It's a big jump but they aren't building this for TFC. If they were they would build their own and not renovate the one owned by the city. This is about other events. Too risky to put all this money in just for TFC at this stage of their existence.
22,000 is just shockingly low. I know MLS isn't the big ticket in town but that's back to GolTV days. To go from 300k to that in the span of half a season? And in a good season?
Serious boardroom questions have to be asked about marketing strategy and promotion. If all these new twitter followers and website hits and wait list stuff is true, why won't people follow the team?
There is a risk that I would call the Tiger Woods effect. On the PGA, they promoted him so much that when he didn't play in a tourney, ratings suffered. When that bubble burst, they had to scramble to repromote the game itself and all the other storylines.
If all TFC is to most is Jermain Defoe, who didn't play in this game, that's risky. TFC isn't a bloody big deal, it's more than that.
They would be wise to bring back grassroots marketing like Pub Crawls and meet player events that don't involve prepurchased tickets. The odd player story or game promotion wouldn't hurt either.