A year ago, a Cyber Monday season-ticket buying rush on the Detroit City Football Club's website caused a system crash.

This year, the popular semipro soccer club's owners spent months preparing to handle the expected online demand for 2015 season tickets and new merchandise.

The site, DetCityFC.com , handled the demand without a hitch, co-owner Alexander Wright said.

In fact, the team began this year's 2015 sale in earnest on Black Friday and sold more of the eight-game season tickets (which are on a plastic credit card-like pass) than it did in the first month of sales a year ago, Wright said.

The flurry of tickets and merchandise sold is the latest evidence that theteam's popularity continues to grow.

"At the rate we're selling them, I think it's likely this year we'll have to cap our season-ticket sales," Wright said. The team doesn't make public its season ticket base.

"We do this internal math on how many season tickets we can move without worrying about turning people away," he said.

Le Rouge, as the club is nicknamed, averaged 2,878 fans per game last season at, including a season-high 3,398 on July 11 against the

The club would cap season-ticket sales to ensure that fans would be able to buy single-game tickets, Wright said. Some games last season saw more than 2,000 walk-up sales.

In addition to being good -- the club is 24-5-9 in its first three seasons -- Detroit City is profitable, Wright said, but the team doesn't disclose financial specifics. The team's operating budget will be just a bit more than $200,000, he said, the most the team has spent.

Ticket sales account for about 40 percent of the team's operating budget, the club has said, while corporate sponsorship makes up 15 percent to 20 percent, and merchandise sales are the remainder.

Expenses are kept relatively low because there are no player contracts at DCFC's level of soccer.

Club spending for the first time includes TV spots during's telecasts ofsoccer matches on Sundays, Wright said, alone with digital advertising on the station's website.

The team has 23 corporate sponsors in 2014, most being bars and restaurants. Ownership expects that number to grow and diversify.

Sponsorship deals are a blend of cash contracts and in-kind relationships.

"There is a lot of room for us to grow on the sponsorship side of things," said Wright, who owns Southfield-based Web content production company, which does a lot of work with

The club's popularity also is fueling a potential relocation. DCFC is considering playing at Keyworth Stadium in Hamtramck in 2016, and is studying the stadium's suitability and physical status, Wright said.

"It follows that we have to find a bigger place to play soccer," he said. "There are not a ton of places in the city, and we're committed to playing in Detroit. Hamtramck is in Detroit. Maybe someday we'll be in a position to leverage what we do and get a soccer-specific stadium together, but for now we're exploring our options."

The club's popularity has allowed it to boost revenue with small price increases.

For example, season tickets for 2015 are $50, a $5 increase from last season. Season tickets were $30 for the inaugural 2011 season.

Individual game tickets are $10 at the gate, the same as 2014.

The team also makes money from selling clothing, caps, scarves, stickers and other goods from its online store at DetCityFCstore.com

Ann Arbor-based customer apparel makerhas taken over merchandise fulfillment for the club, something the owners themselves did by hand until recently.

"We would spend hours, every other day, working out of one of our basements. We'd go over there, order some pizza and beers, and fill envelopes all day," Wright said, chuckling.

The season runs May-June. Games in 2015 will be live-streamed online, although details are being worked out, Wright said.

The 2015 schedule hasn't been finalized because the league has been adding teams as a frantic pace -- more than 30 new clubs since last season.

"It's pretty impressive that our fans are buying season tickets not knowing who were playing or when," Wright said.

The club is analyzing its business functions and processes to find more efficiencies to help general manager Donovan Powell, hired last year to run the business side of the club. He's DCFC's only full-time employee, and the club may add seasonal staff to aid him.

"It's part of the growth process. We don't want to grow too fast, but we want to give our people the tools they need on the field and off," Wright said.

DCFC also believes it got an interest bump from soccer fans thanks to last summer's World Cup and because of the exhibition match in August at Michigan Stadium betweenandthat drew a U.S. soccer attendance record of 109,318.

"Every level of soccer in America benefited from the World Cup last summer," Wright said.

The team worked with Detroit-basedto host World Cup viewing parties in Campus Martius. "We knew this was something that was going to be big," Wright said.

Soccer observers laud what DCFC has accomplished so far.

"I have met with them and I really like their vision and grass-roots-level approach to building their fan base," said Andy Appleby, the Rochester sports entrepreneur who owns English professional soccer club

"From my perspective, they appear to be doing a first-rate job."

DCFC's league, the NPSL, may have 70 teams in 2015. It is a fourth-tier amateur league within the Chicago-based's organizational pyramid, which is topped byand its 19 professional teams.

The federation is the U.S. soccer system's governing body for both amateur and pro soccer.

Unlike European soccer, U.S. teams do not jump up or down levels based on winning.

The team plays a 14-game regular-season schedule. It finished 8-3-3 last season, good for second place in the NPSL Midwest Region's Great Lakes West Conference.won the conference.

DCFC won its division two seasons ago, and lost in the divisional finals. Division rival, which plays at Hurley Field in Berkley, finished 4-9-1 in 2014.

Thefrom Harrison, N.J., won the overall NPSL championship in August.

NPSL rosters consist of unpaid players, mainly high school, collegiate and former professional athletes. Because they're considered amateurs, athletes maintain their college eligibility while playing in the developmental league.