The Red Bulls "have been playing" in the N.Y. area for 20 years, but MLS and incoming expansion team NYC FC believe that there "is room for another team," according to Jeff Klein of the N.Y. TIMES. NYC FC President Tom Glick said that the team "has already sold 14,000 season tickets" ahead of its first regular-season game March 8 and first home match at Yankee Stadium a week later. Both teams "claim to represent New Yorkers, and for Red Bulls fans who live in Upper Manhattan, say, or the Bronx, there’s a real decision to be made." Most of NYC FC's season-ticket buyers "are young professionals who live in the city, and 63 percent have never before owned a season ticket for any team in any sport." NYC FC’s formation "represents a stunning confluence of soccer’s growing popularity, the power of the Internet and the desire among many of the city’s millennials to create a fan culture like those they have seen in Europe, Latin America and, increasingly, the United States." Third Rail President Chance Michaels, whose group is NYC FC's official supporters group, sees the NYC FC-Red Bulls "divide on a much grander scale than a mere duel between corporations." He said, "In the beginning, the MetroStars, and later the Red Bulls, really seemed to have staked out the suburbs, particularly the Jersey suburbs, as their real market. ... They didn’t seem to have a ton of interest in the city itself. And, to be honest, I think the city kind of returned that lack of interest. And so the Red Bulls were never really able to capture the market here." Estimates show that about 40% of those who attend Red Bulls games at the team’s five-year-old Red Bull Arena in New Jersey "come from New York City" (
N.Y. TIMES, 3/1).
SUPPLY & DEMAND: NYC FC on Saturday announced that it will open the 300 level at Yankee Stadium for their first game in N.Y., due to popular demand. NYC FC will take on the Revolution on March 15 and are making more seats available as they have exceeded 25,000 tickets sold for their first game. Yankee Stadium, as configured for soccer, will typically hold 27,528 fans, but because of continued momentum building around the first game it will be expanded to accommodate additional fans (NYC FC).
