Mellinger - It’s hard to ignore Sporting KC’s success

[|Zach|]

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/25...rting-kcs.html

Good read. Also very observant in regards to the neighborhood comment.

It’s hard to ignore Sporting KC’s success

By SAM MELLINGER

The Kansas City Star

The newest big thing in Kansas City sports is a lawyer in a rainbow wig and a teacher day-drinking in the parking lot and a grassroots fan movement turned into 20,000 people packing a gorgeous $200 million stadium Sunday for a regular summer happening that by now is just stubborn to ignore.

The newest big thing in KC sports is not a fad. This is Juan cooking tacos and Jeff passing out miniature liquor bottles and more than a thousand people joined by a Facebook page where, among other things, they share pictures and make travel plans and memorize chants for the next Sporting Kansas City game.

This is a story about soccer. That will turn some of you off immediately, so we might as well get that out of the way. This is a story about a team playing a sport that some of you don’t respect, either because it’s too slow (not true) or there’s not enough scoring (debatable) or the culture of players flopping to draw penalties (endlessly annoying but not part of Sporting KC’s style).

Maybe you can’t think about soccer — even professional soccer being played well by grown men in a wildly fast growing league — without making a joke about orange slices and Capri Suns.

That’s fine. This is a free country, after all, and more to the point a country with an insane amount of entertainment options. You can watch a movie, play the slots or pool, read historical fiction, play with your kids, go antiquing, start a garden, whatever you want to do, but if you’re still dismissing professional soccer simply because it’s professional soccer then you should at least pause long enough to consider two inalienable facts.

This isn’t going away.

And you’re missing a heck of a show.

One of the reasons this professional soccer team will continue to be a success in Kansas City is that you don’t need to like professional soccer to help make it a success.

Here’s a fun game: Close your eyes and think real hard about what you want from your local sports teams. Use the Royals and Chiefs if you’d like. Think about what is most important to you as a fan. Don’t go to the next paragraph until you’re ready.

Got it?

OK, now listen to what CEO Robb Heineman wants people to notice about Sporting Kansas City.

“Hopefully they’ll say we’re winners,” he says. “That we’re winners and that we’re local. Those are the two biggest brand personalities we’re trying to push.”

Sounds an awful lot like answers to two prevailing criticisms of the Royals and Chiefs, no?

To be sure, Heineman makes a point that this has nothing to do with what’s across town. This is about Sporting, nobody else, and Heineman is just making the point that his ownership group is hypercompetitive and will do whatever it takes to win and is made up of men who call Kansas City home.

But the juxtaposition is impossible to miss.

“This is just so un-Kansas City,” says Mike Zuck, a Sporting KC season-ticket holder. “This is just nothing like what I’m used to around here.”

Actually, Zuck is a pretty good personification of how Sporting plans on building market share.

Zuck is 31 years old. He manages a store in the Legends shopping district. He grew up north of the river, in Gladstone, and played soccer growing up but always rooted more for the Chiefs and Royals than Wizards or Wiz. But today, he is a grown man who spends a portion of his paycheck on season tickets for soccer instead of football or baseball.

And this is the part of Sporting’s long-term vision that’s just stuffed with potential.

“Kansas City’s a little different,” Heineman says. “You’re seeing kind of that first generation now coming through with disposable income to spend on season tickets, they’re making decisions. And because the building’s so great, because value is there, we’re winning some of those situations.”

This is critical. Projections are very kind to soccer. For instance, an ESPN poll indicated that Americans ages 12 to 24 rank professional soccer as their second favorite sport behind the NFL. This is pro soccer as defined by the MLS and international leagues, an important distinction, but it’s also a statistic being passed around the television networks and advertising agencies as proof of the sport’s growth potential in this country.

Viewed in that prism, Kansas City and its pro soccer team are something like the perfect test case.

To be sure, Sporting is a distant third in the most measurable local interest: Royals average attendance is 22,831 compared with 19,017 for Sporting, and the soccer team is watched on TV by fewer than half as many people for fewer than one-third as many games.

