Sat night at 730 is bad for families? Since when do night games keep families away?
If your kid is under 5 or 6 than maybe i can see it being too late for them but after that allowing a kid to stay up on a sat night in the summer doesn't really appear to be a problem.
For the families this does affect it will suck but they should actually be able to hit more of their target demographic (18-35) with night games.
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff
You can say there is some synergy there, but not a whole ton.
We break these two things apart, what are the ramifications (ignoring for a second SUM's cash flows indirectly supporting MLS)? SUM would be mostly unaffected and I'm sure MLS could find other means to market its product.
Long run you could say MLS success drives the other things SUM earns money on, but that is very loose synergy and difficult to quantify. I'd slap anyone who suggested that as an underlying investment thesis.
Nah - The Leafs have thrived on 7-8pm games for years and it never affected families. If anything it's better for families.
Again, no outdoor commitments to worry about (pee wee baseball, soccer games, swimming, day camps etc).
It's a time of day when you'd expect most households to be bunkering down together somewhere - late dinner etc.
US$18M per team out of a pot of US$90M. So only 4 teams keep the SUM cash, what about the other 16 teams
Here is the sum calculation:
US US$90M* 75% MLS ownership = US$67.5m MLS's share / 20 teams = US$3.3m => in C$ 4.4m.
I added another US$1M (C#1.3M) after people commented i should add some $ from other SUM events. But, most of the money made from SUM is the $90m TV money. They do make money from events (US and mexico matches). However, if you have been watching international soccer FRIENDLIES last 6mos, most of the recent friendlies have been a disaster financially. USMNT drew flies to the two friendlies in carson. A mexico friendly in miami drew flies as well. I don't think they are making money right now on friendlies.
Last edited by Onyx; 04-27-2016 at 01:58 PM.
Appreciate those comments.
I know what MLSE releases as an attendance number, however, if you go to the games, you know you could move everyone from upper east deck and into lower east and it wouldn't be full. "Actual" attendance seems basically the same at in 2013 basically 20-21k. Your right, maybe i should have used 18000 average for 2013.
- I used 20,000 in my numbers.
- I also used 20 home games, instead of 17 (including 2 home CCL games + a friendly) .. this is aggressive (more likely 18 home games)
- I also used $40 average ticket price ($800 season ticket), i think this is pretty high vast majority of season ticket holders seem to be are light grey or below, and expensive seats sit empty especially on east side.
I think i'm on the high side.
You can get a clue in the published USSF accounts #3 in the notes. SUM paid USSF $18M for the financial year ending March 31st 2015. Thats for TV and sponsorship.
http://www.ussoccer.com/About/Federa...formation.aspx
I don't think I agree with this. The Leafs are such an outlier in terms of support. I think a better comparison would be the Jays. 7:05 start time during the week and pretty much always 1:05 on the weekend. Odd 4 pm game here or there. I think TFC just wanted no part of trying to go against them either in terms of live gate or tv audience.
Another summer of hope!
someone already did. Some private equity fund bought 25% of SUM from MLS a few years ago.
Most of the value of SUM is due to projected growth in TV rights of the USMT games (World cup qualifiers and other events friendlies, etc). MLS TV rights are unfortunately largely worthless right now due to poor ratings.
Last edited by Onyx; 04-28-2016 at 10:20 PM.
We're backtracking here but for the purpose of clarity we're basically talking about the merits of investing *additional* money in a MLS team.
If you didn't believe in MLS you could simply run the cheapest outfit you can while taking the profits from SUM (if the numbers worked).
There seems to be some muddying of the waters here with people suggesting SUM's profitability justifies spending more on MLS teams. Well that's only true if MLS can hold up on its own merit (which I think it does).
Last edited by Onyx; 04-29-2016 at 12:03 AM.
Your making that number up.
16K average last season
So far this season
14K
14K
13K
13K
16K (sold out)
It should be noted these are sales. Dallas sold out the last game weeks ahead but only got 5K out due to a major thunderstorm that was part of that stuff that caused the Houston floods.
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff
Dallas was advertising the sell out vs SKC on their advertising hoardings the game before. You don't do that if the sell out isn't real.
Jays make a living off of little kids on weekends which is a different segment than TFC goes after. Baseball is the perfect spectator sport for little kids as they really don't need to be paying attention very much to catch the game, missing an inning to get a snack or go to the washroom isn't a big deal. The time slot has likely evolved to 1pm because they didn't want to go up against Hockey and now Basketball until June and then again in October.
His numbers are more like the historical FCD support. Keep in mind they are anchored by that awful stadium location too. Once they picked up the TFC marketing guy they did a complete 180 in terms of attendance. From what I've seen in the last few years the crowds there look fairly respectable but not usually packed.
Forget any leafs comparisons. That is just an example of harvesting existing fan equity. We are a new franchise and don't have much to burn.
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff
When I mention the leafs - I'm not talking about the type of support - more the fact that there are large number of families watching on TV at the 7-8pm time slot of Saturday night.
I realize Summer is different than winter and the social dynamic of each season is very different. You can assume more families are home in winter due to bad weather, school is still in session so vacationing families are not a huge factor. In the summer the opposite can be assumed to be true.
So summer numbers could be assumed to be smaller, but I still think there is a large, untapped audience that TFC can take better advantage of in the 7pm timeslot as oppose to the 1pm or even the 5pm time slot.
I do agree that TFC not wanting to compete with the Jays is another legitimate factor for moving game times as well.
The SUM revenue is an interesting situation. The assumptions been that it's been the funding that has covered the owner-investors carrying an operating loss on the teams for year after year. I wonder if this revenue stream is getting mighty diluted with all this expansion, even more so in the next few years. Not sure I have a point here except perhaps it much puts even more pressure to improve the tv money, which the bleak ratings right now won't help.
Leafs on TV is a totally different animal.
I am talking about fans in the seats, and that is where I think this may be a shaky idea. TFC are unquestionably going to lose significant numbers of families. The 4pm, 5pm starts were ideal for them. I'll be going less. Of course evenings are better for other demographics (ie 18-35), but there are a lot more entertainment options for those demographics, that's a much more competitive segment.
btw there were families in numbers in attendance at Leaf games 30 years ago, but now? Even the cheapest seats are $75/each. It's a once a year treat, at best, for all but the one-per-centers.
It's an interesting experiment by TFC. Nobody watches this team on TV except us, and that is clearly driving the owners nuts. Can they really drive better TV numbers this way, especially if the stadium is emptier as a result?
It's a bit risky. Kids and soccer clubs have pulled a lot of parents to TFC games.
Last edited by ensco; 04-29-2016 at 11:11 AM.
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff