Stockade FC’s 2017 Season Recap — More Data Than You Could Ever Possibly Process From Our Soccer Club’s 2nd Season in the NPSL Dennis Crowley Follow Dec 6, 2017 · 47 min read

Credit: Derek White @ DWhite Visuals

“2017 North Atlantic White Conference Champions.”

It’s got a pretty nice ring to it, right?

That’s the headline for what was an amazing second season for Kingston Stockade FC, our NPSL club (4th Division, US Soccer Pyramid). For those who have been following our “open source” and “startup soccer” story of building a club from scratch, welcome back! This incredibly long post (our #5th blog post in this “open source soccer” series) is meant to provide as much data, insight and transparency into how we’ve built our 4th Division soccer club. For those new to our story, hello! … and a head’s up that you may get more mileage out of this post if you read the earlier posts too:

(If anything, make sure you read Post #3 before you read this one as it covers a lot of the details from Season 2 that may get glossed over in this post — e.g. concessions, point of sale systems, etc.)

Okay, ready? For the rest of this post, here’s what I want to focus on:

State of the Union in 🇺🇸 ⚽️

Stockade 2017 Finances & Data (Attendance, Tickets, Merchandise, Streaming)

What Are We Doing This For? — Annual Review of Stockade FC’s Goals & Ambitions

Some Thoughts on NPSL in 2020 (and how to build a stronger D4)

State of the Union in 🇺🇸 ⚽️

These are some interesting times for soccer in the United States:

The US Men’s National Team (USMNT) failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. It’s the first time the USMNT has failed to qualify in 30 years (since 1986).

The NASL (2nd division) is currently appealing the decision that was made in a lawsuit filed against the USSF (United States Soccer Federation — the governing body of all things soccer in the USA) over collusion and anti-competitive practices with the MLS (1st division). The decision on the appeal will be made sometime in mid-December.

A “Request for Arbitration” has been filed with the International Court of Sport over the USSF’s reluctance to follow FIFA’s own statutes (Article 9) which require a system of merit-based promotion and relegation in the USA. This request for arbitration was filed by our club (Stockade FC) and Miami FC in the NASL.

There is another lawsuit over the lack of solidarity & training payments being made to youth organizations from the MLS clubs. My understanding is that this lawsuit has been dismissed by US courts, but is still active in FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Chamber.

USSF President Sunil Gulati (the person at the top of the US Soccer Pyramid) is up for re-election in March 2018. He has run unopposed over the past 12 years (since 2006, four-year terms), and this year at least 7 other candidates jumped in to run against him. Sunil recently announced that he will NOT be running for re-election, meaning the spot is now up for grabs amongst these 7 candidates, some whom want to bring change to US soccer and some of whom want to maintain the status quo (specifically when it comes to the idea of “opening” the US Soccer Pyramid)

Meanwhile the league Stockade FC plays in, NPSL (Division 4, ~100 teams across the USA), continues to evolve and grow. Just above us, the USL made the jump from Division 3 to Division 2, and it’s unclear whether NASL (which was D2 for 2017) will appear in 2018 as a Division 2 or Division 3 league. A new startup D3 league (NISA) is making a run to come online in 2019. Riccardo Silva (of MP & Silva Sports Media Rights) bid more than $4 billion (USD) for 10 years worth of TV rights contingent upon the US Soccer Pyramid adopting a system of promotion and relegation (a deal that was immediately dismissed by MLS).

(As I heard someone say this weekend, “There is so much drama in the sport in America! Now imagine the drama was actually over *the game itself* and not *the business behind the game*”)

There’s a perfect storm of *something* brewing in US Soccer right now. And while it’s a bit early to predict what the world may look like a few years (or even months) from now, there’s no denying that change is coming. It’s just a question of whether it will come in this USSF Presidential election cycle or the next.

Soon after we started our club, we had the idea of putting it to use as a catalyst for change. We want to see the US Soccer Pyramid evolve from a “closed system” to an “open system” and we want to see greater transparency within. In short, our plan with Stockade FC was: (a) learn how to build a club by building one from scratch, (b) use that knowledge to bring transparency to the process of creating clubs in the hope of inspiring others to build clubs in their own communities, (c) help to better organize like-minded and ambitious owners of lower level clubs to give us a louder voice in the larger discussions about the US Soccer landscape, (d) use that “seat at the table” to advocate and push forward an agenda of equal access to growth and opportunity for all clubs at all levels, which (e) is ultimately accomplished by helping to create an open system anchored by strong and stable clubs within well-organized and accessible lower level leagues, such as the NPSL.

With that said, and before we get real deep into Stockade FC data, I’m happy to share that this past weekend I was elected to the NPSL’s Board of Directors at our league’s Annual Operating Meeting (AOM). I am now one of 12 Board Members (and one of 2 representatives of the Northeast Region) operating under a two-year term. The Board Seat gets me a little closer to the bigger-picture decision making and the longer-team strategic planning for our league. It is literally the“seat at the table” I was referring to above and I’m excited to get back to work helping to build from the bottom up.

Ladies & gentlemen, your 2017 Northeast Atlantic White Conference Champions! 🏆 (Photo by Leanne Keator @ Ride the Tide Photography)

Finances & Data

Okay with that out of the way, y’all ready to nerd out on some numbers?

For those who have been reading my posts, you know that one of my main goals has been to get our D4 club to break-even (and to be as transparent as possible about how we did it).

This is important to the club because a break-even club can operate forever. And this is important to me because I know that if we we can keep Stockade FC going for 10 years, we will have the opportunity to see the kids that we have inspired this season & last season trying out for our squad in a few years time. The idea of a Stockade FC squad full of kids who have been cheering on our club since they were 8, 10, or 12 years old is one of the things that motivates and inspires me the most about this entire project.

(It’s also worth noting that the step after “breakeven” is called “we have extra money to invest in things”. And that’s where this project really get interesting. With a $5k or $10k profit per season, what would we do? I’m sure I’ll write a whole post on this someday, but the wishlist right now looks like: (a) a Free-to-Play youth academy for kids, (b) spinning up a women’s team, (c) making the jump from amateur to pro players, (d) investing in our own training facilities, etc. Let’s take it one step at a time though :)

So, let’s look at some high level takeaways from season #2:

We won our Conference Championship and hoisted that trophy high in the air. A huge shoutout to Head Coach David Lindholm for doing such an amazing job leading our squad (7 wins, 1 tie, 4 losses).

We hit our goal of having 1000+ fans at a game (twice!)

Our operating expenses were ~30% lower. (We reused our 2016 uniforms; we didn’t have to buy as much “infrastructure” for our second season)

We hit our goal of providing “alternative concessions” at the stadium (beer tent, food truck), and we hit our goal of eliminating cases of bottled water from our game day operations.

Our overall revenue was strong, but lower than last year.

Merchandise sales were down (aka: we sold less merchandise in our 2nd year vs. our 1st year…. perhaps because we played one fewer match? Or didn’t change up our merchandise designs? More below…)

Tickets and sponsorship revenue was up. (Thank you to our amazing title sponsors –– Trailways NY, Dragon Search, Radio Woodstock)

We’re closer to breakeven for sure, but I don’t have the exact number… yet (see explanation below)

The club continues to operate as a 501c3 (via “fiscal sponsorship” from Innovative Charitable Initiatives, Inc.)

Let’s take a look, but please keep in mind that these numbers are (a) still a work in progress and (b) only reflect from Jan 1, 2017 to Oct 4, 2017.

** 2017 data limited to Jan 1, 2017 - Oct 4, 2017 OPERATING EXPENSES 2016 2017

Fields $16,250.00 $14,550.00 -10.5%

Coaches/Trainers $15,620.00 $12,342.00 -21.0%

Gear / Equipment $15,338.00 $10,997.86 -28.3%

Game Day Expenses $ 8,783.00 $ 7,343.00 -16.4%

Marketing $10,717.00 $ 6,486.92 -39.5%

League Fees / Insurance $ 7,610.00 $ 5,750.00 -24.4%

Streaming $ 1,000.00 $ 1,848.10 +84.8%

Travel & Hotel $10,615.00 $0 -100.0% (!!)

Player Roster $0 $0

Mgmt / Volunteers $0 $0

Player Development n/a $ 904.36

Player Offseason EDSL n/a $ 2,694.73

Youth Clinic n/a $ 1,272.00

Total Operating Expenses $85,933.00 $59,317.88 -31.0% REVENUE 2016 2017

Tickets Revenue $32,425.20 $36,649.00 +13.0%

Sponsors Revenue $10,600.00 $12,500.00 +17.9%

Merchandise (pre 10/4) $50,647.18 $31,125.74 -38.5%

Merchandise (post 10/4) $ 5,155.12 n/a (yet)

Concessions Revenue $0 $ 325.00

Youth Clinic n/a $ 1,285.00

Cash Left Over from 2016 $500 n/a (yet)

Total Revenue $99,327.50 $81,884.74 -17.6% --- MERCHANDISE EXPENSES 2016 2017

Antiology Tees (t-shirts) $12,573.68 $ 6,858.75

T-Source (training/caps) $ 4,563.95 $ 3,241.75

Global Scarves $ 1,239.50 $ 1,932.25

Inaria (jerseys) $11,571.59 $ 7,471.05

Klean Kanteen n/a $ 2,575.76

Petoskey (min balls) n/a $ 795.00

Iris Ltd (lanyards) n/a $ 1,124.37

Clockwise (t-shirts) $16,426.56 $ 4,795.95

Shopify Fees (as of 10/4) $ 722.16 $ 457.92

Shipping & Inventory $ 3,096.06 $ 3,654.02

Total Expenses $50,193.50 $32,906.82 -34.4%

Now, it’s too early to make the call on whether we broke even or not. Why? (#1) Holiday merch sales were huge last year (~20% of our total 2016 sales), they’ll be huge again this year, and I don’t want to make any “final calls” until we’re into January 2017. (#2) I’ve realized that in order to get a true “break even” number on our club, I need to be doing a *much* better job with our merchandise accounting. Specifically: how much did it cost to produce each individual item, how much of each of that specific item at that specific cost to product is now left over (“excess inventory”), and therefore, what is the asset value of this lot of excess inventory.

In hindsight, the system I used for our 2016 accounting was flawed — everything was calculated based on the assumption that we would sell *all* of our merchandise each season. That was a shortsighted assumption, which I’ll fix for 2018 (and hopefully 2017 too). But I won’t have those numbers until after the 2017 holiday season.

In a perfect world, I’d wait another month or so to publish this post (until post holiday and all numbers were final), but my wife and I are expecting Baby #2 in a few weeks (!!) and my Spidey-Sense tells me it’s probably best to get this post out now :)

But, I know you’re all hungry for the overall numbers, so here’s a work-in-progress preview. Remember these numbers are incomplete (and my “excess inventory” accounting method is borderline flawed), so use these numbers as a benchmark for your own club, and not as “OMG, look how much money Stockade FC is spending!” data point.

2017 FINANCIAL OVERVIEW

There’s two types of breakeven: (#1) Breakeven for 2017 Season and (#2) Breakeven for Lifetime of Club (aka: 2016 and 2017). For the sake of this post, I want to talk about (#1) “Breakeven for 2017”. When I do another post in Spring 2018, I’ll try to address (#2) “Breakeven for Lifetime of Club” with more detail.

In sum, we got much closer to breakeven this season. (If I could get a good count of our excess inventory – which we’ll be able to sell in 2018 – I’m almost certain we hit it).

** 2017 data limited to Jan 1, 2017 - Oct 4, 2017 2016 2017

Operating Expenses $85,933.00 $59,317.88 -30.97%

Merch Expenses $50,193.50 $32,906.82 -34.44%

Total Expenses $136,126.50 $92,224.70 -32.25% Total Revenue $99,327.50 $81,884.74 -17.56%

Loss -$36,799.00 -$10,339.96 Extra Inventory (approx) $12,000.00 <not calculated yet>

Total Loss (minus inventory) $24,799.00 ???

I need to figure out a more accurate way to not let my excess inventory tank my break-even figures. Btw, this is what my bedroom closet looks like.

OPERATING EXPENSES OVERVIEW

A few quick notes on some of the bigger changes to our Operating Expenses this year:

Fields costs were down 10% due to one fewer home match, fewer tryouts, and fewer overall training sessions.

Coaching/Trainer costs were down 20% mostly due to a better deal on ATCs (trainers). Thank you, Feldman Physical Therapy!

