Impact/ Charleston on RDS

[argh1]

Wednesday night, Montreal looks to extend their lead atop the standings.

This could be the 4th game in a row that the Impact attendance could pass the 13,000 mark.

I could only make one game this year. July 26 against the Sounders but the atmosphere seems to improve each year for the one or two games I can get to. Kudos to the job the Impact folk are doing.

[RJB]

I've never been to Montreal, but I can't wait to go.

What's the deal with them though? I mean, why can't other cities get behind their clubs like this?

Furthermore, is CR Stadium in a great spot? Is that why they are drawing so well?

[Free kick]

quote:Originally posted by RJB

Furthermore, is CR Stadium in a great spot? Is that why they are drawing so well?

Well I don't think that its a great location for a stadium in Montreal. I was in Montreal for several days leading up to game and one of the first things that struck me is that RDS ran ads advertizing their broadcast of this game all week prior to kickoff. In addition, the Mtl Roc match was featured prominantly in their tickers during their other events during the week and believe me RDS looked pretty starved for progamming and stories now that hockey is in the off season and Major league Baseball is gone. THAT has to be a big big boost for saputo.

I did not have to look up anywhere to find out if there was USL game on while I was there. I just knew about because I was told. Without baseball around anymore to provide day to day stories and the fact that football is played only once a week, outlets like RDS, the three daily newspaper and other media have to put something on their pages and on the air to fill their sports quota. And when you have this happening in a market of 3 Million people, it really makes Saputo's job much much easier.

Also, because of language and culture, US feeds for program do not come accross as smooth and clean in french as they do in english canada. It looks very foreign to the audience when you see, for example, the ESPN feed of an event on RDS with all english captions and the very obvious audio of a studio broadcast. All this makes the Impact soccer games look and sound much more professional in comparaison. In turn, making local sports more attractive to Montrealers unlike other canadian cities. This also help to bring the athletes closer to the public.

Its really not that complicated. Its all a business and success or failure depends on host business related factors including the disappearance of a major competitor(ie.: expos) from the lanscape . What I was encouraged to see while there, was the fact that there was not only just kids at the game. There were sports fans and socccer fans at the game. I could tell by the conversations that I was overhearing. Whereas in TO with the Lynx, I doubt that most peopel in the crowd are even aware of where the team is in teh standings.

With the demise of the expos, Montreal has become a market starved for pro sports. And you have to wonder now, if the NFL was to relocate a team north of the border whether TO would be the front runner. Sure TO might have the bigger corporate sector, but beyond that, you would have think that marketing-wise, there is huge potential in Montreal.

Why cant other cities get behind their USL team to the same extend? well for starters, aside from Miami, all the other cities are smaller and USL stands out as pretty pale in comparaison to the overall entertainment value of the big 4.