It’s just that Sporting is shortening the gap. The club should sell out all but one home game this summer, better than even optimistic in-house projections, and has a disproportionately young fan base.

That young fan base is graduating college and making money and earning promotions.

You can see where this is headed, right?

They like to say Livestrong Sporting Park has different “neighborhoods.” Kids and families keep it smiley on one side, 40-somethings keep it classy on another, and the maniacs in the Cauldron keep it live behind the east goal.

You can find just about anyone here. They are hipsters in those old-school newsie hats, sports fans wearing Royals hats, and partiers wearing Native American headgear. They are 36-year-old women in mom jeans with kids who still have their shin guards on, and they are divorcees on dates.

They are former soccer players who will tell you exactly how that last goal developed and they are newbies just here for the show. Some of them act as if they just want to see a game, others as if they just don’t want college to end. Over on one end, there are three fans dressed in those weird blue man suits, the costumes off enough that you see it might be a father and his two sons.

Arrowhead Stadium is louder, and the K has more history. The Chiefs will always dominate Kansas City, and the Royals will always have the chance to ignite this area for a summer. Sporting KC has a ways to go still but is moving toward a seat at the big-boy table.

Professional soccer has long been the bastard child of our local sports scene, but those days are over. This is not a passing fancy, and it is much more than the novelty of a beautiful new stadium.

This is a business plan merging with a maturing fan base merging with a national trend. This isn’t fading. It’s growing.

Ignore it if you’d like. But you should know that’ll be much harder to do.

--------------------------

Game preview for their upcoming match Sunday vs San Jose on NBC Sports at 3:30

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by milkman

I became interested in each sport that I'm interested in by watching and finding something that I found interesting to watch.

I watched soccer and found nothing about the sport that interested me in the least, so I did not continue to watch.

See, this is what I'm interested in. Because to me, soccer has every single thing that makes other good sports compelling. What is soccer lacking for you that can be found in the sports you enjoy watching?

[|Zach|]

Originally Posted by lewdog

I totally understand how people can claim that both soccer and baseball are boring. However, baseball is definitely a game within a game. You have different scenarios every inning, different ways to approach different hitters, lineup changes, tons of statistics to follow. What makes baseball exciting is the game within the game because it is much more a thinking game than people give it credit. Because it is such a thinking game, it has a slower pace which some people consider boring and totally fair.

Does soccer contain anything similar? I am seriously asking bc I have never been able to watch an entire soccer game.

I don't connect with baseball but I don't shit on it either and I see why people like it and you described it well above.

I would say there are a lot of amazing things going on almost always but its very fluid and very dynamic because...the shit does not stop a lot. I do photography for the team in Kansas City and it sort of dawned on me while I was shooting.

The run of play or action can go absolutely anywhere. It is so dynamic. The ability to create offense and switch up an attack. In football you have the line of scrimmage and the offense is trying to go one way all action and unfolding action is going pretty much one direction. Baseball you have these set bases and the ball can land anywhere i suppose but there is nothing dynamic or interesting about how an attacking action happens. I hope I am explaining myself well because it isn't a criticism.

In soccer the ability to attack and build up play is so dynamic because the field is so absolutely wide open and the options for offense can happen in so many different and interesting ways.

Below I think is a pretty good example. Seeing the build up of this goal that sealed a nice win earlier in the season you can see all of the people that were involved in the run up to that goal. Think about each touch those players took and how they could have played it differently or ran differently. Someone smarter than me made a great post with this happened breaking down this whole thing and how impressive it was especially showing when Kei made his first touch in midfield he sprinted to the perfect open space and a few passes later he was the one who made the goal.

[|Zach|]

Another thing comes to mind especially now that we are talking about baseball so much. Reaper may disagree with me here because he loves baseball more than I do but...the idea that I find really silly is one that gets thrown around a lot. The idea that the only time something exciting happening is when a goal gets scored. That is simply...simply not the case.

All you have to do is look at something like game 2 of the World Series last year. An exciting game in an exciting series that ended up being a 2-1 game. That whole game had drama because of the build up of possible runs and then runs.

