Members from every club in the United Soccer League convened in the Alamo City this week to attend the 2016 USL Operations & Sales Summit after San Antonio FC announced on Nov. 1 that they would host this year’s meetings, which were held from Nov. 7 through Nov. 9.
The summit is designed to provide workshops and training to USL clubs in areas such as ticket sales, sponsorship, game operations and team operations. This year’s event was just the second edition of the summit (the first was hosted last year by Tulsa Roughnecks), and was the first opportunity for SAFC to host members from teams across the league in San Antonio since the club joined the USL in January.
“It’s a privilege to be able to support the league by providing the platform for them to bring executives from all 30 of their teams here to San Antonio,” SAFC Managing Director Tim Holt said. “It’s exciting for us to be able to give something back to the USL, especially after only our first year in existence.”
For SAFC, the meetings provided a great opportunity for operations and ticket sales staff to engage with members from all clubs to get perspectives from those who are veterans in the league. In addition, serving as hosts this year allowed the club to share what the city of San Antonio offers as a soccer market.
A tour of Toyota Field was included among the many seminars and events held throughout the summit. This past season, Toyota Field averaged fourth in the league and second in the Western Conference in average attendance (6,170), and remains one of the few fully built soccer-specific stadiums in the USL, which gave the club an opportunity to share its gameday operations procedures with other game ops staff in the league who aim to operate in similar venues in the future.
“For [game ops staff from other teams] to be able to come and spend time at our stadium allows them to be in the environment in which they operate,” Holt said. “When you’re around that it allows you to share first-hand some of the ways you’re able to incorporate sponsors and create fan experiences, and ultimately lay out the stadium to create the best possible gameday experience.”
Overall, the USL continues to grow at a fast rate. The league saw a 33 percent increase in attendance from 2015, and announced the addition of Reno 1868 FC, Ottawa Fury, and Tampa Bay Rowdies for the 2017 season, with Nashville SC also joining in 2018. With such rapid growth, clubs have to adapt and learn from each other to keep up with the expanding markets in the soccer landscape so they can optimize their strategies.
“One of my favorite things about this event is that our league has been so successful,” said Suzanne Brandon, Director of Ticket Sales for the Charleston Battery. “We’re constantly building and bringing new teams in that have a lot of different backgrounds, different sports industries that bring a lot to the table and show each of us how to be a little bit more innovative in how we go about doing ticket sales, presenting season ticket packages.”
For San Antonio FC, hosting this year’s event was a significant learning opportunity that provided a channel for all sales and operations staff to be exposed first-hand to the valuable information that was presented by all the teams in the league, which will be useful to the club as they work to improve on their inaugural season and prepare to head into year two.
“We are lucky to be able to expose the maximum amount of people to all this valuable information,” Holt said. “Our entire ticketing team, sponsorship team, and front office were able to actively participate in all the seminars and social events and everything that comes with that. For us it’s really exciting to be able to have the entire staff involved in an event. One of the side benefits of hosting was definitely that every member of our staff got to participate in the event. It’s exciting for us and the timing is perfect because we’re still learning about what we can do better to improve the club.”
Members from every club in the United Soccer League convened in the Alamo City this week to attend the 2016 USL Operations & Sales Summit after San Antonio FC announced on Nov. 1 that they would host this year’s meetings, which were held from Nov. 7 through Nov. 9.
The summit is designed to provide workshops and training to USL clubs in areas such as ticket sales, sponsorship, game operations and team operations. This year’s event was just the second edition of the summit (the first was hosted last year by Tulsa Roughnecks), and was the first opportunity for SAFC to host members from teams across the league in San Antonio since the club joined the USL in January.
“It’s a privilege to be able to support the league by providing the platform for them to bring executives from all 30 of their teams here to San Antonio,” SAFC Managing Director Tim Holt said. “It’s exciting for us to be able to give something back to the USL, especially after only our first year in existence.”
For SAFC, the meetings provided a great opportunity for operations and ticket sales staff to engage with members from all clubs to get perspectives from those who are veterans in the league. In addition, serving as hosts this year allowed the club to share what the city of San Antonio offers as a soccer market.
A tour of Toyota Field was included among the many seminars and events held throughout the summit. This past season, Toyota Field averaged fourth in the league and second in the Western Conference in average attendance (6,170), and remains one of the few fully built soccer-specific stadiums in the USL, which gave the club an opportunity to share its gameday operations procedures with other game ops staff in the league who aim to operate in similar venues in the future.
“For [game ops staff from other teams] to be able to come and spend time at our stadium allows them to be in the environment in which they operate,” Holt said. “When you’re around that it allows you to share first-hand some of the ways you’re able to incorporate sponsors and create fan experiences, and ultimately lay out the stadium to create the best possible gameday experience.”
Overall, the USL continues to grow at a fast rate. The league saw a 33 percent increase in attendance from 2015, and announced the addition of Reno 1868 FC, Ottawa Fury, and Tampa Bay Rowdies for the 2017 season, with Nashville SC also joining in 2018. With such rapid growth, clubs have to adapt and learn from each other to keep up with the expanding markets in the soccer landscape so they can optimize their strategies.
“One of my favorite things about this event is that our league has been so successful,” said Suzanne Brandon, Director of Ticket Sales for the Charleston Battery. “We’re constantly building and bringing new teams in that have a lot of different backgrounds, different sports industries that bring a lot to the table and show each of us how to be a little bit more innovative in how we go about doing ticket sales, presenting season ticket packages.”
For San Antonio FC, hosting this year’s event was a significant learning opportunity that provided a channel for all sales and operations staff to be exposed first-hand to the valuable information that was presented by all the teams in the league, which will be useful to the club as they work to improve on their inaugural season and prepare to head into year two.
“We are lucky to be able to expose the maximum amount of people to all this valuable information,” Holt said. “Our entire ticketing team, sponsorship team, and front office were able to actively participate in all the seminars and social events and everything that comes with that. For us it’s really exciting to be able to have the entire staff involved in an event. One of the side benefits of hosting was definitely that every member of our staff got to participate in the event. It’s exciting for us and the timing is perfect because we’re still learning about what we can do better to improve the club.”