What’s PPL Park like in March, April and May? Philadelphia Union fans, players and coaches are about to find out.
Unlike last year, when the Union played eight of their first 10 games on the road while their new stadium was still under construction, the club’s 2011 schedule is not nearly as lopsided, with Philly playing as many home games as away games through the season’s first three months.
“It was pretty taxing on us last year,” admitted Union CEO Nick Sakiewicz, shortly after the MLS schedule was released Thursday. “It’s nice to have a normalized schedule over the course of the season, so fans can get into a regular rhythm of planning schedules around games every other week.”
Because of the stadium’s midseason opening last year, PPL Park hosted a steady stream of games throughout the hot summer months, which may have affected fans’ vacation plans. Sakiewicz said that fans didn’t complain about that mainly because they were “so excited about the inaugural season” and that the club still “pretty much sold to capacity every game.”
But with a far more balanced schedule in Year Two, the Union CEO expects attendance to improve even more. The team’s office, he said, has been flooded with phone calls recently from fans anxiously awaiting the release of the schedule.
“We’re about 1,000 season tickets ahead of where we were this time last year,” Sakiewicz said. “We’re expanding the season ticket cap by 1,000 tickets to 13,000. We think with the normalized schedule and a lot of time to plan, we’ll have more sellouts than we had last year.”
The players are also thrilled to not be at the same kind of competitive disadvantage that they were in last year, when Philly started 2-7-1. When it came time to try to make a playoff push, the club was never able to recover from that slow start.
“A lot of people don’t realize how taxing it is to play so many road games in the beginning of the season, especially in our league when all of the teams are so closely matched,” Sakiewicz said. “And I gotta tell you, our guys didn’t complain one bit through that and it was great for us as an organization. But it does take you off your game a little bit.”
As it is now, the Union’s longest road trip is in July, when they play four straight games away from PPL Park. Before that, the club welcomes the expansion Vancouver Whitecaps for its home opener on March 26, as well as hosting exciting early-season home tilts with the rival New York Red Bulls (April 9), the Seattle Sounders (April 16), the LA Galaxy (May 11) and Peter Nowak’s old club, the Chicago Fire (May 21).
Sakiewicz is especially excited about that last one.
“I know the new president over there [Julian Posada] didn’t appreciate us wearing Flyers jerseys when we played in Chicago last year,” Sakiewicz said of the June 5 game that coincided with the Philadalphia Flyers-Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup series. “But that’s the way we roll in Philly. I’m sure the new president over there will have maybe something in store for us here in Philly.”
