Portland Timbers stand tall among MLS ranks

Jeffrey Martin | USA TODAY Sports

PORTLAND, Ore. -- When Will Johnson was with Real Salt Lake last season, the first thing the midfielder said he and his teammates did once the Major League Soccer schedule was released was sort out the road games.

Inevitably, they would always circle Portland, where Johnson now plays.

"It's everybody's favorite trip," Johnson said. "The atmosphere -- it's one huge party. It's what soccer should feel like. You feel like a professional athlete here. You feel like you're playing in a German stadium with a club that has a 100-year history.

"It's slowly becoming one of the funnest places to play in the world."

And this happened before the Timbers, a sub-.500 franchise in their third season as an MLS expansion club, started to reverse their fortunes -- they're in the midst of a 13-game unbeaten streak, a club record, probably the league's hottest team.

Entering this season, the Timbers' two-year record was 19-30-19. Yet the franchise ranks sixth all-time in average MLS attendance at 19,632, with a waiting list of 7,000 fans seeking season tickets at picturesque and wide-open Jeld-Wen Field, the renovated downtown stadium. Average attendance this season is 20,674, fourth best in the league.

"I consider the Timbers an overwhelming success, by all measures," MLS commissioner Don Garber told USA TODAY Sports. "Not just determined by what you do on or off the field, but whether or not you truly matter in your market."

According to The Marketing Arm, a Dallas-based marketing and promotions agency, the Timbers' national fan "avidity" -- the combination of fan levels and favorites/preferences for a sports property -- is comparable to the San Francisco 49ers and the New York Jets. But that's only by including national fans who recognize the Timbers.

They matter here. Can the same be said for the other 18 teams in their respective cities?

The entirety of MLS' effective reach -- defined by The Marketing Arm as the number of people aware of a property and at least casually interested in it -- is 9.2 million. That's on par with the NBA's Denver Nuggets and lags far behind other professional sports: NFL (98.6 million), MLB (60.4 million), NBA (48.1 million), NASCAR (32.1 million) and NHL (26.2 million).

In its 18th year of existence, MLS is said to be on stable ground; the league, like most professional organizations, does not reveal financial figures. It operates as a single-entity business, meaning owners actually have a stake in the league, not just their team.

The league has three national television rights deals in the USA, all expiring at the end of 2014. All the revenue from television is shared among the teams. According to Sports Business Daily, the eight-year deal with ESPN/ESPN Deportes yields an estimated $7 million-$8 million per year; the three-year pact with NBC is worth $10 million per year and the eight-year arrangement with Univision nets roughly $9 million annually.

Additionally, there is a television deal in Canada with TSN and RDS, both expiring in 2016.

Another main revenue source is corporate sponsorships. A third major stream is ticket sales, which are not shared.

MLS hasn't gotten too big, too fast, following a model of steadiness implemented by Garber, who took over as commissioner in 1999. The plan -- grow locally and/or regionally instead of nationally, in soccer-specific venues, hopefully aided by a natural geographic rivalry.

Again, the Timbers fit the bill -- their Cascadia clashes with the Seattle Sounders and Vancouver Whitecaps have become the MLS standard.

"The MLS does have a little bit of an 'NHL problem,' which is to say the interest is driven regionally. And the Northwest teams have clearly demonstrated a level of interest beyond any other region," said Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon. "If the MLS could bottle that interest and export it like Portland does with its beer -- believe me, they would."

'Timbers Army'

The addition of a 20th team -- the league last month announced New York City FC, with a $100 million expansion fee, as reported by Forbes, will begin play in 2015 -- would seem to diverge from this strategy, but that's not the case.

The league already has the New York Red Bulls, but they're located in New Jersey. Nevertheless, the new Manchester City/New York Yankees-funded entry will have a natural rival. Discussions about a stadium site in Queens have already occurred. And MLS, whose offices are located in New York City, will finally have a team actually based in the country's largest city and media market.

By comparison, the Portland metropolitan area in the 2010 census ranked 23rd largest in the USA.

"Portland is a different market than Los Angeles, New York, Toronto and Dallas," Garber told USA TODAY Sports. "It's a smaller market than many others, but it has great soccer history and also has less competition. But that's only one driver of their success.

"They had a great plan. They managed the brand very effectively, and they have a very, very passionate and committed and loyal fan base that gives them a great point of difference. ... I don't think you can look at Portland and say, 'Boy, if we just check these boxes, you'd have the same success in any other market.' We're not looking for that."

Merritt Paulson bought the Timbers in 2007, when the team competed in the United Soccer League's First Division. There is a rich history surrounding the name, starting with its first iteration in 1975 as a member of the North American Soccer League.

In Year 3 in the MLS, Paulson is unabashed about his desire to win. But when it comes to describing the vibe that exists at Jeld-Wen, he turns sheepish.

"We had historical roots -- it was never a start-up," Paulson told USA TODAY Sports.

Paulson said the support, primarily in the form of the fanatical Timbers Army, a group of more than 4,000 fans that chants, never sits and waves scarves for the duration of games, was already there.

Portland-based author Shawn Levy can attest to that -- he is a so-called elder, with the Army when there were fewer than 50 members -- and he's amazed at the growth.

"We've been fortunate that the city, by and large, people who were not interested in the minor-league Timbers have seen the Timbers Army as kind of an expression of Portland civic pride and Portland's quirky identity," said Levy, who said he would love to see other fan bases emulate what he and his cohorts have built. "No one looks at the Timbers Army and thinks, 'Oh my God, hooligans -- hide the kids.' They think, 'These people are crazy,' and that's the worst comment."

After all, it's the Pacific Northwest, where Paulson, a Chicago native, says it's "a little counter-culture to begin with and people like things a little bit different." The downtown stadium attracts "a young, single, urban core, which is what everybody wants because that's your hip, trend-setting demographic that sponsors want."

"When you catch 'it,' you never know what 'it' is," Paulson said. "It's a fit with our market. The brand and the team is true to its audience. It's authentic, and that's the buzzword. It's fan-driven."

Passion unmatched

Every market is different, yet there are similar fits in Kansas City, where Sporting KC has found a rabid following in the nation's 37th largest city, and Columbus, where the Crew have increased attendance from last season despite playing in football-crazed Ohio.

Caleb Porter knows all about the Buckeye State.

The first-year Portland head coach left the University of Akron in August 2012, where he had a 123-18-17 record, including a national championship in 2010, to join the Timbers.

And Porter took a pay cut to do so.

"The passion here is unmatched," said Porter, who turned down D.C. United a few years earlier. "If I was going to leave my situation (in Akron) -- where we had 5,000 fans at each game, which was very passionate for college soccer and where a lot of people were into it and cared -- if I was going to leave that, it would have to be something similar but even of a much bigger magnitude.

"I wanted a place where I thought it was a real challenge but also a real opportunity. There are challenges in situations where there's not the same opportunity to succeed -- the challenge here is you have pressure to succeed because you have so many people who want you to succeed."

He paused.

"I like my situation," said Porter, whose team is 6-1-8 but in third place in the Western Conference with 26 points, two behind leader FC Dallas. "I thought this was a sleeping giant."