Gear / Equipment costs were down almost 30% because we had bought *so much gear* for our first season — e.g. we already have 50 soccer balls, 200 cones, 100 pinnies, a dozen walkie talkies, and 25 Tupperware containers to haul everything around in, etc… plus, we re-used our jerseys from our 2016 season.

Marketing costs were down for similar reasons — we made a big $4000 investment in foam/velcro sideline banners last season which we used again this season (and we’ll re-use for the next 10 seasons.)

Game Day expenses were down 15% because we stopped buying bottled water for every match and instead started used refillable 10 gallon Gatorade jugs. A win for Mother Earth is a win for Stockade FC! (Btw, getting off plastic bottles, and the waste they produced, was an explicit goal of ours for this season.)

Streaming costs were *up* because we had to invest more heavily in wi-fi infrastructure to enhance our network stability (leading to less choppy streaming video) and to enable the use of multiple cameras / camera angles. Thank you to our friends at Moonfarmer who helped with the specs and the install! (In case you wanted to nerd out over what wi-fi hardware we needed, here’s a list.)

Travel costs were down as our primary sponsor Trailways NY was incredibly generous in comp’ing all of our team’s travel (bus) expenses. They were generous last year in giving us a great rate and they went above and beyond this season by helping cover all costs. Thank you, Trailways NY!

Our hotel costs were ZERO because we designed our schedule so that we would not have an overnight trip. If you remember from last year, we did a 3 day / 2 night / 2 match trip through New Hampshire and Maine (aka: 2 nights in a hotel + 3 meals * 14 rooms). Dropping this trip from the schedule saved us a fortune. To say this another way: Our current business model (tickets/sponsors/merch) supports “day-trips by bus” and not “overnight trips and/or flights”.

“Player Development” costs were new this year as we sent 2 players (Matel Anasta & Matt Koziol) to the NPSL Showcase in Los Angeles (think: All Star Game with D1/D2/D3 scouts). You can read more about this in the 2017 pre-season post.

“Off Season League” costs were new this year as we put a squad together last fall to play in a local Hudson Valley league called EDSL. We scraped this plan for 2017 (it was just too much work). You can read more about this in the 2017 pre-season post.

“Youth Clinic” costs are new as well — and Stockade FC’s Dan Hoffay wrote an amazing post on our aspirations here and success we’ve seen with our first-ever Youth Clinic. I have this listed as an expense, but it’s worth noting that our inaugural youth clinic broke even financially (thank you to our sponsor, Ulster Saving Bank!)

And it’s impossible to talk about Stockade FC without talking about our $0 “Staff” costs. Our entire club is run by volunteers — sometimes an army of 30+ people who show up on game days to help with everything from setup + take down + scoreboard + clock + merchandise + tickets + managing the crowd + leading the youth teams at halftime + emceeing the halftime show + singing the national anthem + announcing on the PA + doing color commentary on the live stream + 100 other tasks. Without you all none of this would come together in the way that it does, so thank you! #WeAreStockade

Our growing family of Stockade FC volunteers – without their help, none of what you’re reading about would be possible. If you want in, reach out to: volunteers@stockadefc.com!

REVENUE OVERVIEW

In short, revenue was down from last year, even though we sold more tickets (Ticket Revenue +13%) and we had better deals with our sponsors (Sponsor Revenue +17%). This is due to merchandise revenue being lower than last year (as of Oct 4, 2017) but remember, there’s still a HUGE holiday season coming up.

Without going into specific sponsorship arrangements (aka: some are barter, some are cash, some are a mix of both), I’ll share what we asked in 2016 vs. 2017 vs. 2018:

Sponsorship Prices

2016 2017 2018

Front of jersey $10,000 $12,000 $20,000

Back of jersey $5,000 $7,000 $10,000

Sleeve of jersey $2,500 $3,000 $5,000

Training jersey $5,000 $6,000 <see below> Sideline ads $1,000/each $1,500/each $1,500/each

Activation tent n/a $2,000/game $1,000/game

Streaming $500/game $5,000/season <see below> Streaming AND Training Jersey $10,000

If you are interested in a 2018 Season sponsorship, check our our sponsorship deck (PDF) and contact sponsorships@stockadefc.com. (Thanks in advance!)

