From Soccer By Ives today:
SAPUTO, IMPACT WORKING TO BOOST FAN INTEREST

Over the club’s three years in MLS, the Montreal Impact have quickly slid down the league’s attendance list. Entering 2015, team owner and president Joey Saputo worries they could slip even further.
Attendance in Montreal was down about 15 percent last year alone as the Impact struggled through a season that saw them finish at the bottom of the standings.

“If people are saying ‘Let’s see what kind of team we have before buying season tickets,’ I can say we did our part,” Saputo told the CBC. “We changed the team.
“We saw what wasn’t working last year. We brought in 11 new players. The 12th player, our fans, is tougher to sign.”
With only about 5,000 season tickets sold, the Impact project that the club could place as low as 13th in MLS attendance this season. That’s a big departure 2012, when they broke into MLS and posted the third-highest attendance in the league.
“The disappointment is thinking we’d be more relevant in the city after three years,” Saputo said. “Either we missed the boat (in marketing) or we missed the boat totally in thinking this was a soccer market.”

Now, given that the team has been propped up for years -- well back into its A-league days -- by provincial support and mass ticket giveaways (I was told in the first few seasons as many as 6,000 per game), should he really be surprised?

It's Montreal. I lived in the eastern townships for several years and Montreal was our hangout; but the history of the Habs has meant that they demand winners and professionalism, and they won't go out of downtown to get it. Ask the Expos, the Concorde, the Manic, the Allouettes (the move changed their fortunes completely).

If he gets the same level of investment involved as Toronto and puts an SSS downtown, he'll sell the place out.

As long as they win games.