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OT: MLB Thread

WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
The truth hurts. Soccer will never amount to jack squat on this side of the Atlantic. Soccer lovers have been telling us for 40 years about how soccer is the sport of the future, but the North American landscape is littered with the rotting corpses of defunct soccer leagues. It will always be a good participation sport because it's cheap and non-violent, but it will never be a popular spectator sport in North America because, well, there's no violence. Nobody wants to associate with what is perceived to be a pantywaist sport played by European metrosexuals who roll around and play dead every time they get touched.
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After reading this, I know Soccer has a bright future.
 
English not too bad either.

Vladimir Guerrero ‏
Felipe Alou, thank you very much for trusting me and giving me the opportunity to play every day in the @MLB.
 
XPOFAN said:
:frown2:
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Sorry, you don't have to like them but you can't argue facts. They are what they are. We've had pro soccer in North America in one form or other for about a half a century now. If it was ever going to amount to anything here as a spectator sport it would have done so by now. But it hasn't. It's still mostly ex-pat Euros who go to MLS games. Lots of people play it, but that doesn't mean they'll pay to watch it. As comedian John Oliver (himself a British ex-pat) said recently "If you're an American, 'soccer' is just that thing you drop your daughter off at".
 
F.P. Santangelo
Congrats to one of the most influential men in my life, Felipe Alou. I owe him more than he will ever know
 
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
The als can't sell out a 25000 seat stadium.

I'm going to the home opener in a couple of weeks. When I checked the Admission.com website there weren't many tickets left. Most CFL teams draw around the 25K level. The Als and the entire league had a mediocre season and the team is in transition. But they have their fans and a decent TV deal. Nothing to worry about in the near to medium term.

The impact can't sell out a 20000 seat stadium.

Well it's minor league soccer. What do you expect? Aside from a few no lifers from St. Leonard who gives a shit about soccer?

The world juniors couldn't sell out a Canada USA game.

I have no inside information but I would imagine that the organizers tried to gouge on tickets because the games were being played in Montreal and Toronto. But at the end of the day, it's junior hockey, not the NHL. People in Montreal don't pay NHL prices to watch junior hockey, even the Worlds. They had the tournament in 1978 when Wayne Gretzky was playing for Canada and the Forum was half-empty. The WJC is what it is today because TSN pumps its tires like it's the be-all, end-all. But it's mostly hype. There are only a couple of good teams and the rest are garbage. TSN tries to wave the flag and that may work in Toronto but Montrealers aren't as jingoistic about being Canadian as they are in the rest of Canada.

Womens world cup of soccer, 1000 fans in the big owe.

Again, what do you expect? You're combining two things that nobody cares about: soccer and womens sports. Quick. Can you name the all time points leader in the WNBA? The correct answer is "who gives a shit?"

Don't crap on Montreal sports fans simply because they don't act like sheep and are too smart to buy sub-standard merchandise just because some guy in marketing decided to slap a maple leaf on it. Montrealers won't flock to minor league baseball any more than they will to minor league soccer or junior hockey. But they will pay to have major league ball.
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The als average around 20000 fans near the bottom in attendance in a 9 team league. For the second day biggest city in Canada that's sad.

The impact play in the top NA soccer league that many other cities in North America can find a way to support and go to games, Montreal fans average around 14 thousand.

Juniors,sure.

The women's world cup has been getting decent attendance all over Canada minus montreal.

If the expos come back (they wont) they will have 2 or 3 years of decent crowds. Then the novelty will wear off. People will stop showing up to games,payroll will drop(it wouldn't be all that high to begin with especially with the CAD dollar where it is) the on field product will suffer, even less crowds, less payroll worst product, deadly cycle continues until expos 2.0 are dead.

Because Montrealers aren't hockey fans.(WJs, mtl based junior teams)

Montrealers aren't football fans (Cfl team with subpar attendance)

Montrealers aren't soccer fans (WWC, impact, both aren't a draw)

Montrealers are Habs fans, with little or no room for anything else. They might show up for a once a year event like F1 or the Rogers cup but they do not support anything else long term.

Any baseball team in Montreal will wither and die.
 
Habitants87 said:
The als average around 20000 fans near the bottom in attendance in a 9 team league. For the second day biggest city in Canada that's sad.

The impact play in the top NA soccer league that many other cities in North America can find a way to support and go to games, Montreal fans average around 14 thousand.

Juniors,sure.

The women's world cup has been getting decent attendance all over Canada minus montreal.

If the expos come back (they wont) they will have 2 or 3 years of decent crowds. Then the novelty will wear off. People will stop showing up to games,payroll will drop(it wouldn't be all that high to begin with especially with the CAD dollar where it is) the on field product will suffer, even less crowds, less payroll worst product, deadly cycle continues until expos 2.0 are dead.

Because Montrealers aren't hockey fans.(WJs, mtl based junior teams)

Montrealers aren't football fans (Cfl team with subpar attendance)

Montrealers aren't soccer fans (WWC, impact, both aren't a draw)

Montrealers are Habs fans, with little or no room for anything else. They might show up for a once a year event like F1 or the Rogers cup but they do not support anything else long term.

Any baseball team in Montreal will wither and die.
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Let's review.

Junior hockey: amateur.
Alouettes: 2nd tier, maybe 3rd after NCAA.
Impact: 4th tier.
WWC: women's soccer? Really?

Other: Habs, F1, ATP/WTA open... world class.

