PSW Corner Kicks

I could not believe my eyes when I saw the attendance report from last night's World Cup Qualifier in Chicago between the US and Trinidad & Tobago!

11,452

You'd think the game was held in South Dakota in January at 3 a.m. with those kinds of numbers. But nope, it was a gorgeous evening in the suburbs of one of the biggest, most sports-loving cities in the world. Moreover, it is the home of the headquarters of the United States Soccer Federation - the very organization that produced the match.

The Chicago Fire - who's home stadium was used for this match - drew more fans on two out of three previous mid-week matches so far this season. A league match against New England (15,553) on April 3rd and an exhibition match (YES, EXHIBITION) against Wisla Krakow (14,040) on May 21. They even nearly out-drew the US match on Wednesday, July 30th in a friendly against Everton with 9,125 brave soles daring to go spend an evening in a brand new soccer stadium watching the world's most popular game - how dare they!

Maybe there was something else going on in Chicago last night distracting sports fans? Let's see...

Cubs were away at St. Louis in an afternoon game, so no TV distraction
White Sox home against Toronto (attendance: 26,198), any chance baseball fans of the White Sox are the only ones who like soccer in Chicago?
Bears (NFL) did not play
Bulls (NBA) did not play
Blackhawks (NHL) did not play

How about some other facts...

Since US Soccer started reporting attendance figures in 1990:

• There have been eight (8) games played by the US Men's team in Chicago with a cumulative total of 295,018 attendance (average 36,878).
• There have been 26 World Cup qualifiers played on US soil with a cumulative total of 797,328 attendance (average 30,667).
• Only three previous World Cup qualifiers drew less attendance than last night (6/13/04 versus Grenada in Columbus, OH - 9,137, 11/17/04 versus Jamaica in Columbus, OH - 9,088, and 10/12/05 versus Panama in Foxboro, MA).
• The only other home qualifier so far this year was against soccer minnow Barbados in LA, yet still out-drew last night with 11,476.
• The US has played Trinidad and Tobago seven (7) times on US soil, with a cumulative total of 145,232 (average 20,747).
• Of those seven previous meetings with T&T on US soil, ALL have had higher attendance, including 19,312 on November 24, 1996 in RICHMOND, VA.
  

Bottom line - we know the US team is has traditionally struggled to draw big crowds of US supporters, but such a low attendance for a World Cup qualifier in the home city of our country's Federation, and in a spanking new soccer-specific stadium is completely unacceptable. Someone should be fired at the Fire or USSF, or both. This is clearly a result of poor game promotion. Let's only hope the TV ratings are higher.

Case in point, according to officials at one of the best ticket-selling operations in MLS, D.C. United (who are responsible for ticket sales at RFK for the upcoming home qualifier against last place Cuba on October 11th) has ALREADY reached the 11,000 tickets sold mark - a full month before kick off, and against a much less storied team.

Everyone involved with soccer in Chicago should be embarrassed. USSF officials, Fire officials and fans, youth club directors and coaches, and even media editors for not carving out more space to preview the game - and maybe even the coach for not using any current Chicago Fire players, or calling in other legitimate pool players with a little more draw at the gate, like Freddy Adu or Jozy Altidore.

I'd rather see the US play Mexico in the Rose Bowl for all the marbles than another embarrassment like Wednesday night. At least then we can pretend there is some passion in the US for its national team.

Labels: Chicago Fire, U.S. Men, World Cup