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Washington home opener played in front of 20,000 empty seats
Posted by Michael David Smith on September 17, 2018, 9:37 AM EDT
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After decades of claiming to sell out every game easily, and even claiming a season-ticket waiting list with more than 100,000 people on it, Washington has now admitted that it cant fill FedEx Field.

The team’s announced attendance for Sunday’s home opener was 57,013, which means there were upwards of 20,000 empty seats — and that’s after removing some seats from FedEx Field. Last year Washington’s announced attendance for the home opener was 78,658. In 2007, more than 90,000 fans attended a game against the Cowboys.

The fans who attended didn’t like what they saw in an ugly loss to the Colts. Adrian Peterson, the veteran running back who managed just 20 yards on 11 carries, said that during his 12-year career he hasn’t heard the kind of booing of the home team that he heard on Sunday.

“It was a new one for me,” Peterson said. “It was different.”

That is sure to continue until the team starts playing better. Or until the stadium gets so empty that no one can hear the boos.

I have mixed feelings about this. I find it very embarrassing and disappointing for the team I still care about. I find it completely understandable why the fans are staying away. And I find it a completely well deserved recognition of Dan Snyder's ownership of this team.

Home opener though. Damn.

I think it s also a reflection of how Godell is running the NFL. He wants to use the NFL to make political statements then we too can make them by not attending and not watching on TV. I listen to the 'skins on WMAL and refuse to watch any other game.

Will Snyder sell the team if attendence continues to fall? No, he'll just have Allen find a new coach and fire up his marketing machine.

OldSchool wrote:Will Snyder sell the team if attendence continues to fall? No, he'll just have Allen find a new coach and fire up his marketing machine.

Don't think even that would work...only two solutions. Win or lower prices.

DEHog wrote:

OldSchool wrote:Will Snyder sell the team if attendence continues to fall? No, he'll just have Allen find a new coach and fire up his marketing machine.

Don't think even that would work...only two solutions. Win or lower prices.

Winning is the only thing that will bring attendance back. The Redskins need a win this week or at least play a very close and competitive game. They have to show the fan base something to hang our hats on?

Even then one game may not be enough? Wash put on a clinic against The Cardboards and the home opener was still DOA.

DEHog wrote:

OldSchool wrote:Will Snyder sell the team if attendence continues to fall? No, he'll just have Allen find a new coach and fire up his marketing machine.

Don't think even that would work...only two solutions. Win or lower prices.

Many fans can't even remember the last time this team won a playoff game. 2005. Talk about a way to lose a fanbase.

Burgundy&GoldForever wrote:Many fans can't even remember the last time this team won a playoff game. 2005. Talk about a way to lose a fanbase.

Sad but true. The saddest part to me is knowing what it can be like. I went to that Lions/Skins playoff game at Fedex in 2000 and the atmosphere was incredible and so much fun. Even at crappy Fedex field. Its insane and infuriating to see how Little Lord Dumbass has wasted such a passionate fanbase.

riggofan wrote:

Burgundy&GoldForever wrote:Many fans can't even remember the last time this team won a playoff game. 2005. Talk about a way to lose a fanbase.

Sad but true. The saddest part to me is knowing what it can be like. I went to that Lions/Skins playoff game at Fedex in 2000 and the atmosphere was incredible and so much fun. Even at crappy Fedex field. Its insane and infuriating to see how Little Lord Dumbass has wasted such a passionate fanbase.

Eighteen years ago Fed Ex Field didn't seem quite so "crappy" but it feels like the game and everything about the game has passed Dan Snyder by in the spirit of Al Davis. He doesn't get anything, not who to hire, not when to stay out of things, not how to appeal to the fanbase, not how to look like the good guy in any situation even if only for marketing purposes, nothing. Snyder gets absolutely nothing about the NFL from the business side or the entertainment side. His being allowed to own this franchise in the first place is the worst thing that's ever happened to it. I don't think he's willfully ignorant. I think he wants to do the right thing. I just think he's inept. How he ever succeeded at anything in business is beyond me. Even if you make colossal mistakes in the learning process like, for instance, signing Adam Archuleta or Jaromir Jagr right after you buy a team most owners would learn from that. If you pass up a defensive guru for a guy you like as head coach and it bombs most guys would learn from that. If you force your qualified and experienced offensive guru head coach to draft a prospect he doesn't want and that blows up in your face at the cost of four high draft picks most owners would learn from that. If you've never had a franchise quarterback and it's been the difference between barely making / missing the playoffs and actually contending most owners would learn from that. If you watch your starting receivers drop passes no one should drop and you have a chance to add not one but two proven NFL receivers most owners would try a little harder than not beating a 5th round draft pick offer from another team. It's not like it would be the first time the team gave up a 4th round pick for nothing at worst case.