As you can see, next year we’re going to try to combine the Streaming and Training Kit sponsorship to give some lucky sponsor more bang-for-their-buck. The jump in attendance and awareness (both local and national media) that we saw this past year has given us confidence in our 2018 sponsorship prices. (aka: we’re feeling pretty good about our 2018 season already :)

We have a few new sources of revenue to speak to about this year too:

Concessions Revenue of $325! Not a ton of money, but hey, it’s a start. With some help from folks in the town, we were able to successfully navigate some zoning restrictions to allow for an alternative to the stadium’s limited concession stand — beer and food tents set up about 100 yards away from the stadium (our stadium is 50% owned by the School District, so no alcohol is allowed on premises). Special thanks to our friends at Keegan Ales who helped coordinate the tents (which ran at 4 of our 7 home matches, and the club took 10% of profits). It’s worth mentioning that even though “beer near the stadium” has been a hot button issue in town, we had ZERO incidents. No drama, no fights, no open container violations. I LOVE that fact that we made this happen and I look forward to making it bigger and better in 2018. (You can read more about this in the 2017 pre-season post)

Our inaugural Youth Clinic was a success (and actually ran at a $13 profit!). We hosted 150 kids on a cold November morning, collected a $5 suggested donation, and had tremendous support from local sponsor Ulster Saving Bank. Again, check out the post Stockade’s Dan Hoffay wrote on how it all came together.

So that’s how it looks at a high level. Ready to dig a little deeper?

ATTENDANCE DATA

Bigger in every way from 2016 to 2017. Note that we only count “butts in seats” (aka: people who come thru the turnstile) and NOT “tickets sold” or “tickets distributed”. In my opinion, “butts in seats” is the ONLY number that counts in regards to attendance. Special thanks to my Dad, Chris Masters and his son Landry who hold down the fort when it comes to manning the gate, collecting tickets, and stamping hands.

2017 Stockade FC Attendance

@ Dietz Stadium in Kingston NY

vs. Hartford Sat May 6 @ 5:00 489 fans

vs. NYAC Sat June 3 @ 5:00 693 fans

vs. Boston Sat June 10 @ 5:00

vs. Hartford (playoffs) Sat July 15 @ 6:00 1393 fans vs. Hartford Sat May 6 @ 5:00 489 fans constant rain

vs. Rhode Island Sun May 21 @ 5:00 714 fansvs. NYAC Sat June 3 @ 5:00 693 fansvs. Boston Sat June 10 @ 5:00 992 fans

vs. Seacoast Sat July 1 @ 5:00 735 fans thunderstorms

vs. TSF Academy Mon July 3 @ 6:00 1129 fansvs. Hartford (playoffs) Sat July 15 @ 6:00 1393 fans TOTAL 6145

AVERAGE 878

MEDIAN 735 ** attendance data does not include pre-season friendlys

Not bad right? In fact, these numbers put us in 15th place in the NPSL overall for 2017 (… ahem, amongst the 45 or so of clubs (21%) who actually report their attendance… grumble grumble. And Kenn, thanks for doing the work to compile this data and please do continue to help in 2018!)

About a year ago, I remember talking to another owner of another club and he said something along the lines of “I know you had a great first season, but the second season is the hardest” — e.g. the novelty will wear off, the crowds will thin, etc. I remember being scared shitless by this piece of advice but our club experienced quite the opposite. Our overall attendance numbers were up (despite us having one fewer match on the schedule) and our biggest crowds were considerably larger than last year’s bigger crowds (and we hit our goal of 1000+ fans/game… twice!)



NUMBER MATCHES PLAYED 2016 2017

Home Matches — Regular Season 7 6

Home Matches — Playoffs 0 1

Home Matches — Total 7 7 Total Attendance 6,047 6,145 +2%

Average 755 878 +14%

Median 837 735 -14% Biggest Crowd 936 1,393 +33% (!!!)

Smallest Crowd 509 489 -4% ** attendance data does not include pre-season friendlys

Once we got going… we got going. Momentum is hard to start and the NPSL’s short season can make it feel like the party’s over just when it’s getting started.

If anything, my only complaint was that *just as we started hitting our stride* the season was over (and so you’ll read some of my thoughts on the importance of a longer NPSL season below). In short, if your club is pulling fans and selling merchandise, each match gets you closer to breakeven. But when the season ends, so does a big chunk of your revenue generating opportunities. This is why a lot of clubs will try to fill their pre-season / off-season with friendly matches (which is a tricky thing to do if you’re using college players and they can only play for your club if it doesn’t conflict with the NCAA calendar).

