Atmosphere
MF: At the playoff game last year, I don't know if you went down to the stadium, but the atmosphere was dreadful, as if you were in a mortuary.
NS: The first one at home?
MF: The only one at home.
NS: Why was the atmosphere horrible?
MF: There was no one there.
NS: Right.
MF: You could hear DC fans on the other side of the stadium. There was no Metro support there. Freddy Adu jerseys in the stands, as many as Metro jerseys. And there were a number of other home games this year, maybe the majority, when there was nothing in the stands. You don't want to be in that stadium. Are you doing anything to improve that?
NS: Yeah, we can get more fans to the stadium. First of all, the challenge with the playoff game, we did not know that we have a home playoff game until that Sunday in DC. So the next day, Monday, you literally have five days to promoted a game. We don't have huge amounts of advertising dollars. We do the best we can to get the word out. That's a very difficult thing to promote and market.
MF: But there are regular season games, the 8, the 10 thousand attendance ones, where Giants Stadium is just not a fun place to be. Even if you don't count the playoff game, are you doing anything to improve the atmosphere?
NS: We're pretty limited in terms what we can do. It's an 82,000 seat stadium, we try to do little things to improve the atmosphere. This year, actually, we got some ideas on how to make it better. I'm not prepared to talk about that right now, because we have not completely decided if we're gonna do some of them or not. But we know it's an issue. We know it's a problem. The FieldTurf does not help. When football lines go down on the turf, it makes it even more difficult. These are things we don't have control of. To answer directly, are we doing anything to improve the quality, yes. We are working our ass off to build a soccer stadium. Because ultimately, that will change the quality of the experience of the fans in that building.
MF: I realize that, but there still will be a two-year window until if -- and when -- the stadium gets built. And you are not afraid, believe those numbers or not, that there will be less fans next year?
NS: It's always a concern. That's why we focus on selling tickets. That's why we focus on getting people to buy tickets. And our resources here are heavily weighted to go out to the marketplace and to attempt to get people to believe our product and believe that when they come to the stadium, they get good value for the money they're spending, which I believe they do. It's not an expensive ticket, it's a good family night out. We're very successful in selling group tickets to youth soccer. Where we struggle, I'll be honest with you, is selling tickets to the hardcore soccer fans.