208 000 seats sold according to FIFA and the CSA

[loyola]

FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Spectator attendance for the FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007 on its way to being huge!

Ottawa, Ontario – FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007, It’s gonna be huge.

FIFA and the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) are pleased to announce that since ticket packages were made available to the public 12 days ago on Saturday, July 15; over 208,000 seats (40% of the stated target of 520,000) have already been sold for the FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007.

“We are extremely delighted with the success of our national on-sale campaign,” stated Kevan Pipe, CSA’s Chief Operating Officer. “With this type of start, we are now even more confident that we can build on this momentum and reach our goal of 520,000 spectators attending the event next summer. This would break the record for the largest single-sport sporting event ever held in Canada.”

“Strong group tournament package sales in Edmonton, Ottawa, and Victoria have been complimented by brisk online sales through www.FIFA.com for Toronto, Burnaby and Montreal.”

The FIFA World Youth Championship held in the Netherlands in 2005 achieved an impressive attendance of 503,000 spectators.

Ticket packages are available for purchase via www.FIFA.com or by calling 1-866-662-3452 (toll-free in Canada and the USA).

Six European Teams Qualify

Six European sides have now qualified for the FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007 this past week following the conclusion of the final group stage of the UEFA Under-19 Championship in Poland. Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Portugal, Scotland and Spain all placed in the top three positions of their respective groups, guaranteeing them a berth in the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The European champion will be decided at the final on July 29.

FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007 – It’s gonna be huge.

In 2007, the world’s biggest game is coming to Canada. Canada will host the World’s finest Under-20 players in six cities across the country – Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Burnaby, and Victoria – with the dates for the tournament set for June 30-July 22, 2007.

The FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007 is expected to be the largest single-sport sporting event ever held in Canada with an anticipated viewership of approximately 750 million worldwide and over 520,000 fans expected to attend the 52-game, 24-team competition.

The biennial event is second only to the FIFA World Cup™ in size and scope and will showcase the most talented under-20 soccer players in the world. The tournament has been the coming-out party for some of the game’s top players - Maradona, Saviola, Raúl, Marco Van Basten, Luis Figo, Ruiz Costa, Thierry Henry, Adriano, Roberto Carlos, Bebeto and Dunga as well as Canada’s Craig Forrest and many members of the current Men’s World Cup Team including Julian de Guzman, Paul Stalteri, Atiba Hutchinson and Iain Hume.

Last held in CONCACAF in 1983 in Mexico, Canada’s most recent participation in this event occurred last June in the Netherlands from June 10 - July 2, 2005.

Canada enjoyed it’s its best ever finish in a World Championship in December 2003, losing to eventual silver medalist Spain on a golden goal in the quarter finals in the United Arab Emirates.

For more information regarding the FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007, please visit www.FIFA.com.

[marktci]

Just a couple of observations:

1 - I don't know who wrote this, but the headline and the sub-head both sound pretty bush league. Spectator attendance for the FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007 on its way to being huge! Spectator attendance is redundant and "on its way to being huge!" is positively cringe-inducing. And I don't care who your target demographic is, "gonna" should not appear in a press release.

2 - What do I care what the "target" attendance is? That they've reached 40% of it is nice for them (by my calculations, the target would appear to be about 15,000 per event), but I don't really care whether they've reached 10% or 200% of their target. The 208,000 is a nice number this early though.

[loyola]

We're already seeing the Earl Cochrane leaving effects.

I think this number is quite impressive considering that I haven't notice that much publicity about this event (except for some rare TV commercials during the WC).

When teams like Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, China and the USA will qualified and know in which cities they'll play I'm pretty sure it will help the sales too. But the current sales are quite big considering that we have no idea of who's playing where.

[Daniel]

208,000??? How? Did the associations buy tens of thousands to resell to members? The number seems a bit big. Are people really jumping on these tickets? You can't even buy them proper for Montreal, yet.

Note: "It's gonna be huge" is the pre-tournament official slogan, ergo its presence all over.

[Daniel]

208,000??? How? Did the associations buy tens of thousands to resell to members? The number seems a bit big. Are people really jumping on these tickets? You can't even buy them proper for Montreal, yet.

