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TFC cuts ticket prices in an attempt to win back fans
Though the 2012 season technically hasn't ended just yet, Toronto FC has already taken its first step in picking up the pieces of another disappointing year on the pitch by announcing the cutting of ticket prices.
In what seems to be an attempt to win back fan support Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment announced Thursday that they've decided to cut prices for all past and current season ticket holders. Instead of the $1,292 a top-level season ticket cost in 2012, the price for the 2013 season will be cut to $1,007. The same goes for the lowest priced ticket that will drop from $361 to $190.
The last place team in Major League Soccer thus far in 2012 saw their lack of success on the field also play an affect on their attendance numbers. According to Worldfootball.net Toronto's average attendance per game dropped by nearly 2,000 fans compared to its 2011 numbers.
Toronto currently sits with a dismal 5-20-7 record and they began the season with an MLS record of nine consecutive losses. They have just three games remaining on their 2012 schedule.
MLSE President and COO Tom Anselmi said in a statement Thursday:
"The thing that upsets fans the most are team performance and price. Performance, atmosphere and price are all related. We want to thank people for their loyalty, thank them for hanging in with us and make sure the price isn't an irritant.
"We are going to look at the whole operation and expect recommendations and plans at the end of this season. This is the first full offseason Paul will have and if there's a need, we'll look at it. That's not the issue, the issue is the team needs to get it right."
In 2007 when MLS soccer arrived in Toronto fans were flocking in their red a white to watch their local team. A Reuters story from the teams inaugural season opener had argued that while the TFC were never going to become as popular as some of the other professional sports franchises in the city, it seemed that a pro soccer team could carve out its own niche of fans in the multicultural Canadian city.
Toronto Star reporter Mary Ormsby argued a similar point in a 2007 story as well:
Runaway season-ticket sales were capped at 14,000, at an average price of about $50 a seat (on par with prices for the CFL's Toronto Argonauts). The majority of subscribers come from three general groupings: families with kids and/or parents who play soccer; children and grandchildren of immigrants who have a soccer connection; and career professionals in their 20s and 30s — the last of which "was surprising to us," said Tom Anselmi, chief operating officer at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, which owns the club.
Anselmi said the young professionals tended to work or live downtown and, as patrons, emerged in numbers "we didn't expect."
Another 4,500 tickets have been sold across the board for the 16 regular-season home games, leaving approximately 1,500 for walk-up purchases in the freshly built 20,000-seat stadium. Even with a disastrous winless, goalless beginning to the season, the possibility of sellouts is real.
So, too, is the passion.
Jim Kiriakakis is a 31-year-old senior producer at Buck Productions, a television and video company in downtown Toronto. The Woodbridge man bought season tickets ($480 for the pair) early, before soccer celeb David Beckham signed a whopper contract with the Galaxy in Los Angeles — a sort of bragging rights for TFC folk — because the game has been part of his life since childhood.
"I'm a huge soccer fan, that's the main reason," said Kiriakakis, who played competitive youth soccer and was schooled very early in the marvels of Olympiakos by his Greek father, Christos. "I like what the MLS is doing in the States and I think we're really lucky here as far as the progression of soccer in Canada to be part of the MLS ... and any kind of play that looks to create a long-standing platform for soccer in this country is something I support."
But things have changed since the optimistic beginnings, and like is the case with any sports team that doesn't hold a city's fan base in the palm of its hand like the Maple Leafs do in Toronto, it's hard to attract eye balls and fill stadiums if you're not putting a winning product onto the playing field.
No matter how many people in Toronto love soccer, many just don't want to watch a losing team.