Said another way, you’ll spend a lot of money early in the season (gear, swag, fields) and you start to make it back with every match you play. The more matches you play, the more revenue you take in. Simple, yes. But it’s important when trying to understand how the short season can be both a blessing and a curse.

One more thing on attendance – this was the season we started to see fans traveling to our away matches. I didn’t keep a solid count this year (though I will next year) but 20+ fans when we played in Westchester and 50+ fans when we played in Brooklyn and 75+ fans who showed up in Boston… all to be topped by some 275+ people (!!) who traveled to NJ to our Regional Finals match … just read the description on the photo below:

TICKET SALES

We kept our ticket prices the same this year vs. last year… and we’re keeping them the same for 2018 too. That includes Season Tickets, which were (and will be) priced the same even though we played one fewer match in 2017 and we don’t yet know how many matches we’ll be playing in 2018 (the number of matches we play in 2018 could vary depending on new expansion teams and/or conference realignment).

Ticket Prices

Adult Season Ticket $40

Youth Season Ticket $25 Adult Game Day Ticket $8

Youth Game Day Ticket $5 (or only $2 if kid if wearing *anything*

soccer related)

Our ticket prices were designed so a family of four can attend for $20 ($8 + $8 + $2 + $2 = $20)

This is one of the many things I’m *really, really* proud of. One of the reasons we were inspired to start a club is that we knew families in the Hudson Valley had to drive 2 hours (!!) to NYC or NJ to bring their kids to see a high-level soccer match and ticket prices often aren’t cheap. I really feel that lowering the barrier for a family to enjoy a live soccer match – both ticket cost and proximity – is a big factor in turning families into fans.

Season Tickets Sold 2016 2017

Adult 120 182 +52%

Youth (12 and under) n/a 62

Total Season Tickets 120 244 +103% Started selling season tix on: Mar 28th Dec 12th

% season tix sold before first match n/a 78%

% season tix sold before Xmas n/a 54%

Also obvious, but the earlier you can sell your tickets the better. In 2016, we waited until we had our full schedule (late March) before we sold any season tickets to fans. In 2017, we started selling season tickets before we had the schedule (Dec 12) because our fans wanted to give them as holiday gifts, For 2018, we went even earlier and we had them on sale online the day after Thanksgiving (Nov 27). Oh, btw, Stockade FC Season Tickets make for great stocking stuffers! Click here to buy one! #SupportLocalSoccer

The breakdown of “game day ticket vs. season ticket” looks almost the same as it did last year. Digital tickets (Eventbrite) numbers are lower this year, but I don’t have a theory why.

Ticket Breakdown 2016 2017

Individual tickets (sold day-of at gate) 80% 80%

Season tickets (sold at gate & online) 12% 16%

Individual tix (sold online via Eventbrite) 8% 4%

100% 100% Ticket Breakdown (season tix & game day tickets)

Adults 70%

Kids 30%

It’s worth noting that less than 10% of attendance for any given is from comp tickets. This year we gave comp tickets to (a) press, (b) players family (4 tix max), (c) ballboys and ballgirls, (d) Radio Woodstock contest winners, (e) First Responder & Military Appreciation Nights. (Sidenote: This number does not include the 75+ Youth Season Tickets we donated to local youth orgs in Kingston – eg. Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, etc – an idea born when a Stockade fan decided to buy tickets specifically so he could donate them to local orgs. You can read more about this in the pre-season post. Thanks again Don!)

In addition to our “First Responder” and “Military Appreciation” nights, we also made a point to offer local communities the option to do a 50/50 raffle (aka: 50% to charity, 50% to raffle winner). We did 3 of these (MKO Foundation, CCE, KHS Marching Band — tap links to donate!) via kids carrying a bucket through the crowd collecting money and handing out tickets. Each raised a few hundred bucks for their respective cause. It’s a great way to give back to the community (as well as a great way to get non-soccer folks to come check out a match!)

As a closing note, I’d love to have some data on (a) number of unique fans that attended a match, (b) age ranges, (c) gender breakdown, and (d) which cities/towns people are coming from, but I don’t have any way of collecting this type of data right now. Last year we sent out a “fan survey”, but we had ~180 people respond so still that’s a small sample size (compared to our 6000+ total attendance numbers).

