MLS expansion club FC Cincinnati has "already broken its team record" for season-ticket sales, with '19 sales surpassing the '18 total of 18,007 "more than three months before the season opens," according to Steve Watkins of the CINCINNATI BUSINESS COURIER. Tickets for '19 are being "sold at higher prices than when the team played" in the USL. FC Cincinnati VP/Sales & Ticketing Jeff Smith said that the club's goals are to "sell 20,000 season tickets and average more than 28,000 fans per game next season." The season-ticket sales alone would "put the team's attendance ahead of several" MLS teams' attendance in '18. FC Cincinnati "set USL attendance records in each of the team's three seasons of existence" (BIZJOURNALS.com, 11/28).
PARKING PREDICAMENT: In Cincinnati, Sharon Coolidge in a front-page piece notes a planned 1,000-space parking garage for the club's West End stadium is "in limbo" as Hamilton County (Ohio) Commissioners "worry about the pricetag." Instead of "building one big garage as first discussed, the county is looking to construct two smaller garages." Hamilton County approved spending $15M-22M on "stadium parking on the condition it would collect revenue from the parking fees." The county "planned to pay for the project with parking revenue from other county garages." However, three "unanimous resolutions left a lot of wiggle room with wording about spurring development and doing what's best for the community." City zoning rules "require the stadium to have 5,300 parking spaces." FC Cincinnati has "cobbled together a plan with more spaces than that throughout downtown, Over-the-Rhine and Queensgate, but they aren't all within walking distance" of the stadium site (CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, 11/29).
