In Houston, Brian Smith wrote the Dynamo "won the day in the stands and echoing concourses," selling out BBVA Stadium for their MLS season opener on Saturday against the Galaxy. The presence of new Galaxy F Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez "didn’t hurt local attendance," but the stadium "clearly belonged to the home team -- orange and black jerseys, shirts and hats were impossible to miss." Rockets G James Harden posted a video of himself "opening a box containing a Dynamo jersey with his name on the back" to his 6.7 million Twitter followers, and Texans WR DeAndre Hopkins was "shown on an oversized screen inside the stadium." The franchise is "trying to reconnect with American’s fourth-largest city, then build upward" (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 3/1).
NOW OR NEVER:In Orlando, Mike Bianchi noted Orlando City's "frustrated fans" are "willing to give team ownership and management a final opportunity to get it right after five miserable, mundane seasons in MLS." Orlando City's problem "isn’t fans leaving; it’s that fans aren’t coming en masse as they have in the past." The club "announced another sellout crowd of more than 25,000 for the season opener, but there was a smattering of empty seats on a brisk, beautiful Saturday night in Orlando" for the match against Real Salt Lake (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 3/1).
MOVING FORWARD: In Charlotte, Alex Andrejev noted Charlotte MLS emailed a survey to ticket-deposit holders with "potential seat offerings and renderings for Bank of America Stadium." The survey included "information about the stadium layout, followed by a series of questions about ticketing preferences, which indicated the team is considering offering" PSLs. Four "different seating sections were specified in the survey" (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 2/29).
