Sounders Weigh Benefit Of More Seats, Intimate Atmosphere

Sounders Expecting To Sell Out Every Game Of Inaugural Season

BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS: The AP’s Tim Booth wrote the “overwhelming success of the first-year Sounders is providing an example for future MLS teams to follow.” Seattle is “easily on pace to shatter the previous attendance mark,” set by the Galaxy in the league’s first season. Univ. of Oregon Warsaw Sports Marketing Center Managing Dir Paul Swangard: "One of the current examples that we can show of the best practices of starting a team from scratch would have the Sounders all over it. … It’s across the four P’s of marketing: product, price, place and promotion. All the facets of what we would say is sports marketing 101 they’ve accounted for and are doing well.” Hanauer said, “What maybe has surprised me is that it’s become so mainstream, so prevalent, all the way through the community, through every type of sports fan so quickly” (AP, 6/27).

INT'L RELATIONS: In Seattle, Art Thiel noted a “small percentage” of fans yesterday "showed up early to take advantage of the Sounders’ late offer to put the first half" of the Brazil-U.S. Confederations Cup Final on the Qwest Stadium screens. When the Sounders game started, the Cup final “was blacked out,” but “not a peep of protest was heard.” Thiel: “These were the Sounders, damn it, and the rest of the world for the next two hours could fight for second place in the attention sweepstakes.” However, the MLS practice of releasing top players in midseason to play for national teams in international competitions such as the Confederations Cup could “chip away at the league’s credibility.” Sounders G Kasey Keller: “These MLS fans pay good money to see their top players, who now are off with their national teams. You gotta have your stars on the field” (SEATTLEPI.com, 6/28).

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