The Equalizer

News Details

Thursday, March 04, 2010

WPS teams enjoying increased ticketing success through competition, cooperation

As Women’s Professional Soccer enters its second season, the league composed of some of the best women’s soccer players in the world looks to continue to find new ways to learn from its initial experiences and generate revenue. Sponsorship, which WPS Commissioner Tonya Antonucci has previously noted as being up, is one main revenue source along with ticket sales, a division of operations that general managers and teams across the league have learned a lot about with one year of experience under their belts.Five of the six teams that played in WPS in 2009 are currently reporting a growth in ticketing revenue. Expansion team Atlanta Beat is even starting off strong by leading the league in new season ticket sales, though all sales are new as an expansion team.Year two of WPS offers different challenges to the ticket selling process. Fans are now aware of the league and there is a year’s worth of on-field product to market to them. Now, the emphasis is on improving various areas of ticket operations, including targeting group sales.Boston Breakers Director of Ticket Sales Heather Pease describes group sales as a “big missed opportunity last year,” and there is a focus around the league about attracting large groups to WPS games.These include traditional groups such as youth soccer clubs, scouts, church groups and corporate America."We are definitely focusing on businesses more than we did in year one - trying to focus on the young professional demographic a little bit more as well,” Pease said. “We have a fantastic base of fans of families, but one piece that I feel we are definitely trying to target more is that middle age group of the older teenagers and young professionals.”The Breakers currently lead the league in season ticket units with over 1,200 season ticket holders. Boston is doing so with a couple of account executives and a full-time staff of about eight people that work with Pease in what might be described as a typically sized office for a WPS team.Meanwhile, the Washington Freedom, which is in the top third of all season ticket sales categories league-wide and has currently sold approximately 700 season tickets, is working off of a different business model.Washington’s front office is close to 24 full-time employees, a staff size that more than doubles that of most other WPS teams. Freedom General Manager Mark Washo said that he and the team’s owners feel that such a number is the minimum staffing level that the team needs to be successful. “What we are doing is consistent with sports business in this country in any other sports league, so we are not renegades in that regard,” Washo said. “Now, in our league I think that different teams and different ownership groups are looking at things in different ways.”To each his own is the idea. Just look at the top three teams in most ticket sales categories, where Atlanta, Boston and Washington offer three very unique approaches that are all proving to be successful.Boston’s smaller staff and personal approach has the Breakers leading the league in total season tickets and Pease noted that there is something of a “WUSA carry-over effect” since the Breakers never stopped their involvement in the community.The Freedom meanwhile, is having similar successes with a much larger staff, and Atlanta has jumped onto the scene emphatically without having even played a game in WPS (Beat General Manager Shawn McGee “fully expects to be sold out” on opening day).Then there is FC Gold Pride, who expects the “Marta Effect,” to show through in group sales, but is also reporting an uptick in new season ticket sales.Sky Blue FC General Manager Gerry Marrone also said that the defending champions have exceeded last season’s number of season tickets sold and are in the top two league-wide for group sales, though he sees that as having less to do with winning the championship and more to do with an increased general awareness of the league.Antonucci has set a league-wide goal to increase attendance by 5 percent to 10 percent in season two, and with almost every original team reporting an increase in ticket revenue, that goal seems obtainable (it is also important to note the differences between ticket units sold, ticket revenue and percent growth).The various successes of these clubs individually also comes with help from each other. There are bi-weekly conference calls for general managers and best practice sharing that included a ticketing seminar in Atlanta in the fall, headed by Washo, who has over 17 years of experience in professional sports and ticket sales.Such interaction has created some in-good-fun front office rivalries, with the Freedom and Breakers even having a friendly bet on which team will come out on top for season ticket sales in 2010. The best practice approach is combined with individual team goals to create a system where teams are pushing each other, something that will help the league grow.“We have a lot of people cheering each other on, but at the end of the day you still want to be better than that next person,” Pease said. “I hope that everybody in the league is successful, but of course I want Boston to be No. 1. I think that is just the competitive nature that we have all kind of grown into a bit.”And at the end of the day, it is all about the gameday experience. There are aspects that can be controlled and there are other things that cannot be, which creates a unique marketing and sales challenge for WPS teams.Frankly, winning is the most important thing, but there is a business that must prove to be viable, meaning teams must balance on-field and off-field elements.“There is sort of a spectrum there and you have to define where you are in the spectrum,” Breakers General Manager Andy Crossley said. “So, in Boston – this is a risky thing to say for a team who came in fifth last year and didn’t make the playoffs – but we probably slide a little more toward the entertainment side of the spectrum. I do think that helps us from a sales standpoint, because the market for selling world-class women’s soccer is still a developing market.”Crossley points out entertainment options such as the going to the movies or minor league baseball are the main competition for WPS teams. A team can lose one game all season but have that be a blowout loss at home and the only game that hundreds of the fans in attendance might come to. That makes it risky to just market winning, although the value of that success cannot be diminished. “At the end of the day, winning is one of the most entertaining things you can do, but it’s also the hardest thing to control,” Crossley said. “At the end of the day, our goal is to put really winning, really entertaining soccer on the field.”A winning, entertaining product is the perfect storm for the young league. With season ticket revenue, units sold and group sales all trending upward, it seems that WPS is in prime position to build off of a successful inaugural season and avoid any type of sophomore slump in 2010.