The LA Galaxy get an official blog going. Justin Pearson, who helped start up the FC Dallas blog, works for the Galaxy now, so he's set up an LA blog. Just in time to keep up with the team during the Australian/New Zealand tour.
I tried to get Justin to promise to take pictures from the beaches of Australia - we'll see later if he complies.
Justin and I also argued about the definition of "most popular club". He noted that in terms of overall attendance and team merchandise, it's no contest. The Galaxy are ahead of the rest of MLS by a large margin.
so what's your take on the most popular club? by almost every criteria the galaxy come out on top.
ReplyDeleteattendance - galaxy
revenue - galaxy
worldwide following - galaxy
other clubs might have a larger percentage of die-hard fans (chicago, d.c. united) for instance, but i don't know if that makes them popular.
The Galaxy only have higher in those 3 things because of Beckham and to a lesser degree Donovan. The Galaxy doesn't have more popularity, the team has 2 stars with popularity.
ReplyDeleteI would say Houston and DC are by far more popular as brands.
(Alexi Lalas isn't helping the Galaxy's popularity either... he just keeps making dumb choices)
Anonymous, 9:27:
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of hard to pin those three things on Becks or Landon since Galaxy have had those 3 things [worldwide following to a lesser extent] for a long time.
I'm pretty sure that historically, they've alwasy led in attendance. They were the first team to turn profitable. Not to mention that the Central American community in Los Angeles embraced the team long before Donovan arrived.
Interested to hear your take on it AC?
I have to admit that the Galaxy were highest on the attendance and revenue count (and merchandise totals, too, I think)even before Beckham.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't so much that I was arguing that the popular tag belonged to someone else. I was questioning whether it was a measurable element.
I would suggest that size of the fan groups is a better view of popular. Or maybe attendance as a percentage of the region the team draws from. (One might argue that the reason the Galaxy's attendance is higher is that there are many more people who could possibly attend, rather then more popularity / interest)
ReplyDeleteOn the matter of whether revenue/merchandise are appropriate bellweathers...
I think revenue has to be held as a completely bogus bit for popularity in that teams that don't have stadiums have crappy revenue streams for reasons completely separate from their popularity. I am not sure on merchandise totals, that might also be related to the type of person who attends the games. If the demographics of a team skew to people with more money, those people will buy more merchandise compared to a team with a less wealthy fans. (I couldn't possibly begin to find and compile this sort of data... but I bet someone in the media, either here, Goff, or Ives could.)
Anon-9:27