After the 2023 season, our expectations for 2024 Austin FC were pretty low. We just finished a miserable season, and Rodo made it pretty clear that the rebuild of the first team was going to take multiple transfer windows. Maybe come close to a play-in game in the West, get smashed in Leagues Cup, somehow win Copa Tejas, and find an inexplicable way to lose in the Open Cup.
We received the first surprise back on December 15th when MLS announced that Next Pro was going to be representing all of MLS in the Open Cup. A few days later, US Soccer appeared to deny that request. However, conversations continued throughout January and February. Finally, on March 1st, US Soccer announced a bizarre format that only had 8 MLS first teams, excludes all CONCACAF Champions League teams, except the defending champions from the Texas part of the Bayou, and sends 9 MLS Next Pro teams (from the worst American teams last year-except DC United who doesn’t have a Next Pro team) directly into the first round of the tournament.
That’s how FCito has found its way into hosting an Open Cup match in 13 days here in Austin against Foro SC, which honestly sounds like a scam youth center in the northern parts of Dallas proper. The Austin FC front office had two key decision points with hosting this match:
1) Play at Q2 Stadium or play at Parmer Field
2) Provide free tickets to all season ticket holders as promised to the first two Open Cup matches or not
The front office managed to arrive at the above conclusion, which is completely absurd. You have 15,000 (or so) season ticket holders. Parmer Field seats around 800 with maybe another 400-500 standing room only places. Q2 famously has space 20,738, which has been “sold out” for every regular season MLS match (even though we know that there are magic last minute purchases to keep this “streak” alive). Heck, the front office never even released attendance number for the 4th Round win against New Mexico last year and 19,402 tickets were paid for against in the Round of 16 loss to the Chicago Fire but there were far more open seats than 1,336 at that match.
In any case, it is no surprise that demand for a “free” match, even of the second team, would exceed the capacity of Parmer Field. Last year’s FCito matches were well attended and the season opener sold out at $12/ticket. I had heard rumblings right after the draw that we would host at Parmer Field not Q2. I get that it’s expensive to open up Q2 for a “free” match for most ticket holders and the front office doesn’t want to have the optics of empty seats for an Austin FC match, even if its the reserve team.
But in a season where the front office needs all of the good will it can get with a terrible first team product on the pitch, they manage to turn another event into the hunger games, just like the ACL jersey reveal. At least this match won’t likely require people to take off time during the work day to go pick up a pass ahead of time, as all of the tickets will be digital.
Part of the joy of the Open Cup is that it should be open to all teams and heck, all fans. Austin FC isn’t often accessible at an affordable price, and hosting this match at Q2 would have allowed free season ticket holders and maybe $10 tickets for non-season ticket holders to enjoy the stadium/atmosphere. Maybe not all of the concession stands or luxury seating options would be open, but that’s ok. I’m sure the attendance would have been far better than Juarez vs Mazatlán last year (heck, it will be better than that at Parmer, even with this stupid lottery).
Since we don’t just like to complain here, we wanted to offer other ideas moving forward for future FCito Open Cup matches for this year:
- Send out a survey to each season ticket holder to see if they would use their free (or $20 (for gradually increasing amounts for future rounds) beyond the second home match, if that happens) seats for Open Cup matches in future rounds (provide potential dates in the email)
- If demand is above 2000 people, then move the match to Q2. I would rather have everyone on one or two sides of Q2 than excluding people at Parmer, when we have no clue what the TV/streaming situation looks like. At least we can watch FCito on Apple TV or MLSNextPro.com. With 13 days before this match, we have no clue what options exist to watch.
- If the economics are not viable to host a potential 2nd match at Q2, guarantee season ticket holders who lose the ticket lottery, the seats for the next Parmer match.
- Look into bringing additional temporary bleachers into Parmer Field. If Inter Messi can add 3000 seats to their stadium in a matter of weeks, I have to imagine there is a way to add bleachers for hundreds, if not thousands, of extra seats at Parmer.
We don’t expect perfection from our front office, but we would expect them to make decisions that allow as many fans and customers to see their product. Austin FC should be thankful there are any fans coming to matches at this point, because I’m not sure how much longer we will have supply outstripping demand for anything associated with this club.