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On The Road Again- Columbus Crew To Face Northern Invasion 2,200 Strong
Please forgive us for venturing into MLS Underground territory. We run this story because the numbers are becoming astounding. ....and it is a slow rumors day.
In a league where a couple hundred away fans at a game is fairly impressive, Toronto FC fans will have smashed every record coming opening day.
Until then the record for largest away fan support is held by Red Bull NY, who paid for 800 of their fans to take chartered buses to Washington, DC to attend the 2006 season opener away DC United.
Unassisted, hundreds of DC United fans regularly make trips to New York City and Columbus in cars or buses each year.
Houston Dynamo fans with the help of their front office set record post season away fan attendance records away to Dallas and for both MLS Cups. An estimated 1,500 made the trip.
However according to the Columbus Crew front office, 2,200 tickets have been sold to Toronto FC supporters so far and signs are that that number may continue to climb substantially before next months opener.
Columbus Crew Stadium and the city in general will be painted Red.
Sadly, Toronto FC's front office seems a bit afraid that the reverse may occur and so they are restricting away supporters groups to no more than 100 tickets.
EDITORIAL: We feel that Toronto's front office is wrong. Limiting away support in MLS is not the way to grow it or the sport in either country.
I can confirm this to be true. I am a Crew season ticket holder and my Crew rep has told me several times that the away contingent is going to be massive!!!
And you know what? BRING IT ON, TFC!!! If our organizations want to create a rivalry, the best way is through the fans of the teams.
So to you TFC - Who are ya?!!!
This is actually pretty darn cool, and it should make for a very entertaining atmosphere come opening day. More things like this are definitely welcomed in my opinion, and they will only help grow the MLS.
Kinda hard to reserve more tickets for away supporters when over 16,000 of the 20,000 seats are taken up by season ticket holders. That doesn't even take into account the number of tickets required for TFC's sponsors, community groups, and single game tickets. If Columbus had the same number of seats spoken for as TFC, would so many from Toronto be able to get tickets to the game so easily?
Concidering that Toronto has more than 16,000 season tickets, plus about 2,000 people on half-season packages--in a stadium only sits 20,000--how, exactly,could Toronto provide more than 100 tickets to Chicago?
You have to hold back some for single game walk-ups...
With respect to the "only 100" seats available to away support at BMO field. I would suggest that that would be due to the fact that BMO only has about 100 to spare, there are no tickets LEFT. We need to expand this sucker ASAP.
What they said - and besides - does Columbus even have 100 away supporters ? I bet half the tickets would be given back to TFC to sell anyway.
does columbus even have 100 HOME supporters?? the only teams who had more than 100 in toronto last year were DC and chicago, so there's not much to worry about
and by the way, that picture demonstrates some awesome photoshopping skills
As stated above, we sold 14,000 season tickets in year one, boosted that number in year 2 to 16,000. Those are just the full season ticket packages. Last year MLSE capped the tickets to 14k, and then opened up 1/2 season packages. 1 for international/Premium games (visiting teams, games vs. Red Bull, DC and LA) and 1 for standard games (RSL, Chivas, etc..). Those too sold out. Then to be nice to those families who think it would be nice to take in a soccer match, MLSE held tickets for them as well as the sponsor seats and occasional seats being held in the event a VIp requires seats, leaving almost no room for ticket purchases from away fans. Now that families have seen our "nice" atmosphere (see: a drunken ruckus with no room for those who sit), MLSE has increased this year's season ticket package to accomodate the true fans.
There have already been rumors of adding a 3rd level to the West stands, a 2nd level to the supporters section in the south, clearing the Carlsberg patio and creating stands in the north (only to have to place the carlsberg patio on the 2nd level as carslberg obviously has rights to that space as part of their sponsorship deal. Last I heard from MLSE contacts I have, the team is trying to avoid building on the East to ensure fans still get a view of the lake, the CN Tower and the white elephant (SkyDome/Rogers Centre). Even then, don't be surprised if away tickets are hard to come by as there's a season ticket waiting list a mile long (consisting of those with tickets looking to increase the amount of tickets they have as well as people still with none). if only our friends south of the border had as much passion as we do. I don't hold MLSE at fault for having developed a rabid fan base. I do however hold them at fault for earning so much cash from all their properties and then planning to waste that money on washed up players like Joao Pinto. With the $ available they should be using a page out of DCs playbook and making strong connections with international squads to obtain decent young players.
if only our friends south of the border had as much passion as we do.
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Actually they do, in DC, Houston, Chicago, even New England to some degree. Which you know, is why they do travel in groups larger than 100.
This is more about MLSE caring more about lining their pockets than on building the sport or supporters culture.
Manchester United, Chelsea, etc are always at capacity, yet they still set aside more than 100 tickets for away supporters.
If a group doesn't wish to take advantage of them then just sell them on the day as walkup tickets.
500 in a 20,000 seat stadium is not a high percentage.
Toronto fans should be as worried about this as others in the league as it speaks volumes about MLSE's intentions and motivations.
i think its great there is so much enthusiasm for the sport. congrats to the tfc fans
Rumour Mill: In England there is a league-wide rule that 10% of the stadium capacity must be set aside for travelling fans. Obviously, this is much easier considering there are so many teams within such a small area. It's much more difficult to do the same thing here in North America. It's not the fact that Toronto FC is restricting the number of tickets being allocated, it's just that 100 seats is the most that the club could offer. There isn't an open section in the stadium.
Unfortunately, this issue cannot be solved until 2009 or whenever, or if ever, MLS decides to do something about it.
It's kind've sad MLS hasn't had anything in place already. It's clear having teams selling as many season's tickets as they can is more important than having travelling fans, even though they promote the league half of the time by using those same fans.
what stops some supporters firm from calling a buddy in Toronto and getting his address then calling the toronto ticket office and saying, "hello, im part of the little fluffy bunnies for toronto group, we have 500 underprivileged individuals that we are sponsoring to goto a game and we wanted to put them together can you guys do that, eh?"
noticing the 'eh' she immediately sets it up and blam you got 500 crew supporters there
come on people! england has been doing this crap for a half century, they get around it. firms in america have to start getting creative, pushing the limits of clubs like toronto otherwise you will be shut out.
Anyone know who the prick is that is fronting the crew fan. If he is such a tough guy, come talk to me.
jayshlick, if the crew got 500 supporters at home, i think id shit my pants... no offense to the crew fans, it's just that theyre never loud, their numbers are minuscule, and they dont travel
and i think that the 2nd-floor patio josh mentioned would be cooler than the one that currently exists... BMO field really needs to accommodate some 30,000 fans... and even THEN TFC would probably sell out a lot! hopefully the american teams (excluding dc, houston, and chicago) will catch on and start gaining fan support