MIAMI — The Miami Matadors hope to lure fans to minor league hockey games with face-painting and birthday parties for kids.
Florida Thundercats players have been visiting schools and youth soccer practices to build support for indoor soccer.
The two new pro sports franchises begin play in South Florida this fall. How long they'll survive is an open question. Both teams will fight for fans in a crowded sports market, one that has proven notoriously fickle.
"This is an event town, and it's a major league event town," said Neal Bendesky of Game Plan, a Miami sports marketing firm. "If the community perceives that something is a minor league event, they haven't supported it."
Fans flock to Miami Dolphins games and to the high-profile Lipton Championships and Orange Bowl.
But less glamorous events have a tougher time finding support. The Florida Marlins struggled with disappointing attendance even before this season's fire sale, and the former Carquest Bowl routinely plays to a mostly empty Pro Player Stadium.
Meanwhile, the Miami Fusion's attendance ranked 11th of 12 Major League Soccer clubs. For its 16 games at Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale this season, the expansion club team drew an average of 10,284 fans per game, or 49 percent of the stadium's capacity.
The Continental Basketball Association's Florida Beachdogs and minor league hockey's Blaze and Barracudas survived only short tenures in West Palm Beach. Even the University of Miami Hurricanes have watched football attendance plummet along with the team's national ranking.
"There's only so many entertainment dollars in the marketplace," Bendesky said.
Matadors President Bob Snyder knows those obstacles. But he says the team's average ticket price of $10 makes its primary competitors movie theaters, not big-league sports.
"I'm not trying to compete with the Heat and the Dolphins," Snyder said. "I have nothing in common with them."
If the team matches the East Coast Hockey League average of 5,000 fans per game, it can turn a profit, Snyder said. To get there, it will have to do better than it did during two season-opening weekend games at Miami Arena, when it drew 3,368 and 2,317.
The team is trying to draw fans with attractions such as face-painting, balloons and birthday parties, said Matadors co-owner Stephen Nuell, a Miami attorney.
"This is as much family entertainment as it is professional sports," Nuell said. "It's going to be like a carnival for kids."
Also taking the field this fall are the Florida Thundercats, who play their first indoor soccer game Nov. 13 at National Car Rental Center in Sunrise.
Silicon Valley businessman Milan Mandaric paid about $400,000 for the expansion team. The Thundercats are part of the 15-year-old National Professional Soccer League, which has franchises in Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and other cities in the Northeast and Midwest.
Average attendance last year was more than 6,000, according to the league.
The team has pushed personal appearances by players over mass media advertising. The average Thundercats player makes about $50,000 a year, and contracts require appearances almost daily.
"The more you can personalize your product, the more people remember you," said Thundercats general manager Dick Berg.
In addition to personal appearances, Berg is pitching indoor soccer as a faster-paced game than outdoor soccer. The smaller field means more scoring and more contact between players. Missed shots on goal rebound instead of sailing out of bounds.
"It's just too difficult to sell outdoor soccer to an American public that's increasingly action-oriented," Berg said. "Indoor is a totally separate game."
Berg said the team will spend about $2.5 million this year, including $1 million on player salaries. Single-game tickets are $8 to $25.
Jeff Ostrowski writes for the South Florida Business Journal.
