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

|Zach| · 12:47 AM

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

05-26-2012, 12:26 AM

It's not hard at all. Trust me, I'd love to be a fan of a local winner.

|Zach| · 05-26-2012, 12:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phobia

It's not hard at all. Trust me, I'd love to be a fan of a local winner.

Even when they did win it all Clark Hunt stole the damn trophy.

Fairplay · 05-26-2012, 12:32 AM

Its a beautiful thing. This sport is catching on and everyone loves a winner.

|Zach| · 05-26-2012, 12:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fairplay

Its a beautiful thing. This sport is catching on and everyone loves a winner.

It has been interesting seeing the growing pains of the supporter groups, staff, team, and basically everyone involved adjusting to managing something that is really popular and in demand.

Dr. Johnny Fever · 05-26-2012, 12:42 AM

I'm honestly glad KC has a winning team. Now if I could just make myself give a shit about soccer.

|Zach| · 05-26-2012, 12:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr. noonanbeermefever

I'm honestly glad KC has a winning team. Now if I could just make myself give a shit about soccer.

Go out and catch a game. Not saying you will love it or being instantly converted. Shit doesn't work like that...but go out and catch a game...on a nice night. You might be surprised.

Psyko Tek · 05-26-2012, 01:48 AM

phoenix has 2 WNBA championships

**CrazyPhuD** · 05-26-2012, 04:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psyko Tek

phoenix has 2 WNBA championships

LOL....then again there is something about this and standards. You can say you want to build a winning team, but in reality there will only ever be one winning team per season in every sport. The rest are losers, the magnitude of the loss is almost unimportant.

**Bugeater** · 05-26-2012, 07:17 AM

Not really, thread tools>ignore this thread.

Viola, ignored.

Ultra Peanut · 05-26-2012, 09:10 AM

SKC rules (we're totally gonna crush you even without our two starting forwards, though. SORRY, deal with it), and the cool thing is that it's basically already too late a date to be able to ask "will soccer ever catch on in America?" anymore. Its niche has been successfully carved out, there is a huge subset of young adults who've grown up watching the sport or have picked it up in adolescence, MLS is continuing to improve both on the field and in the stands (only one team has serious stadium concerns and even minor league attendance seems to be growing tremendously), and with their new TV deal the league is actually securely profitable.

It's beautiful to see such a great sport become a totally natural interest among wide swaths of the population. It's weird that it happened in the blink of an eye and without any more catalyzing USMNT moments than this admittedly pretty ****ing incredible moment.

Point being, MLS is awesome and absurd. Watch it, nerds.

Deberg_1990 · 05-26-2012, 09:24 AM

Ill have to try and catch a game when im up in KC this summer. I dont think i will ever like soccer as much as Baseball and football, but it has grown on me.

Nice to see KC have a winner for once.

Deberg_1990 · 05-26-2012, 09:26 AM

The column does kind of make some good points about a new generation and what they are choosing to spend their money on.

Ive said for awhile now the Royals have completely lost a generation or two of fans.

tredadda · 05-26-2012, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CrazyPhuD

LOL....then again there is something about this and standards. You can say you want to build a winning team, but in reality there will only ever be one winning team per season in every sport. The rest are losers, the magnitude of the loss is almost unimportant.

Watch what you say, this is CP where a playoff win is considered a smashing success and reason to burn cars and loot in the streets in celebration.

milkman · 05-26-2012, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tredadda

Watch what you say, this is CP where a playoff win is considered a smashing success and reason to burn cars and loot in the streets in celebration.

Marty had a number of seasons that can be labeled as successful, but he had SB calibre talent, and ten years to get there, so over the course of his tenure, while you can't call his time a failure, neither can it be deemed successful.

I don't watch soccer, and don't give one flying **** about it, but if this Sporting KC (stupid ****ing name, btw) has championship calibre talent and fail to win a championship while that talent is in place, then it is not successful.

05-26-2012, 12:23 AM
\|Zach\| For The Glory Of The City Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Kansas City Casino cash: $5246768	Mellinger - It’s hard to ignore Sporting KC’s success 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 Last edited by \|Zach\|; 05-26-2012 at 12:47 AM..
Posts: 53,461

05-26-2012, 12:26 AM	#2
Phobia Guest Casino cash: $	It's not hard at all. Trust me, I'd love to be a fan of a local winner.
Posts: n/a

05-26-2012, 12:32 AM	#4
Fairplay A certain set of skills Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: texas Casino cash: $10026683 VARSITY	Its a beautiful thing. This sport is catching on and everyone loves a winner.
Posts: 25,265

05-26-2012, 12:42 AM	#6
Dr. Johnny Fever stax of wax Join Date: Feb 2004 Casino cash: $10004900	I'm honestly glad KC has a winning team. Now if I could just make myself give a shit about soccer. __________________ courtesy of BoneKrusher "Baseball? It's just a game. As simple as a ball and bat, yet as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. It's a sport, a business and sometimes a religion." Ernie Harwell
Posts: 34,865

05-26-2012, 01:48 AM	#8
Psyko Tek special teams Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Mesa AZ Casino cash: $10015665	phoenix has 2 WNBA championships __________________ Psyko Tek The keyboard has been drinking,
Posts: 12,018

05-26-2012, 07:17 AM	#10
Bugeater The Maintenance Guy Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Renovated Bugeater Estate Casino cash: $6232680	Not really, thread tools>ignore this thread. Viola, ignored.
Posts: 70,443

05-26-2012, 09:10 AM	#11
Ultra Peanut v^V^v^V^v^V^ Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Holland* Casino cash: $10005177	SKC rules (we're totally gonna crush you even without our two starting forwards, though. SORRY, deal with it), and the cool thing is that it's basically already too late a date to be able to ask "will soccer ever catch on in America?" anymore. Its niche has been successfully carved out, there is a huge subset of young adults who've grown up watching the sport or have picked it up in adolescence, MLS is continuing to improve both on the field and in the stands (only one team has serious stadium concerns and even minor league attendance seems to be growing tremendously), and with their new TV deal the league is actually securely profitable. It's beautiful to see such a great sport become a totally natural interest among wide swaths of the population. It's weird that it happened in the blink of an eye and without any more catalyzing USMNT moments than this admittedly pretty ****ing incredible moment. Point being, MLS is awesome and absurd. Watch it, nerds. __________________
Posts: 39,518

05-26-2012, 09:24 AM	#12
Deberg_1990 In Search of a Life Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: San Antonio Tx. Casino cash: $3834454	Ill have to try and catch a game when im up in KC this summer. I dont think i will ever like soccer as much as Baseball and football, but it has grown on me. Nice to see KC have a winner for once. __________________ Originally Posted by Cassel's Reckoning: Matt once made a very nice play in Seattle where he spun away from a pass rusher and hit Bowe off his back foot for a first down. One of the best plays Matt has ever made.
Posts: 66,914

05-26-2012, 09:26 AM	#13
Deberg_1990 In Search of a Life Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: San Antonio Tx. Casino cash: $3834454	The column does kind of make some good points about a new generation and what they are choosing to spend their money on. Ive said for awhile now the Royals have completely lost a generation or two of fans. __________________ Originally Posted by Cassel's Reckoning: Matt once made a very nice play in Seattle where he spun away from a pass rusher and hit Bowe off his back foot for a first down. One of the best plays Matt has ever made.
Posts: 66,914