Why doesn't Indianapolis have more sports franchises? (Fort Wayne, South Bend: transplants, credit card)

[Serious Conversation]

Originally Posted by missik999

Miami has all four major league sports teams and has half the population of Indy.

I can see Indy possibly getting an NHL team someday but sadly not an MLB team.

The Miami metro area is much more populous than Indy.

[damba]

Originally Posted by Serious Conversation

The Miami metro area is much more populous than Indy.

Not to mention wealthier and an international city on a coast.

[ColdAilment]

Originally Posted by missik999

Miami has all four major league sports teams and has half the population of Indy.

I can see Indy possibly getting an NHL team someday but sadly not an MLB team.

Miami has over 5 million people in the metro, Indianapolis barely has 2 million. Very different cities.

[Toxic Toast]

Originally Posted by ColdAilment

Miami has over 5 million people in the metro, Indianapolis barely has 2 million. Very different cities.

They're very different metro areas, which is a very important distinction when you are talking about placing professional sports franchises.

[ColdAilment]

Originally Posted by Toxic Toast

They're very different metro areas, which is a very important distinction when you are talking about placing professional sports franchises.

I was addressing the poster who said that Indy had a larger population than Miami, nothing more.

[W & C]

If you exclude MLS (still not considered part of the Big Four), Indianapolis has as many major league franchises as Seattle and more major league franchises than San Diego.

Not to mention more franchises than Cincinnati, Louisville and Columbus - all of which are comparable in size and location.

[indy_317]

Originally Posted by tjfd88

Soccer on the other hand, a MLS team seems doable. The Eleven do seem to be popular for a minor league team.

An MLS team wouldn't make it. Plenty of comments on-line about free and discounted tickets given out over the years. A good effort on the part of the owner, but I just don’t see some people paying true MLS pricing for soccer in this area. I also think some people just want something to do and so long as the entry fee is somewhat affordable, the ability to just go and something while drinking and socializing is more the goal than the actual game.

[Toxic Toast]

Originally Posted by indy_317

An MLS team wouldn't make it. Plenty of comments on-line about free and discounted tickets given out over the years. A good effort on the part of the owner, but I just don’t see some people paying true MLS pricing for soccer in this area. I also think some people just want something to do and so long as the entry fee is somewhat affordable, the ability to just go and something while drinking and socializing is more the goal than the actual game.

Do you have verifiable sourced info that the Eleven give out a disproportionate amount of free tickets?

[Ivory Lee Spurlock]

Originally Posted by indy_317

An MLS team wouldn't make it. Plenty of comments on-line about free and discounted tickets given out over the years. A good effort on the part of the owner, but I just don’t see some people paying true MLS pricing for soccer in this area. I also think some people just want something to do and so long as the entry fee is somewhat affordable, the ability to just go and something while drinking and socializing is more the goal than the actual game.

I bet as the Hispanic population grows in Indianapolis soccer will become so popular that it won't be unusual for the soccer games at a soccer stadium to be sold out. Especially if they have a winning season.

Actually, as the Hispanic grows across the nation, I bet it's only a matter of time until professional soccer becomes the #1 sport in the country, passing up NBA, MLB, NFL and NHL.

[indy_317]

Originally Posted by Toxic Toast

Do you have verifiable sourced info that the Eleven give out a disproportionate amount of free tickets?

Given the fact that team is privately owned and the owner was trying to get taxpayers to build him a stadium, I doubt any such verifiable data exist, at least publicly. Also, how do we define "disproportionate?" 25%? 60%?

I do know that at many of the IUPUI games, they would proclaim a large amount of tickets sold, and sometimes a "sell out." That might technically be true, but the bodies in the stands reflected that even if these thousands of tickets were sold, many people were clearly just throwing their money away as they weren't showing up. This was a running joke between my and others, about what kind of "attendance" claim would be made at any given game.

There were also rumors about if IU (who runs the IUPUI campus) was being reimburse for expenses. Some claim there was a contract, others said there wasn't. This is the only data that would likely be available since IU is a public school. However, I'm not sure if anyone ever dug deep to obtain the data. I will say that the last year they were at IUPUI, there was a random game that caused a parking. Three of the larger lots used for staff/students were shut down for the game causing all sorts of parking issues. At one staff council meeting the issue was discussed. A question was asked what the university was getting out of the partnership. I'm guessing because parking isn't cheap for employees and they likely wanted to know what, if anything, IU was giving away to this private entity. You can read the minutes here:

https://staffcouncil.iupui.edu/docs/...sept_20_17.pdf

Again, someone would have to file a public records request for the original contract from about four or five years ago to see what it says and if there was any follow-up with it.

As far as discounted or free tickets. That was from comments on-line and one family source. Some relatives got discounted (maybe even free) tickets via their suburban soccer club. They were pretty cheap (to me cheap is $5-$10/person), but that didn't really surprise me given the physical attendance I was seeing. I also don't think the venue called for costly tickets as it was a sub-par facility to begin with. I don't know the particulars about how these cheaper tickets came to be.

Here is a really good blog post about attendance. On the books, they may have sold over 10K tickets, but I can assure you, as someone who was at five to seven games the years they played at IUPUI, there were only a few times I'd say they actually had full attendance. Again, the other question is if they did sell the tickets, that's great, but at what price were the tickets sold and to whom.

Advance Indiana™: Indy Eleven Attendance Figures Don't Add Up: Stop Believing The Press Releases

I wish the author of the blog hadn't died. He had some great comments on some of the priorities of the city and state. Here is a link to most/all of the articles he wrote about the Indy Eleven from a few years back.

Advance Indiana™: Search results for indy eleven

As one who went to a handful of games per year, there were some that were packed with people. There were other games where I believe folks decided to go to Victory Field instead. This tells me people are just wanting something to do and might not really be diehard fans of soccer. I think the new league with many more teams, especially nearby cities, was good. I'm not sure how they are faring at LOS attendance wise as I've stopped going to the games.

Originally Posted by Ivory Lee Spurlock

I bet as the Hispanic population grows in Indianapolis soccer will become so popular that it won't be unusual for the soccer games at a soccer stadium to be sold out. Especially if they have a winning season.

Actually, as the Hispanic grows across the nation, I bet it's only a matter of time until professional soccer becomes the #1 sport in the country, passing up NBA, MLB, NFL and NHL.

Maybe. There will be lots of factors for this. For starters, will these people have jobs, automation is continuing? If they get jobs, what will the pay be (as in can they afford tickets). Youth soccer is already on the decline:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/14/s...h-decline.html

Indy Eleven was affordable fun for family, however I never supported another stadium costing almost $100M from what I saw at the games. The draw isn't that big, no where near that big. IU said the cost to remodel their stadium would be $80M I believe, but the state only wanted to chip in $20M and said the team, IU, and the city should fork over whatever else is needed to get that stadium up to par.

As far as other major sporting teams. Wages have stagnated too much compared to other costs in the metro area. People are likely tapped out. Plus, the biggest thing is that Indy has a bunch of bandwagon fans. My dad has had season tickets for the Colts since before LOS. He and his buddy were splitting two seats with another couple, but in recent years I think him and his friend went to most of the games. He said the last game this season it was a huge number of new faces in the entire section. That is just the mentality of too many fans in Indy. I can't believe how upset I've seen some people get when a team sucks. Seriously, the entire concept is for there to be just one, just one winner. There are numerous teams, but only one can win. I just don't get the mentality of "they suck this year, screw'em." My dad is also thinking of giving up his season tickets. He went to the Superbowl and saw them, and he said it is just too costly, to much of a hassle for him. He said he'd rather watch it at home.