Menu
Franchises

Newest MLS franchises use England trip for ideas

Two of the newest MLS franchises are soaking up ideas on how to develop the soccer culture around their new stadiums set to open in 2021, even jetting overseas to glean best practices from some of England’s top soccer clubs.

 

Executives with SeatGeek and clients Austin FC and FC Cincinnati made a five-day trek through England in early October to see what they could learn about ticketing and the game-day environment at pivotal times in the two clubs’ existence.

“Franchises like ours, we’re a sponge right now, an absolute sponge to grow and get better and further advance,” said Jeff Smith, Cincinnati’s vice president of sales and ticketing. “Certainly, any time you’re building a new stadium, your eyes and ears are wide open to what’s going on.” 

The trip started in Manchester with a tour of Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium and a chat with Man City’s Kate Austin, the club’s business partner for sales and service. From there, the group headed to Liverpool for the Leicester City-Liverpool match — meeting with Leicester City’s head of ticketing, Vishal Dayal — before finishing the trip at Newcastle’s St. James’ Park. Manchester City, Leicester City and Newcastle United are three of SeatGeek’s seven Premier League clients.  

FC Cincinnati just wrapped up its inaugural season in MLS, while Austin begins play in 2021. Both are building stadiums scheduled to open in 2021 and are rolling out sales processes, sales experience centers and pricing models. 

“I went in eyes wide open,” said Clark Beacom, Austin FC’s chief revenue officer. “What does match day look like? What does the train ride look like in town? What are the cultural rituals there to learn from? So, it was incredibly overwhelming. So much to take on.” 

Examinations of the English stadiums were helpful to Smith and Beacom as their own clubs’ venues begin to take shape. St. James’ Park dominates Newcastle’s skyline and the club almost always sells out 52,000-plus seats. 

“I think the best part about it was the integration to the city and the neighborhoods and the proximity of everything,” Smith said. “As we build our new venue in the West End of Cincinnati, there is a little bit of an element of that, where it’s more of like a Portland feel, the Wrigley or Fenway feel, where you’ve got an older historic neighborhood that’s integrated into the stadium. And at Newcastle you absolutely felt that.” 

Integrating into the community was on Smith’s mind as FC Cincinnati taps into its European roots — Germans settled in Cincinnati in the 1800s — to develop an authentic club and fan culture like those teams in Europe have had for decades.

“I think it’s being mindful of what they do but also never losing sight of the authenticity of creating it your own way, in your own city, for your own fans,” Smith said.

Beacom and Smith were interested to see how SeatGeek had grabbed so much market share in England without the benefit of one of its main offerings in the U.S., the secondary ticketing market, which is virtually non-existent in the U.K.

SeatGeek’s success there stems from its Enterprise offering, a suite of ticketing services that includes management of fan memberships, the U.K.’s version of season tickets. The Enterprise platform rewards fans for attending away matches or less desirable early-round FA Cup contests. Accumulated rewards lead to better ticketing opportunities.

American colleges have used points systems for years to determine which students get coveted basketball and football tickets. But it’s not caught on in American pro sports.

“You’ve not really seen that done well in the U.S. to this point,” said Jeff Ianello, SeatGeek executive vice president of client partnerships, “and soccer is a place where it’s an obvious opportunity for a club in MLS to leverage a modern technology and actually drive best practices in the industry.”


SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2019/11/04/Franchises/MLS-franchises.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2019/11/04/Franchises/MLS-franchises.aspx

CLOSE