TORONTO – Toronto FC knew the magnitude of their achievement when they rushed the field in celebration after their draw with Honduras’ CD Motagua.
The result Tuesday in Tegucigalpa gave them the preliminary-round series win and their first-ever berth in the CONCACAF Champions League group stage – but most importantly, a chance to play some of the best clubs in the confederation.
Now if only the fans buy in, too – literally.
Each game against Mexico’s Cruz Azul, Árabe Unido of Panama and Real Salt Lake will write a new chapter in the club’s history. But chances are a less-than-capacity crowd may be at BMO Field to witness them. It’s a scene evident in venues across the 40-nation confederation: empty seats for CONCACAF’s signature club team championship.
Entering its third year, CCL emerged from its smaller predecessor, Champions’ Cup, as part of the confederation’s attempt to strengthen its premier club championship by rebranding it similar to its higher-profile UEFA counterpart. In a short time, the 32-team tournament has made great strides, not only on the field, but off the field in corporate partnerships, broadcast coverage and viewership.
Fan education, however, is still a work in progress.
“It’s something we continue to work on because it’s a new tournament, so it’s obviously something we can’t expect fans to know about right away and to necessarily know who some of the teams are and what the tournament means what the tournament entails,” said Benjamin Ramirez Spencer, CONCACAF’s manager of media relations. “A lot of it is focused on digital efforts.”
Toronto FC, who have sold out each of their MLS home matches since their inception, have found CCL matches a tough sell.
For the first leg against Motagua, 60 percent of season-seat holders renewed tickets, which weren’t included in the season ticket package. Even many among the 19,000 on the season seat waiting list didn’t bite at the opportunity.
The announced attendance was 18,891 – roughly 3,000 shy of a sellout at 21,800-seat BMO Field. But that number included an unknown number of TFC ticketholders who were given free passes to the match if they couldn’t make the TFC-Galaxy matchup on June 26 due to the G20 Summit.
“Our challenge with the Champions League is that it’s still not a very well known and understood entity,” said Paul Beirne, TFC’s director of business operations. “Just the fact that the tournament exists is still unknown for a lot of people. So that’s been the focus of our communication over the last several months, to try to make people aware.
“The other thing is the awareness of the opponents,” Beirne added. “If I said CD Motagua to a lot of people, they don’t who it is, they don’t know where they’re from. Once you say Honduras, and you say Amado Guevara, and you say five guys on their starting lineup played at the World Cup, then that starts to get their interest. But it’s just a lot of messages to have to communicate.”
More indoctrination will be necessary between now and the first match at home Aug. 17 against Cruz Azul, and Beirne says getting the message out is the key to turning fans onto the CCL.
“It’s all about communication. Most of our communication has been electronic, whether it’s outbound e-mails or using our digital content vehicles like GolTV Canada, TFC TV, our the website,” he said. “We have a very deep relationship with a very small community of people that are fond of TFC, and that’s who we’re speaking to.”
For fans recently turned onto the sport, education takes on a different for.
“The Toronto market is used to buying a season ticket once a year, and you go to all the games and that’s that,” said Beirne, who received MLS Executive of the Year honors in 2007. “The whole notion of multiple tournaments, while it’s second nature for people that are deeply engaged in international soccer, is not second nature for the mainstream, and that’s why we have gone through this education process.”
On the flip side, Toronto FC may be a victim of their own attendance success.
“People still think you can’t get a ticket to TFC and there’s still confusion in the market about season tickets being extremely scarce.” Beirne said. “All of our games appear to be sold out, yet here we have a game that has tickets available. The demand is for season tickets, but not necessarily for one game.”
