By Clemente Lisi – NEW YORK, NY (July 20, 2011) US Soccer Players – Soccer games aren’t typically hot tickets in this country. Taking the pulse of the secondary market to show tickets selling for several times their original cost is usually reserved for the big events on the North American pro sports calendar. Would you believe this year’s MLS All-Star Game has entered the same pantheon as one of the must-attend events of the Summer?
By awarding the All-Star Game to Red Bull Arena, the League – whether by design or not – has created a demand for tickets that exceeds the supply. Red Bull Arena only seats 25,000 and by not holding the midseason showcase in an NFL stadium, the game has become one of the hottest tickets in MLS history.
The game may be officially sold out, but that doesn’t mean tickets aren’t for sale. Just last month, tickets were selling for up to $1,800 on secondary market websites like StubHub.com and eBay with some ticket holders looking to make a hefty profit. Considering the original price for that same ticket was $400, this year’s All-Star contest has shown there is a massive appetite for this match – along with a steep markup.
The face value of tickets ranged from as little as $90 behind the goals to as much as $400 for club seats at the midfield line. Red Bull season-ticket holders were given first crack at the tickets. Any leftovers went on sale last month.
Cheaper seats located along the endline were also going for a lot of money. Online ticket brokers were asking $525 apiece for those same $90 seats. That so much demand has been created for this year’s game means that many won’t get a chance to see Landon Donovan and Thierry Henry take on Manchester United – unless they shell out big bucks. With a week to go before the game, there were 2,513 tickets available on StubHub.
“There is money to be made,” said one ticket reseller who sold two seats on eBay three weeks ago for $475, making a $200 profit in the process. The seller, who did not want to be identified by name, added, “Manchester United games always do well, but these tickets are extremely scarce.”
At the same time, this demand for tickets may also mean that there is a growing audience for the game in this country. Whether most of those fans are interested in rooting for the English giants rather than the MLS’s best XI is a footnote. The important thing is that there is a game on American soil that has generated the type of buzz normally associated with European clubs playing each other.
Down Interstate-95, there’s significant demand for tickets to see Barcelona play Manchester United in suburban DC, but that’s a rematch of the Champions League final. This season’s All-Star game is a repeat of last years, just with a lot less tickets available.
This year’s game will mark the third time that New York has hosted the mid-summer match. The first-ever MLS All-Star Game in 1996 and the second in 1997 were played at the old Giants Stadium. Red Bull Arena, which opened last year, has already hosted friendlies in the past – but never a marquee game that featured a popular club like Manchester United.
Another possibility had been to stage the game at the nearby New Meadowlands Stadium, which has a capacity of 82,000. Last year, the game between the MLS All-Stars and Manchester United sold more than 70,000 tickets in Houston's Reliant Stadium.
“The combination of one of the most spectacular stadiums of its size in the world with the passionate soccer supporters in the metropolitan New York area will provide a terrific showcase for our All-Star Game,” Garber said in February when he announced that Red Bull Arena would host the game. “Red Bull Arena will be a tremendous venue for this marquee event and we are pleased to bring the All-Star Game to an area with a rich soccer tradition.”
The choice of Red Bull Arena was peculiar since hosting the game in a larger venue would have brought in more revenue. The League makes no extra money from the secondary ticket-selling market, although the buzz it generates is good for the League overall. Garber has said the plan was aimed at promoting Red Bull Arena to a global audience and rewarding New York fans.
The story this summer has been that soccer is a tough ticket for big games. The Gold Cup last month featured sellouts wherever Mexico played, including the final where 93,420 fans packed the Rose Bowl. In its six games at different venues scattered across the United States, Mexico alone attracted an average attendance of 71,500 fans.
Yet just putting big names in a stadium has already shown not to be enough.
Club America – Manchester City drew only 11,250 fans to AT&T Park in San Francisco, a baseball stadium. And while LA – Real Madrid had an announced attendance of 56,211, the game was played in a venue that can hold upwards of 90,000. Perhaps that’s where soccer-specificity comes in.
An analysis last month by the business news website TheStreet.com found that nine of the 18 teams in MLS outdrew Major League Baseball teams in average attendance. The New York Red Bulls' 18,200, the Philadelphia Union's 18,180 and Houston Dynamo’s average of 17,000 were all better draws than the Florida Marlins, who averaged only 16,975 fans. For example, the Los Angeles Galaxy’s 22,200 fans put it ahead of eight MLB teams.
With that in mind, the League's push for soccer-specific stadiums over the past 10 years has paid off. Livestrong Sporting Park, which opened last month, has drawn 19,200 fans. The same can't be said for MLB’s Kansas City Royals, who have averaged 18,600 fans to its ballpark.
Certainly, local comparisons are complicated by the state of the baseball team, but it’s still interesting to see what type of business soccer-specific venues can do in markets with multiple professional sports. It might also be something to consider for other less than marquee friendlies in areas where the biggest stadium might not necessarily remain the best fit.
Ticket scarcity in a small venue versus greater attendance but empty seats in a larger stadium? It would seem like an obvious decision for promoters who only benefit from that initial ticket purchase, especially when one of the teams is an established draw. That MLS made the choice to go small against a marquee opponent has added another talking point to this season’s All-Star Game - what home field can really mean in Major League Soccer.
Clemente Lisi is a New York-based writer. Contact him at: CAL4477@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/ClementeLisi