Note: "It's gonna be huge" is the pre-tournament official slogan, ergo its presence all over.

[RS]

Only 208,000?!?

Fire Kevan Pipe!!!

[marktci]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel

Note: "It's gonna be huge" is the pre-tournament official slogan, ergo its presence all over.

I take it back then. It's not the use of "gonna" in the press release that is so bad. The pre-tournament official slogan itself is hideous.

And I still say "on its way to being huge" is one of the most awkward phrases I've ever encountered.

[Daniel]

In French, the slogan is "Ça va frapper fort": It's gonna hit hard.

[loyola]

quote:Originally posted by marktci

I take it back then. It's not the use of "gonna" in the press release that is so bad. The pre-tournament official slogan itself is hideous.

And I still say "on its way to being huge" is one of the most awkward phrases I've ever encountered.

I agree, I'm not english-speaking but I thought that slogan sounds weird when they announced it a few weeks ago.

[Cheeta]

Daniel's right. There has got to be some organization/organizations buying packages. And likely on the cheap for resale at some marginal profit.

I have a hard time imagining, with virtually no advertising and a year to go before the very 1st kickoff, that as many as 50,000 individual Canadians have purchaced on average 4 packages a piece.

Yeah. Right.

Smoke, mirrors and more CSA rubbish trying to hype this tourny up.

(Of course all that being said, the sooner we decide on a section for Commonwealth the better I'll feel).

[marktci]

quote:Originally posted by Cheeta

Daniel's right. There has got to be some organization/organizations buying packages. And likely on the cheap for resale at some marginal profit.

I have a hard time imagining, with virtually no advertising and a year to go before the very 1st kickoff, that as many as 50,000 individual Canadians have purchaced on average 4 packages a piece.

Yeah. Right.

Smoke, mirrors and more CSA rubbish trying to hype this tourny up.

(Of course all that being said, the sooner we decide on a section for Commonwealth the better I'll feel).

Note they've sold 208,000 seats. So one package, depending on locations, is going to be 4 to 10 seats (or something like that). So two packages in Toronto would be 20 seats or however many events are in Toronto.

[Richard]

quote:Originally posted by Cheeta

Smoke, mirrors and more CSA rubbish trying to hype this tourny up.

And in another post there is a complaint that there has not been enough publicity for and promotion of this event. Just goes to show (the CSA) can't please all the people all the time. Seems they're damned if they do and damned if they don't in the eyes of some.

[cndsoccer]

What a bunch of whiners...just support the games and shut up.

[Cheeta]

Richard, my point simply being is if the CSA/FIFA know that various provincial and national associations (or whoever) will receive X number of packages for resale, and if said packages amount to a grand total of X number of tickets, then when the CSA Grand Poohbah gets all whoop-ti-do over levels of ticket sales at point Y it should be taken with a very large grain of salt. Simply because the CSA/FIFA had pretty much "underwritten" that level of sales with an in-house ticket distribution scheme.

So what's to get excited about? What great knews (exactly) has happened that wasn't built into the WYC planning from the get go? You see where I'm going with this? It all comes off as pretty hollow. Another predictable plastic smile from CSA poster boy, Mr. Pipe.

Doesn't mean Pipe's legaly misleading anybody. He's just doing what he's paid to do, just like a used car salesman. Presenting his product to the buying public, in the best possible light, as he knows how.

All this cynicism assumes the seat sales are largely made up of pre-planned ticket distributions. If they're not, then bravo. We are going to have a HUGE tourny which may prove to be a watershed in the history of Canadian football.

Re Ticket distribution schemes to members; Makes sence to me, and probably not too bad an idea. Especially if the provincial associations can make a buck or three from the deal. My only concearn is that at some point unsold packages will be returned to the CSA/FIFA and if the scheme is carried too far you undermine the value of tickets to the general public. But all in all I have no complaints with the principle.

Re advertising; At this point, how can anyone complain? Come New Years and on that's quite another matter, but right now I find it hard to fault the CSA with saving their advertising dollars for more opportune momments. In the mean time make sure their web site is realy, realy WYC friendly, get in the odd add here and there during high profile football events and wait for the tourny to get closer. Seems the wisest course of action to me.

