshed last in the league in ‘08, we had the second highest attendance. Without that message board, our songs, tifo, grassroots campaigning and supporters section wouldn’t have materialized the way they did.
Damn ‘Rob’, you write a lot about the Timbers team you care nothing about.
Everyone who has replied is making some great points on both sides, but none of that matters. To be honest, I feel that nothing that anyone has said matters. All what matters is:
-Soccer is becoming popular in America so be happy about it and stop whining about marketing being apart of it. That’s how things work in every other sport. That’s why David Beckham is in the MLS- its all about marketing.
-Portland, I’m sorry that Seattle has a better team and more fans. The MLS attracts more fans because it is considered professional, the top soccer league in America, that’s what happened. I don’t go to minor league baseball games because I don’t give a shit if they win.
El Capitano said:
“Going back to the article, I think the most important thing not coverd is a mention about the Timbers Army internet message board (which might sound strange or nerdy). For the first few years of the TA, and still, the board, along with the beer culture, was the driving force behind the group becoming so close knit and large. It is the heart and cause of our DIY and guerrilla marketing. The size of a supporters section isn’t as important as the relationship they forge with each other and more importantly the club. Passion is infectious, and if you, as a wise man I know once said, “spread the love,” the fans will come. And stay. If a person comes to matches without really getting emotionally involved, they can easly lose interest with a single losing season. With comrodary and love of your club, it’s easier to laugh away or console in each other about a missed chance or shitty year. Trust Timbers fans when they say that. This is a big part of the reason that even though we finshed last in the league in ‘08, we had the second highest attendance. Without that message board, our songs, tifo, grassroots campaigning and supporters section wouldn’t have materialized the way they did.”
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bravo, sir. as a sounders fan i applaud this post. honestly. i don’t care which team you root for, with this kind of passion and dedication, this is definitely something to be proud of. Ironically, the points you make in that paragraph also explain & support a large contingent of Sounders fans.
“the size of a supporters section isn’t as important as the relationship they forge with each other and more importantly the club.” kudos! and i can’t agree more with your comments about emotional involvement with regards to losing interest with a single losing season. spot on! The fact you guys maintained the fanbase size that you do with the performance of your team IS a testament to your fandom – i most definitely will not challenge that.
i’ll come out and say i’m a first-year Sounders fan, but i’m emotionally sold on the team. How did i get into the Sounders? due to the marketing – i’ll admit it. Although i will say that while marketing might have made me *aware* of the Sounders in the MLS, it isn’t the reason i cheer for my team. I watched the games, learned about the players, and developed a passion in the same way you timbers fans did, just in a more recent timeline. As a contrast, the Mariners are very well marketed up here constantly (bobblehead nights, free flags, etc, etc), i’ve been to countless games, and i could care less about the Mariners. I go to the Sounders games, stand the entire time, and almost lose my voice every match because i like the players on my team, i love the sport, and i am embracing the franchise.
So yeah, i’m a first-year guy. you want to call me corporate? go ahead. Cite the marketing, whatever. I’ll still be here 10 years from now rooting for the Sounders, even if they go winless. All this proves is that the same marketing you guys criticize DID work – by garnering some new fans. The concept of marketing working isn’t new, and soon Portland will enjoy similar success in 2011 when it joins MLS. Some marketing will happen whether you like it or not, and you’ll get some new fans too. All i will ask is that you don’t hate on your own. Bash us all day long, fine, but don’t hate your own. Yes you’ve been fans of your team longer, but that isn’t what this is about.
It’s about soccer, and we’re all here for the same reason.
@Rob
In the same breath you claim that: “a “legitimate” soccer fan is one who watches & enjoys the sport.”
you also claim that : “last year wasn’t MLS. and you know this country’s attitudes to the minor leagues:”
So you watch and enjoy the sport , but only if it has “Major League” in the title?
Your rambling, confusing, and emotional arguments are stunning.
So, the RAINIERS can average 4,315 this year, with a MLB team competing against them.
But the USL Sounders could barely break 3,000 with no other professional soccer for competition??
It’s ok to admit you are infatuated with anything Microsoft does, cuz thats the only reason I can think of that nobody was there to support your title winning USL team…
(unless a marching band brings in another 25,000 fans?)
This was a fantastic article and hits on every point that I have noticed over the past year between the two fanbases. Let me add my unbiased opinion here as well. As a little background, I have been playing soccer ever since I was 5 and continued playing through college. I’m a huge fan of the EPL and Serie A and spend a lot of my weekends watching matches. This is all to say, I’m definitely not new to the soccer scene.
I moved to the Seattle-area last year and had been itching to watch some games. My brother lives in Portland and while down there, we started going to Timbers games. I vividly remember my first game because the buzz in the crowd was like nothing I had ever seen in person. The environment was electric long before the match started and when the Timbers scored their first goal, the stadium erupted with songs/chants, smoke bombs, and a giant flag display. It was truly an incredible experience and the enthusiasm of the crowd gave me hope that soccer might still be alive in the US.
As it happened, the next weekend a co-worker had an extra ticket to a Sounders game. I was inspired from the previous weekend and was hoping that the Seattle crowd would be up to par. As I arrived at the stadium and saw the massive number of fans decked in neon green with their scarves, it looked as though I was going to be in for another treat; however, I was quickly disappointed when I overheard a couple of fans discussing the fact that this was their first soccer game ever. As I entered the stadium, it had a very commercial feel. Everyone had the same jerseys, the same scarves, and the same blow horns (I’ll admit I’m biased here, I HATE those things and hope they are banned from the World Cup next year.) The game itself was very good and the quality of play was better than I had expected, but I could have done without the cheesy British announcer, the marching band, the Golden Scarf ceremony, and the “fans” sitting around me that made it blaringly obvious that they knew nothing about the sport. I was very disappointed that the FO decided to put the marching band right next to the ECS.
To be fair, I did stand in the North End of the Timbers match and sat in an assigned seating section at the Sounders match. And I’m sure that there were many fans at the Sounders game that had been true supporters for a while, but they were drowned out by the newcomers. I have been to several games since (5 or 6 of both teams) and have to say that the Sounders environment is slightly improving and the Timbers environment continues to impress. The Sounders marching band has moved and the new fans are picking up the rules, but I don’t feel the same committment to the team as I feel from the Timbers. I have sat in the Brougham End a few times and while it was nice to see a dedicated fan section, it still pales in comparison to 107. The largest disappointment was the minimal chants and how eerily similar the chants were to the Timbers Army’s (replacing the word “Timbers” with “Sounders.”) I don’t want to get into who had the chants first, but I think both teams could use a little more creativity.
I won’t go into any more pros or cons since I do feel that Kumming summed it all up excellently. I will however say that I was impressed by the number of Sounders fans that made it down to Portland for the US Open Cup match, but was disappointed with how they acted. One member was thrown out and arrested, smoke bombs were thrown onto the pitch, and there were some very rude and uncalled for comments made after the match. With that said, it was a great environment and something that I look forward to attending several times annually.
Ending Thoughts: I’m glad to be living in the Northwest where a rivalry such as this can live on and I hope that the Sounders fan base can attain the maturity (not calling the fans immature, just that it’s a newer fanbase and needs its own identity) needed to match the Timbers. I also hope that the Timbers can draw a reasonable crowd without selling out its current grassroots fanbase. For now, the Sounders have the clear edge in quantity, but the Timbers are a step ahead when it comes to quality.