Soccer is interesting most the match because the ability to score is always there. Sometimes they come out of nowhere. The ability for the game to be completely turned up on its head is absolutely there. When there are corner kicks...runs in the box...build up to shots on frame? It is a span of time for the people who are enjoying soccer games during those spans of the game.

It is like having runners on base. When runners are in a scoring position in a tight big baseball game everyone knows what the situation is...what happens in these situations of danger is going to control the outcome of the game.

Just tonight in DC. DC United was play the NE Revolution. DCU was up 3-2 in the waining moments of the game. They need to secure a win and NE was knocking on the door. NE kept making dangerous attacking runs and this amazing save which most often times would be a goal sealed the win for DCU. It wasn't a goal but it was good attacking play that had the balance of the game in its hands.

http://youtu.be/0t9Y64FY7Qg?t=7m

Soccer...just like any sport isn't always exciting. Style of play is more dynamic than other sports and negative shitty soccer is out there in the world. You don't see a lot of it in the MLS and you certainly don't see it from SKC.

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by |Zoccer|

Another thing comes to mind especially now that we are talking about baseball so much. Reaper may disagree with me here because he loves baseball more than I do but...the idea that I find really silly is one that gets thrown around a lot. The idea that the only time something exciting happening is when a goal gets scored. That is simply...simply not the case.

All you have to do is look at something like game 2 of the World Series last year. An exciting game in an exciting series that ended up being a 2-1 game. That whole game had drama because of the build up of possible runs and then runs.

Soccer is interesting most the match because the ability to score is always there. Sometimes they come out of nowhere. The ability for the game to be completely turned up on its head is absolutely there. When there are corner kicks...runs in the box...build up to shots on frame? It is a span of time for the people who are enjoying soccer games during those spans of the game.

It is like having runners on base. When runners are in a scoring position in a tight big baseball game everyone knows what the situation is...what happens in these situations of danger is going to control the outcome of the game.

Just tonight in DC. DC United was play the NE Revolution. DCU was up 3-2 in the waining moments of the game. They need to secure a win and NE was knocking on the door. NE kept making dangerous attacking runs and this amazing save which most often times would be a goal sealed the win for DCU. It wasn't a goal but it was good attacking play that had the balance of the game in its hands.

http://youtu.be/0t9Y64FY7Qg?t=7m

Soccer...just like any sport isn't always exciting. Style of play is more dynamic than other sports and negative shitty soccer is out there in the world. You don't see a lot of it in the MLS and you certainly don't see it from SKC.

I don't disagree with you at all. I think that people who actually think that goal/point/run/etc scoring are the only exciting part of sports are people who don't actually like sports. People who like sports like the whole drama involved, who appreciate the difficulty of scoring (in any sport).

As for soccer v baseball, soccer is more fluid than baseball, for sure. Faster, for sure. There's lots of tactics involved in baseball. Lots. But ultimately it comes down for me to the allure of pitching (arguably the 2nd hardest thing to do in ALL of sports) vs hitting (arguably the single hardest thing to do in ALL of sports). There's so much physics at play with every pitch of every at-bat that it'll make your head spin. I love baseball for that.

[milkman]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

See, this is what I'm interested in. Because to me, soccer has every single thing that makes other good sports compelling. What is soccer lacking for you that can be found in the sports you enjoy watching?

As a kid watching football, I was intrigued by the physical battles in the trenches between behemoths.

I couldn't look away from these huge men pummeling each other.

In baseball, I was intrigued by the battle between the hitter and pitcher, by the excitement of a stolen base, by the single stretched into a double, and the close play at the plate.
I personally feel that a home run is about the most boring play in all of sports.

Soccer is all about action of non-action.

I must say, I also hate the anouncer's "Goooooooaaaaaaaaal", calls.

I want to kill those ****ers.

[Ultra Peanut]

Originally Posted by Kyle DeLexus

I guess I'm in the same boat as tk13. The lack of the homerun capability disinterests me from soccer. In football, basketball, and hockey things can happen quick.

Ugh yeah I hate how slow soccer goals are to develop.





