MLS Cup Final - Dallas -V-Colorado

[Scotty]

Sitting here at BMO field in Toronto for the MLS Cup final. Colorado -V- Dallas. Supporting Colorado as everyone hates Dallas !!!!!

[WYNESS101]

Sitting here at BMO field in Toronto for the MLS Cup final. Colorado -V- Dallas. Supporting Colorado as everyone hates Dallas !!!!!

Whats wrong with Dallas scotty?

[Scotty]

Jeff Cunningham !!!!!!!!

PS. ICT represented !!! Got my shirt on tonight !!

[Scotty]

Dallas go 1-0 up !!! :(

[Scotty]

57 mins. Former TFC striker Conor Casey makes it 1-1

[Scotty]

FT 1-1. Now in extra time. Crap game. Some of us have work in the morning :/

[Scotty]

Colorado 2-1 Dallas :)

[Scotty]

Oh well .... that was an interesting evening !!! Absolutely shattered today though !!!

Up until the end of normal time it was a pretty crap game but extra time livened it up. FT 1-1, then in extra time Colorado scored, and then held off Dallas to win the Cup and with it the 2010 MLS Championship. Referee was one Baldomero Toledo who would have John Reid and Neil Lennon reaching for the shotguns !

The game was set to kick-off at 8:30PM (we assume because MLS had predicted a Los Angeles (Beckham) -V- New York (Henry) final and did a late start to please the west coast TV people. I guess they didnt envisage an outcome that had LA and NY crashing and burning in the playoffs and Colorado and Dallas contesting the final. However, due to whatever NFL game was being covered on the same ESPN channel running over, the kickoff was delayed until 9PM. With various delays in starting and a half-time break that was only "approximately" 15 minutes it meant the 90 minutes werent up until close to 11pm. 30 minutes of extra time followed and it seemed to take forever to start. Coupled with this there were a few minutes at the HT of ET and inexplicably about 2 or 3 minutes added at the end by Mr Toledo (probably hoping Dallas would score) and it was near midnight by the time we rolled out of there .... a 75 minute bus/subway/bus journey home meant I got in about 1:30AM and was up at 5:30AM !

Have to say that the Colorado fans we met pre-game in our normal watering hole were a pretty decent bunch and most TFC fans were supporting that side over Dallas. Dallas have a player called Jeff Cunningham who was once at TFC and did precisely nothing while managing to upset the supporters ... we dont like him. Colorado on the other hand have Marvell Wynne in their side. Marvell played at TFC for 3 seasons until Mo Johnston traded him to Colorado. A move that neither he or the fans wanted ... so he got a huge cheer on the night.

SPL conection to last night's game (other than me wearing my ICT shirt) .... in the starting lineup for Colorado was one Jamie Smith, formerly of Celtic & Aberdeen and previously a trialist at Toronto !

[+CaleyD]

Most of the press/reports seem to concentrate on the marketing nightmare surrounding the game than the match itself and it would appear they did little to overcome that with all the delays etc! It's a bit like on here some times when people seem more concerned about the quality of the pie than the quality of the game

I'm not convinced that North America knows how to "do" football, but I've always been fairly envious of their ability to market and "big up" even the smallest of sporting events...the pomp and ceremony surrounding even college level sport and the "buy in" that generates from the community and fans is, IMO, something we could learn from. From that point of view, it's a little surprising that they seem to have dropped the ball on this one. Had it been American Football, Baseball, Ice Hockey or Basketball, then the whole world would have known the final was on....seems that half of Toronto wasn't even aware of this sporting final.

Mixed reports on the actual game itself with some saying it was a great match and others saying it was dire and not worthy of a final....at least that's one thing that seems consistent on both sides of the pond!!!

[Scotty]

Wouldnt argue on the marketing side !!! It basically was not marketed at all until the final few weeks .... and with the dream final of Beckham's LA Galaxy and Thierry Henry and the Red Bulls out of the picture, it fell a bit flat ..... colorad-who? and Dull-as? not exactly a big draw !

MLSE (the owners of TFC) decided that this game would form part of next season's season ticket package and thereby be guaranteed 18,000 sold tickets. That left a little over 3100 tickets to actually sell to Colorado, Dallas, and casual fans. they thought season seat holders would suck it up and selling the rest would be a breeze so no marketing was done by them.

However, they got it all wrong ... they announced next year's season ticket prices and it came as a real shock to everyone. First there was this ticket (premium game - double the price, and mandatory if you wanted a season ticket next season), then there was an extra couple of league games added to the fixture list (with Vancouver and Portland joining MLS next season), and on top of that the Canadian Championship games (V Montreal and Vancouver) and the opening rounds of the Concacaf Champions league (which they have to actually qualify for by winning the Canadian Championship !!!). All in all, it means my season ticket price has increased by 116% in 5 years !!!

There was a fans backlash, talk of boycotts of the final, talks of boycotting of merchandise and concessions stands etc .... MLSE were stunned into action !!! After many hastily arranged meetings with supporters groups, they relented on some of the stuff - made the season opener a free game, dropped the concacaf tickets (which is silly because if we qualify we will all buy anyway), and a couple of other things ... but many at last night's game simply didnt want to be there ! I went hoping for a decent game of football and to be fair there were periods of the game where it was just that ... but equally, for a lot of it, it was crap. Then the ref - the most notorious one in MLS - decided it was once again going to be all about him and that killed it until extra-time. Extra time was a bit more exciting but due to transit issues and people having work the next day it was no shock that the ground started to empty early (if you can class 11PM early).

MLS in general (and TFC's owners MLSE) do know how to put on an event, they do know how to promote events and trust me, having spoken with quite a few of the officials at one of the meetings i mentioned above, they DO 'get' football even if their bosses might not ... they just got complacent on this one and paid the price.

The most telling thing for me at the meeting I went to was the CEO of MLSE (Maple Leafs Sport & Entertainment), which owns the Toronto Maple Leafs (NHL), Toronto Raptors (NBA), Toronto Marlies (AHL), Air Canada Centre, Leafs TV, Raptors TV and GOL TV as well as TFC turning round to us and apologising to fans for this mess .... He said that the (TFC) organisation has a lot of 'football' guys but until that night he, 'as boss of the whole damn group', didnt realise that football fans in Toronto were any different to fans of their other teams .... Hockey & Basketball fans take price increases and stupid 'buy this to get that' rules on the chin every year without complaint .... football fans, he now realises are somewhat different. Add to that that Toronto is actually a very diverse city with literaly hundreds of nationalities here and the average 'soccer' fan in Toronto is actually quite sophisticated and knowlegeable.

[+CaleyD]

Thanks for the insight.

Wish we had a few more people involved in the running of the game/clubs who were willing to be open and honest about making mistakes and working towards solutions.