These are the reasons the fanbase has had enough. Not only does everything this team does crash and burn but they never learn anything. The reason people are gravitating back to basketball and hockey is because at least the owner of those franchises learns from his mistakes. You don't have three teams in the Finals in the same year without doing something habitually right. Likewise, you don't miss the payoffs every year and lose in the playoffs every time you get there without doing something habitually wrong. Fans like us, who have been around since the good times can predict who will screw up, what they will screw up, when they will screw up, how they will screw up, and why they will screw up. We can write these stories before they happen. A few wins won't change a damn thing.

"Yes" to everything B&G4ever wrote.

Here is Barry Svrluga from a couple of days ago in the Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/r ... d45562508d

The empty seats — rows and blocks and chunks and sections of them, striking even on a telecast that focused on the field — aren’t some sort of sudden development at FedEx Field. This is two decades of erosion of a once-proud franchise. Once-proud. It’s almost a mandatory modifier now, bludgeoned into us because it describes the then and the now. Trite, for sure, but let’s roll it out again, because clinging to the pride generated by those Super Bowl trophies from a generation ago feels better than dealing with the present.

And

Add up the reasons — the losing and the junk stadium and the maddening traffic and the long walk from the Metro and the relative comfort of the couch and the frustration, years of frustration, with owner Daniel Snyder. They’re all factors in this truth: This has been coming.

The team had to know this was coming, too, because it had begun a new approach to, well, basically everything on the non-football side of things with the arrival of a new executive, Brian Lafemina. Under Lafemina, whose title is chief business officer, Washington mailed free preseason tickets — and a parking pass — to some former season ticket holders who had not renewed. It admitted the absence of a waiting list. It began marketing single-game tickets. It removed seats from bloated FedEx Field. It overhauled its in-game entertainment. It created new eat-and-drink areas.

Even more:

It’s important to remember where Lafemina came from. As an executive with the NFL, he was privy to data and fan surveys at all 32 clubs. Why leave a top job at the league to run the business operation of just one of its clubs? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the league said: “Look, Brian, Washington’s a shell of what it once was. Go fix it, and we’ll make sure it’s worth your while.”

The problem: Those fans this team lost, they can turn their attention to products that are more consistently pleasing, are not owned by Daniel Snyder, or both. Winning them over as kids with a championship-caliber product? That was easier than Riggo, on fourth and one, behind the Hogs. Winning them back after years of neglect? Oof, man. That’s John Beck looking for Jabar Gaffney in triple coverage.

This is hilarious:

Even Beer Vendors Have Turned On The Skins
https://deadspin.com/even-beer-vendors- ... 1829140957

The business/commission stuff in here is a little bit wonky but suffice to say that its about Snyder squeezing every last dime out.

Vendors say FedExField was already paying the worst commission of any football venue in the Mid-Atlantic region even before the recent wage cut. Sellers working just up I-95 at M&T Bank Stadium for Baltimore Ravens games, for example, get a commission of 13 percent to 20 percent, and reach the 20 percent bonus level after selling $1,500 worth of beer. Baltimore just cut the price of a beer to $7.50, which Hahn says is among the reasons Ravens fans drink more in-house than Skins fans.

I asked Hahn why there’s such a discrepancy in stadiums just 32 miles apart.

“It’s the difference,” Hahn told me, “between Steve Bisciotti and Dan Snyder.”

Baltimore isn’t the only place that beats the crap outta Landover for pay rate. Vendors say they make a flat 15 percent commission selling at Philadelphia Eagles games, and also get 15 percent at football games at the University of Maryland and University of Virginia.

“D.C. is the worst, what’s going on is the worst,” says Neal Harol, who’s been a stadium vendor since 1971, the last 30 years in the Washington market.

actually, it's just sad - we're stuck with this idiot owner

I can't remember the last time I have spent a dime on this team, but I know it was prior to Sean's death (RIP ST). What happened to the diamond guy from the DC area's attempt to force a "hostile takeover"? Was that just a publicity stunt?

At least the mystique and lies about season ticket holders and sold out games is officially busted. Time to move on and see if the Skins can earn some rabid fandom.