[matthew]

quote:Originally posted by cndsoccer

What a bunch of whiners...just support the games and shut up.

Well I'd love to support the games, but I can't get tickets. Or rather I can't get the tickets I want. I can't phone anyone, I'm waiting for an e-mail reply. I tried calling Ticketmaster and it’s the exact same process as their on-line service, but on the key pad. Good times. Who decides what the best available seat is? Is this some sort of mystery science ellective you get to take at university? Is it a 400 level business course — The Science of Random Assigned Seating.

In the meantime they’re bulk selling seats on the cheap to kids teams and the provincial association’s supporters and membership. This worked pretty well at the U19 women’s where (for example) a team from Red Deer could go and get 20 tickets for the whole tournament so cheap that they only had to use them for one double-header in Edmonton and still be ahead. Of course when people with money wanted to go to the final they couldn’t because it was ‘sold out’ when in fact thousands never showed up and never intended to.

I guess they never expected people to actually want to pay full price to watch U19 women’s soccer. It’s funny they’re sure It’s Gonna Be Huge!™

yet they have no faith that they can sell this thing at full price.

In a sense the CSA is doing what many failed pro teams have done time and again in this country. They’ve favoured youth and ignored the more passionate supporter. The Toronto Ultras are on the opposite side of the field of the section they wanted and they’re not all seated together. I would love to join where the majority will be, but how do I do that? How do I specify where I want to sit?

Pick a section in Edmonton? We’ll end up wherever the hell Ticketmaster feels like putting us by the look of things. And I’m not even picky they could put me anywhere between the end lines in the lower bowl and I wouldn’t complain, if we could be together, but I’m sure we won’t be. Even if you hit the “decline these tickets and try again” button you wind up with the same seats.

They’re making it very difficult to support Canada. And what’s worse if there is in fact allocations for away teams (as is the norm for FIFA events unless I’m mistaken), you can be assured those seats won’t be scattered all over the stadium.

Now there won’t be a ton of travelling fans going through their confederation, but I bet Scotland and the US (should they qualify) will have a sizable section all together while we’re scattered around the grounds.

This makes our job much harder and makes the CSA’s goal of having good support in Canada even more difficult. And it’s assinine on a security standpoint. This is a world tournament. Who knows who the heck might end up in the draw. Lets just let them intermingle . . . nothing will happen.

This is the same mindset that had a 50,000 stadium and sold 8,000 tickets and had no second thoughts about putting the 300 Hondurans who gave a **** right beside the 200 Canadians who gave a ****. With no security between us. At least until the end when the cops made sure we each retreated to our separate corners, but there was still a near dust up in the concource and one of their fans danced into our section after the PK goal and was quickly and expertly removed by someone (I think Nazz, maybe Gordon?) before things got ugly. I wasn’t there, but it sounds like there similar things in both Vancouver games.

And they’re not learning a damn thing. Maybe this is all on FIFA. I don’t know. But I can’t believe you can’t even choose where you want to sit and can’t guarantee yourself more than your given allotment of tickets.

I’m thinking we should just form a fake minor soccer team with children we don’t have. Because that’s the important demographic, eight year olds dragged to games by their coaches when they may or may not be that keen on the sport to begin with. That’s who we need. Forget people who pay money to travel to support the team. We can go years without playing at home and have TV contract where more than half our games are taped delayed and we can ignore the people who buy our replicas and support our sponsors (says a man with a CIBC bank account and mutual fund, Nutella in the cupboard, who washes his clothes with Tide, is wearing Adidas shoes and is in the market for a new Sony CD player), they don’t care about us. Clearly they don’t. They wish there were more of us and they wish they had more atmosphere, but they sure as hell don’t treat us for crap. I might be beyond cure, but eventually most of the serious fans will stop being masichists and smarten up and stop planning their vacations around our fixture list.

Oui, ça frappe fort!

