With J Hutcherson -- There's a billboard heading out of Waldorf, Maryland advertising "International soccer." Last night, what they meant was on display at Regency Furniture Stadium. Crystal Palace Baltimore in the away whites versus what was helpfully referred to as Crystal Palace United Kingdom, in the home red and blue.
Quick differences between Palace's home in Croydon, South London and an Atlantic League ballpark in Charles County, Maryland? No bumper boat pool, no rock climbing tower, and no lawn seating behind one of the goals. For whatever reason, on a July night it worked.
Part of that was the mix of genuinely interested alongside happy to be there. That ended up applying to the teams as well as the fans. Palace (the UK version) turned it on just enough for a few minutes to remind anyone who was interested that they were by far the better team. No surprise that there's a gulf between England's Championship and USL-2, but at the same time it didn't feel like a 5-2 blowout.
Instead, it was enough to make the point. Soccer in an unfamiliar market works like any other promotion. Get it out to the people within a reasonable drive and they might just show. It's not likely to be anywhere near capacity (the stadium officially holds 4200), but it's also not going to be 400 people in a 40k football stadium, the kind of gates Crystal Palace Baltimore used to get when they played their home games in Annapolis.
In the age of the super clubs on tour, there's something to be said for relative to scale.
Make what you will with soccer-specificity and chasing under-served communities in order to build just what you want, but Kansas City is making a solid scale point at their temporary home. Another minor league baseball stadium with odd site lines and seating isn't anybody's vision of Major League Soccer, no doubt. Selling out at less than 10k isn't going to count for much when Seattle is filling the lower bowl at a National Football League venue.
Then again, there's that relative to scale point.
One of the problems with pushing any sport to the extreme of an urban area is defining and redefining where you draw. Things change from a Saturday at 7pm in perfect weather to a midweek slog up an interstate in rush hour. By any measurement, what Kansas City is doing is at least 10 times stronger at the gate than most USL-2 clubs, and doubling what a good USL-1 club would probably consider success. This for the historically weakest draw in MLS, vastly improving on their old numbers at a venue everyone in their metro area associates with the highest level of pro sports. Add to thata shared stadium with the other occupant in season.
There's at least an indication of relative market for the League as a whole. For every Seattle and Toronto, there's Dallas, Colorado, and Kansas City. At least those names are on the logo.
If you look at stadium location, for MLS New York will become Harrison, LA is Carson, Dallas is Frisco, Chicago is Bridgeview, Salt Lake City is Sandy, Denver is Commerce City, and Philadelphia will be Chester. Basic point, no question, but one with a carryover for enough clubs not regularly closing in on their stadium's capacity.
Gloss over that all you want, but for enough of the people who actually live in those metro areas I'm willing to bet that's a significant distinction. There are models already in place to address that. Unfortunately for aspirations of regular sellouts at the 25k level, that model is lower level minor and independent league baseball.
Where that works best is engagement with the practical local community. Resisting whatever urge there might be to extend that far out through a distant city center and the suburbs on the other side.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