Note that Alan Gordon has scored flash goals in or around stoppage time three games in a row.

SOCCER SO SLOWBORING *has never watched a soccer*

[Ultra Peanut]

WHY SOCCER SO TEDIOUS





*smells own butt*

[BillSelfsTrophycase]

0-0

[the Talking Can]

i'm surprised the basic tv format of soccer isn't more appealing to casual sports fans..

soccer is unique in having 45 mins of uninterrupted play....no commercial cutaways...i love it

no switching channels during commercial, no adjusting volume, no waiting for players to line up or pitchers to readjust their hats...set it and forget it, constant motion for 45 mins

[DJay23]

Originally Posted by |Zoccer|

In soccer the ability to attack and build up play is so dynamic because the field is so absolutely wide open and the options for offense can happen in so many different and interesting ways.

To me, football and baseball are like giving a kid a coloring book page with predrawn pictures and some crayons and saying, "color me a pretty picture." Soccer and basketball are like giving the same kid a blank sheet of paper and crayons and saying, "color me a pretty picture." For the kid to get from point A to Point B in the first scenario is very rigid, very spelled out and clear what has to be done. It's easy to spot a mistake and you know exactly what you are going to get most of the time. In the second scenario there are far more options and it's harder to imagine what the kid will do to make the picture. I think both can be very exciting but there's something about the open endedness of basketball and soccer that I find attractive.

It doesn't hurt that all of the teams I follow in basketball and soccer are really good and the teams I follow in football and baseball are mediocre at best.

[KCinNY]

Originally Posted by the Talking Can

i'm surprised the basic tv format of soccer isn't more appealing to casual sports fans..

soccer is unique in having 45 mins of uninterrupted play....no commercial cutaways...i love it

no switching channels during commercial, no adjusting volume, no waiting for players to line up or pitchers to readjust their hats...set it and forget it, constant motion for 45 mins

I agree with this.

Not a big soccer fan, but I've watched a few SKC games and I enjoy the World Cup alot. I do love how the game is constant and lacks the ceaseless barrage of stupid, unwatchable commercials that accompany football on TV. Also, most of soccer's commentators are rather understated while most football announcers(Ian Eagle, Chris Collinsworth and Dan Fouts come to mind) seem to be doing their level best to annoy me at every opportunity.

[|Zach|]

Originally Posted by the Talking Can

i'm surprised the basic tv format of soccer isn't more appealing to casual sports fans..

soccer is unique in having 45 mins of uninterrupted play....no commercial cutaways...i love it

no switching channels during commercial, no adjusting volume, no waiting for players to line up or pitchers to readjust their hats...set it and forget it, constant motion for 45 mins

This as well. It makes the NFL maddening in comparison.

[KCUnited]

I haven't connected to Sporting or soccer in general simply due to a finite amount of personal resources such as time, money, and emotion. Plus, the constant validation attempts by some fans of the sport can be a bit of a turn off, but I get why some soccer fans feel they always have to be on the defense.

That said, while I don't pay a whole lot of attention to Sporting, as a Kansas Citian I hope they dominate their sport and their fans get to enjoy all the fruits that come with that domination for a long, long time.

[The Bunk]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

That's not a problem for SKC at all. The people with their minds closed to soccer in this country don't pay attention to the Premier League or etc. It's not about level of competition, it's about how some sports fans in America (typically 35 years of age or older) have a resistance to the sport itself that they haven't examined at all.

It actually is. I love the EPL, and watch it regularly. But I have a hard time viewing MLS as much more than the scrubs who couldn't make it in Europe.

[Ultra Peanut]

That's a really dumb way of looking at it. There's so much depth and so much talent in the world of soccer that looking down on the quality of play outside of, say, the Big Three or whatever is shutting yourself off to unbelievably exciting, entertaining matches. The style and quality of play in MLS is so far ahead of where it was five years ago, much less when I started watching the league ten years ago, and it's only getting better. And the entire thing isn't even two decades old.

Not to mention that MLS is consistently the funniest, weirdest, most unpredictable sports league I follow. "Where Ridiculous Happens" should be its motto, and I love it for that.