From a perspective of a non-owner, maybe I should re-phrase that. Anyone making an 'investment' in a team would hope for a return on their money but I think realistically breaking even would be an achievable goal. I'd love to see soccer get to the point in the US that franchises could be very lucrative investments but we are not there yet. Maybe one day and hopefully soon we will see the support the sport deserves in the US. Until then I suspect it will take a lot of hard work and a little luck for many sports franchises to make it in several (minor league) sports.

Just going through and trying to stir up some more conversation.

I watched the Grizzlies (Memphis NBA) basketball game on TV yesterday. The Grizzlies are 2 - 15 I think right now. The Pyramid holds prob 17,000 people, I would say it was over half full. If you go to the Grizzlies.com website, you see that the tickets are terribly expensive (compared to other teams). Good seats are $135.00 and plenty were occupied. Cheapest seats are $9.00 in the bad part of the nosebleed section. How can they possibly sell tickets like this for a team that loses as bad as Memphis does? And how do they get the sponsorship? There must have been 50 FedEx commercials. Why can't we do this in soccer?

I'm going to take a shot at two of Fanmasters questions.

1. Why can't soccer marketed as well as other sports? (parapharased) I think one of the main reasons at this level, is because of lack of resources. The teams in the W-League and PDL don't really have the budgets to have a big staff to do this. Because of this they get by with a smaller staff and if their lucky a bunch of voluteers. Also most of their staff are soccer people first and maybe not top notch business people. This isn't to say that they aren't trying.

2. What are the goals of some of the teams? I think for Charlotte, their goals are pretty obvious. They are using soccer as a ministry and missions tool. I think for a number of the other W-League teams, it may be growth of local clubs in the area to provide a another level for local girls to play at and improve.

I have a two word answer: Corporate Support! They have it in the big four: NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB but outside of that it's limited. Not many individiuals can afford $135 a seat for two and half hours of enterainment. It's gotten a little better for Soccer at the highest level but still a long way to go.

Maybe I wasn't clear in what I was trying to support. You pretty much have to have a budget and resources to market and promote your team. It's kind of a catch 22, you have to make people aware of your team and interested before you can get people to buy tickets or advertising/sponsorship. Big corporations just don't call you up and say "hey, we would like to sponsor your team and buy side line advertising". You need people to do that and you also need to create an awarness of your team/brand that lets people know what your about.

So here are the three things you need to get companies interested in spending money on you.

1. Some type of market/fan base that correlates to what they are selling or marketing.

2. An advertising budget, this will help you bring in the fan base and it will make potential advertisers aware of your product.

3. Sales staff , which is really 2 staffs. One to sell tickets to increase your fan base and one to market your team to advertisers.

The problem is that most of the teams don't have the budgets to this on the scale that they need.

After all the marketing and support, you will find that there are other problems such as politics that will keep people away.

Also:

Most soccer fans have soccer kids and the soccer fan is more interested in watching their kids than anything else. Hard to get them to the games.

The soccer kids also are 'fans' but only of playing the game. They will play 10 games a week but not be interested in watching someone else.

You might use advertising to get people to a game, but unless they are soccer fans, it will be a one time shot. See above.

You can give tickets to non fans and might get them to a game, but only one.

You can give or sell tickets to organizations to have team building events at the soccer games. Again a one time deal, they probabaly will not return.

If you use local players, their friends will come, their family will come. Few of their fellow teammates will come. See the part about politics above.

If you use 'international players' and field a higher level team, nobody knows who they are so they have no friends and family to come to the games, BUT you might, with a winning team and enough publicity about how the team is doing, get a few real 'fans' out there.

Why is Des Moines so attractive to the fans (sorry to stray to PDL)?

1 - they have no competing pro teams, no NBA, NFL, MLB . . .
2 - they have a dedicated section in the Des Moines Register keeping people up to date.
3 - they have a very good up to date website, I think it is one of the best in the PDL.
4 - the ownership group has much leverage over advertisers and sponsors because of their chain of convenience stores. They prob get more sponsorship dollars than any other PDL team.

Sorry I do not have enough information on any W-League team to make a similar statement, I don't know if even any of them make money.

Isn't the same true with other 'minor league' sports too. How do they do it. The most successful get the kids and/or families out by making the event appeal to the whole family in some way.
I couldn't agree with you more about families want to see their kids play and kids want to play rather than watch. If you incorporate activities that involve the kids into the game will that help? For example, hold a mini-3v3 tournament before, during and/or after the game for the kids to display their talent. In the meantime everyone can watch the pro-teams do it right during their real match.
The bottom line is, get the fans and their kids involved and build a relationship. Once that relationship is built and they see the value of attending the game they'll spread the word.
Here in Jax, the Jade suffered from very little media coverage. It's really ashame because they had some very talented and potentially personable players. Of course, the local clubs really need to embrace and promote their local teams as well. There is so much that can be learned by our younger players from their older and more experienced couterparts.

Of course you had a good team, you had three girls that go to school here in Memphis ;-)

We have a minor league baseball team here in Memphis, farm club for the Cardinals I think. They sell out every game, tons of media coverage, commercials, etc. Our daughter likes to watch the games, though to this day she does not know the rules. She referee's soccer games to make money and plays competitive soccer for high school and club soccer fall and spring, and still cannot stand to sit through a soccer game.

I cannot stand to watch baseball unless Randy Johnson is pitching, I love to watch any decent quality soccer match. (Nice thing about being a parent, we drag the kids to the soccer games but if it is baseball, they go by themselves).

How do the most successful teams in other cities, W-League or other promote their teams. Any suggestions out there? I really would love to see the Jade and other W-League clubs here in FL come back and be successful. Maybe those in 'Power' at the Jade will read and it will spark some thoughts to make them successful. I agree Fanmaster we have to get the kids want to go. I am more than willing to go if I can get my children interested. I'll even pay full price as long as she has fun.

By the way, which players were from Memphis?

My number one suggestion is make them more personable and develop relationships with the kids in the community. Maybe even as simple as signing autographs and/or a short clinic before the game.

Actually none of the Jade were 'from' Memphis, but the Rask twins and Tracy Mulligan played for CBU with Missy Gregg (Mulligan graduated I believe but the Rask sisters played this year and Mulligan last year).

I think many of the Mercury fans came from the Fury and Memphis Futbol Club youth competitive league. Part of the fee for playing on the Fury went to pay for a season ticket. I think $25 or so.