MLB falls into the 2nd group, not the first.
 
lecoqsportif said:
Let's review.

Junior hockey: amateur.
Alouettes: 2nd tier, maybe 3rd after NCAA.
Impact: 4th tier.
WWC: women's soccer? Really?

Other: Habs, F1, ATP/WTA open... world class.

MLB falls into the 2nd group, not the first.
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MLB falls under the not habs hockey category, which is why the expos had 6000 fans in seats during their dying years. Habs could be the oilers and you'll never see that. The second the expos start putting in subpar seasons after their 2 year honeymoon period Montrealers would jump off the bandwagon and do other things.
 
Paul Hollingsworth
28,000+ at Olympic Stadium in Montreal today for Brazil Spain. Very good crowd, very fun day
 
Habitants87 said:
MLB falls under the not habs hockey category, which is why the expos had 6000 fans in seats during their dying years. Habs could be the oilers and you'll never see that. The second the expos start putting in subpar seasons after their 2 year honeymoon period Montrealers would jump off the bandwagon and do other things.
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They had 6000 fans in seats during their dying years because they were dying. The Expos were like a person who spends the last 5 years of their life in a coma. They aren't officially deceased but they aren't alive either. Most fans preferred to say their goodbye's early. The 6000 were the ones who didn't want to accept the fact that their loved one wasn't going to survive.

I'm so tired of arguing with people who point to the last 5 years of the franchise and try to convince people that it was the entire story. The Expos existed for 34 seasons, most of which were prosperous. They were never going to be the Habs of MLB like the Yankees but during their best years they did outdraw the Yankees. Some of you only remember the last 5 years. I also remember the other 29.
 
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
They had 6000 fans in seats during their dying years because they were dying. The Expos were like a person who spends the last 5 years of their life in a coma. They aren't officially deceased but they aren't alive either. Most fans preferred to say their goodbye's early. The 6000 were the ones who didn't want to accept the fact that their loved one wasn't going to survive.

I'm so tired of arguing with people who point to the last 5 years of the franchise and try to convince people that it was the entire story. The Expos existed for 34 seasons, most of which were prosperous. They were never going to be the Habs of MLB like the Yankees but during their best years they did outdraw the Yankees. Some of you only remember the last 5 years. I also remember the other 29.
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Its called short term memory.
 
TheCountofMonteCristo said:
Other than 1979-83 did they ever break 2 million in attendance?
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They managed to consistently break the 1 million mark in a minor league stadium with a capacity of under 30,000. The problem is one of perception, especially among the milennials. The Expos didn't start having major, life-threatening issues until after the 94 strike which coincided with the rise of the internet and internet message boards like this one. When everything was good none of us had personal computers. It's just an unfortunate coincidence that when social networking took off, the Expos started to slide. Like usual, the internet (and fan forums like this) only made a bad situation even worse. That's what people too young to remember the good times are stuck with: memories of empty seats and apathy.
 
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
They managed to consistently break the 1 million mark in a minor league stadium with a capacity of under 30,000. The problem is one of perception, especially among the milennials. The Expos didn't start having major, life-threatening issues until after the 94 strike which coincided with the rise of the internet and internet message boards like this one. When everything was good none of us had personal computers. It's just an unfortunate coincidence that when social networking took off, the Expos started to slide. Like usual, the internet (and fan forums like this) only made a bad situation even worse. That's what people too young to remember the good times are stuck with: memories of empty seats and apathy.
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That's not entirely accurate. There's a reason Bronfman threw up his hands & decided to dump the franchise, post Gary Carter trade, there were always excuses, April & May were poor attendances because of the Habs playoffs, July/Aug no one wanted to be indoors after a Mtl winter, Sept...well no one wants to see a team that's not in the pennant race.

Lookit I loved the Expos, to levels the Habs will never reach, but the reality is my friends at elementary school just disassociated themselves from the team after 1983, and never really were back into it throughout high school onwards. Mtl's become an even tougher market for an 81-game home schedule, with the immigration demographic over the past 30-yrs - those locales (primarily North African & Middle Eastern) have no association with the game.
 
TheCountofMonteCristo said:
1 million is nothing.
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It wasn't nothing in the early 70's and especially not when you take into account that Jarry Park could only seat 28,500 fans.

Go and YouTube old Yankees highlights from the late 60's and early 70's. Even for Mantle's 500th home run game there were many empty seats. No one wanted to go to the South Bronx for any reason in those days. From 1963 - 1973 (before they moved into Shea Stadium while Yankee Stadium was undergoing renovations) the Yanks' average attendance in a 60,000 seat ballpark fluctuated between just over 12,000 to just over 16,000. That's it. in 1972, the Yankees didn't even crack the million mark for yearly attendance and for most of that period attendance was trending downward. The Expos, playing in a stadium with less than half the capacity, broke the 1 million barrier for 6 of the 8 seasons they spent at Jarry Park.

But all anyone remembers are the post-94 years when they were at or near the bottom in attendance.

The Expos will never be the Habs and baseball will never be more popular among Montrealers than hockey. But that doesn't mean that Montreal is incapable of supporting a baseball team. They've already proven that they can, despite the fact that they never got to play in a decent stadium. They went from a hastily-constructed little league caliber sandlot to an oversized concrete toilet bowl. Give the fans anything approaching a real ballpark like your Giants have or like "my" Mariners have and the team will thrive.
 
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