In the meantime, I’m in favour of forming a team. Forget illigitimate children, we need imaginary children. Register the little phantoms with the CSA and get a nice fat block of discounted tickets all together. Who’s with me? Go Phantoms!

cheers,

matthew

P.S. Sorry I’m a little frustrated and though they’ve taken it pretty well I thought, I feel for the Toronto guys who got royally hosed IMO.

[john tv]

I am reading all that stuff and it makes me wonder who is sane and who is insane.Anyway to the very few sane guys, ticket sales are doing very well and let us all hope that we even break the Dutch record. To be honest i don't even know if my guys are in. If so I can guarantee you it will be a sell out.When the Dutch team came over in 1994,i bought the whole west side of Varsity stadium at 23.oo a seat,this was presale.At game time it was $29.00. Well my compatriates bought all my tickets and they had a blast. So if they are in watch out for the Orange army.

OK guys let's all be very positive and stop that crap. let's enjoy, have fun and get those songs going. That's what we need more than anything else. Would it not be embarrising if all these foreigners come here sing thair little hearst out and we having nothing to show.Hey we may very well be outsung in our own country.

[RS]

quote:Originally posted by matthew

... Well-timed rant ...

P.S. Sorry I’m a little frustrated and though they’ve taken it pretty well I thought, I feel for the Toronto guys who got royally hosed IMO.

Oh, you can believe that we're more than a little annoyed by the whole process. Especially those of us who didn't purchase the full Toronto package and were therefore shuttled off to sections 220 and 221, while the rest are together in 105.

FYI, it seems the entire process was handled by FIFA and TicketMaster and not the CSA, so take that for what it's worth.

[RS]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel

208,000??? How? Did the associations buy tens of thousands to resell to members?

I heard that the OSA bought large amounts of tickets to the Toronto and Ottawa matches.

[matthew]

So you're calling me insane (I'm gathering). And then you dismiss the fact that there will be no dedicated supporters section anywhere in Canada and saying we should be positive because we've sold 200,000 tickets and then say we need to work on songs or else we'll be out-sung?

How are we not going to be out-sung in our own country. We have trouble getting anyone to join in when we have a few hundred grouped together. But we don't need to worry about that, it's unimportant. It's the songs that matter . . .

I'm glad they're selling a lot of tickets. Honestly I am. I'm just worried about who might be buying them all up and wether or not they will actually get used and if they are actually paying full price for them. And when it feels like everyone else is getting preferential treatment except for the actual supporters, it's a little frustrating.

And sorry John, the Dutch are out.

cheers,

matthew

[DoyleG]

Not suprised by the way the tickets are being handled. Guess the CSA is starting to realize that those foreign fans aren't going to be comming out as they expected.

[matthew]

quote:Originally posted by DoyleG

Not suprised by the way the tickets are being handled. Guess the CSA is starting to realize that those foreign fans aren't going to be comming out as they expected.

They could be, you know, waiting to see where their team might be playing. If I didn't know where Canada was playing, I wouldn't be buying tickets yet either.

I don't doubt that there will be people wanting to see this tournament, I'm just worried that they're under-valuing their own product.

cheers,

matthew

P.S. Doyle where are you sitting in Commonwealth. Ticketmaster seems to want to give me U high up. which is all right. Anyone else look at U in row 30-somthing?

[Daniel]

Matthew's first post is why we need a reputation system.

[KAS]

208K sounds great, if it's legit.

One one hand, some of these tickets are probably not really sold, just distributed to others and likely at reduced costs. But on the other hand, the event is more than a year away, there has been little advertising yet, tickets have been hold as packages only (no individual buys like Canada's opener in Toronto), and the foreigners haven't bought anything yet because most spots are still undecided and nobody knows where the teams other than Canada are playing.

This is probably a really good start. We should wait for an update ate the end of the year, and once individual tickets are being sold and foreigners start buying. I really think that it will be easy to beat the Dutch's 503K mark, and even the projected 520K mark. The CSA could really use the money.

[canada_fan]

Not sure the foreign support we can expect from the European nations... Spain, Scotland, Czech Rep., Austria, Poland and Portugal are in.

[Daniel]

No, but I would venture that they might be "logically" placed to get a lot of ex-pat support.