The tone of the Sounders’ annual supporters’ alliance business meeting on Saturday was “unsurprisingly laudatory -- and markedly different to the dark cloud hovering over last year’s gathering,” as “the wounds of the late-season swoon and playoff elimination” were fresh, according to Matt Pentz of the SEATTLE TIMES. It has, “by almost every metric, been a successful year” for the Sounders. They will face the Galaxy in the first leg of the MLS Western Conference Finals on Sunday, and although average attendance “dipped slightly for the first time in team history," the club's figure "still tops out at more than 40,000.” In the “absence of those on-field question marks,” concerns on Saturday at the supporters' meeting “tended to be much more specific: Why are so many national microbreweries represented at CenturyLink [Field], one fan asked, and so few local ones?” Questions were asked about “whether Seattle had been contacted about helping host the Copa America in 2016 (yes), whether the stadium scoreboard can start showing the actual minutes of stoppage time (no), whether the team could put out better women’s jerseys (that’s on Adidas)” (SEATTLE TIMES, 11/17).
