Philadelphia's soccer team sells 3,400 season tickets

One month after it opened for business, Philadelphia's new pro soccer team has taken deposits for 3,400 season tickets.

That's 18 percent of stadium capacity - two years before the team plays its first game, and without having spent a dime on advertising.

"It's pretty exciting," said Nick Sakiewicz, CEO and co-owner of the as-yet-unnamed Major League Soccer club. "I'd have been very happy with a thousand."

In an interview at the team's temporary office in Wilmington, Sakiewicz predicted the expansion club would sell out its home games, a feat accomplished only once in MLS's 12-year history. Last year, last-place Toronto FC sold out every game, and it expects to sell out every game during the new season, which begins tomorrow.

In Philadelphia, the initial surge of ticket sales for MLS's 16th team has settled into a steady 20 seats a day. That's sufficient to sell out a stadium, though far short of the blazing pace set by the league's 15th club.

The Seattle expansion team, awarded Nov. 13, sold 3,000 seats in its first day and 10,000 in its first month. Today, Seattle has taken $50 deposits for 13,000 season tickets, more than half the capacity of Qwest Field, which seats 24,500 for MLS soccer. The upper bowl of the 67,000-seat stadium is to be covered for games, creating a more intimate atmosphere for fans seated in the lower bowl.

It's also true that Seattle possesses certain big advantages in selling tickets.

For one, the team starts play next season, in spring 2009, so fans are excited and anticipation is growing. The Philadelphia club won't take the field until 2010.

Second, because the Seattle team shares its ownership and stadium with the NFL's Seahawks, it's been able to draw on a huge ticket-sales database.

"We have access to everybody who's ever been to the building," said Gary Wright, the soccer team's senior vice president of business operations.

That includes NFL fans who routinely sell out the stadium and soccer devotees who sold out international matches featuring teams such as Manchester United, Celtic, Chelsea and Real Madrid.

"This is a great, great soccer town," Wright said. "In the old NASL, there was a tremendous affinity between the team and the fans."

Hard-core fans want the new Seattle team to be named for the old one - the Sounders. But today that name belongs to a second-division team, and fans are voting on three new choices: Seattle FC, Seattle Alliance or Seattle Republic.

In Philadelphia, the club plans to hold a "Name the Team" campaign this summer, as it builds its ticket database from scratch.

The team is to play at a new, $500 million soccer stadium complex to be built on the Chester city waterfront.

For routine games, the stadium capacity will be 18,634, though for big matches that can expand to 21,600, through the placement of seats on platforms to be located behind each goal, Sakiewicz said. Both numbers could change by the time final stadium plans are complete.

"I feel very good that we're going to be sold out by the time we kick off," Sakiewicz said.

So far, 60 percent of sales have come from Pennsylvania, 30 percent from New Jersey and 10 percent from Delaware. Weirdly, two people in Los Angeles ordered tickets. So did one in Miami and another in Minneapolis.

Ticket prices have not been set. The club requires a $50 deposit for each seat.

"Thirty-three hundred is a good start," said Jeff L'Hote, head of LFC International, a New York-based soccer consultancy. That's particularly true, he said, since the team doesn't yet have anything to show to fans - not a name, coach, player or stadium.

In Seattle, he said, people can see the physical structure where the team will play, can imagine where they'll sit to watch games. And the team has a popular, public face and cheerleader in comedian and co-owner Drew Carey.

"I don't think the Seattle comparison is the best one," L'Hote said. "The more relevant piece is to look at what other MLS teams are doing."

Toronto FC leads the league with sales of 16,641 ticket packages, which include full and partial season plans, SportsBusiness Journal reported this month. The Los Angeles Galaxy was second with 7,915, DC United third with 5,976. At the bottom was Chivas USA, which plays near Los Angeles, with 837.

If the new teams had been included, Seattle would rank second, Philadelphia eighth.

So far only about 20 percent of ticket orders have come from members of the Sons of Ben, the fanatical supporters group, Sakiewicz said. And that's good, he added, because it means the team is drawing from a broad base.

He's eager to keep up the public buzz surrounding the team during the two-year wait. While the organization will be busy - stadium construction and key front-office hires the main priorities - from the outside it might look like nothing is happening.

So the team is planning a series of events to maintain momentum, including a number of international games to be played by visiting foreign clubs, Sakiewicz said.

The naming campaign will be followed in fall by the official stadium groundbreaking. Soil sampling and preparatory work already is going on at the site.

The two-year wait "isn't bad or good, it's just the reality," L'Hote said. "The best thing the Philadelphia team can do at this stage is promote the league. They have to promote the league and get [people] to watch MLS."