MERCHANDISE SALES

Similar to last year, merchandise continues to be a big revenue driver for our club. Without a club that people cared about — and without a crest that people wanted to proudly wear on their hearts and heads — we wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing. We sell merch online (24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year long) and at a merchandise table at Stockade FC events (game days, tryouts, friendly matches). Despite our online shop being open 365 days vs. the 14 “Stockade FC event” days we had, we sell a HUGE majority of our merchandise in person to fans:

Merchandise Sales by Channel

Online Store (Shopify) $5,730.74 18% (as of 10/4/2017)

Game Day Merch Table (Square) $25,395.00 80%

Retail stores in Kingston $360.00 2%

“Retail stores in Kingston” is new this year as we’ve met local shop owners in uptown Kingston who want to carry our swag in their storefronts (Thank you, Hamilton & Adams and Bop to Tottom!) I’d like to do more of this in 2018 (thought it can be tricky to track and keep everything in stock).

Our Stockade FC Merchandise Team holding down the fort at one of our home matches.

And here’s a look at what’s selling at our merchandise table during these 14 events (March thru July). Yes, there’s *a lot* of data here, but the point of sharing this all is to give other clubs a reference point to work from. (e.g. “if our club can pull crowds of ~1000 people, across 8 matches, what’s the ballpark number of hats/etc. we can expect to move?”).

In short, these are the numbers I wish I had in advance of our first season, so I hope and assume others will find them helpful too:

GAME DAY MERCH TABLE SALES (excluding tickets)

Men’s Tee 218 18%

Sticker 126 10%

Mini Ball 124 10%

Trucker Hat 122 10%

Women’s Tee 92 8%

Youth Tee 91 7%

Wool Cap 68 6%

Training Top 62 5%

International Tee — Arabic 59 5%

Pins 50 4%

Jersey — Away/Black 45 4%

Scarf 33 3%

Water Bottle 30 2%

Jersey — Home/White 22 2%

Laynard 22 2%

International Tee — Japanese 18 1%

Winter Hat 17 1%

Hoodie 15 1%

Kids Hat 3 0%

Total 1217 100%

That’s a lot of merch! And as you may have noticed, we had many more “items” to sell this year than last year (e.g. water bottles, lanyards, mini-balls). No surprise here, but if you make new items, people will buy them.

Personally, I was most interested in *what didn’t sell*. For example, we didn’t update our t-shirt designs or our scarf designs, and we re-used the same jerseys for both our 2016 and 2017 seasons… is that one of the main reasons our merch revenue was lower? Does not updating merchandise design affect sales? (Spoiler alert: Yes)

As you can see from the numbers below, this surely affected t-shirt sales (men’s, women’s and youth). Jersey sales were consistent, but then again we lowered the prices of the jerseys so that probably helped. Hat sales were up, but we were also better at keeping them in stock. The crazy jump in stickers is because we started selling them for $1 (vs. just giving them away). My gut is that new t-shirt designs will move more merchandise (this sounds so incredible obvious), so most likely we’ll try that next year.

Items Sold by Year 2016 2017

T-shirt 71% 49% -22%

Hats (Caps) 15% 24% +9%

Stickers 2% 15% +13%

Jerseys 8% 8% 0%

Scarves 4% 4% 0% * Limited to items that were sold in both seasons

The numbers above were just a subset of the items we had for sale in 2017 (I only compared this year’s numbers to items we sold last year). If you’re interested in the total merchandise breakdown for 2017, here you go:

Items Sold by Year 2017

T-shirt 39%

Hats (Caps) 16%

Stickers 10%

Mini Balls 10%

Jerseys 6%

Training Tops 5%

Pins 4%

Scarves 3%

Water Bottles 2%

Lanyard 2%

Winter Hats 1%

Hoodies 1%

Totals 100%

And here’s a deeper dive into just the t-shirt numbers. I don’t have any thesis or big thoughts here, just figured I’d share:

T-Shirts Sold by Type 2016 2017

Mens 47% 54% +7%

Womens 25% 23% -2%

Youth 28% 23% -5%

Total 100% 100%

If you’re just getting started with your club, you’ll prob find our “breakdown of sizes sold” helpful too (see: Post #2)

One last thing, we did offer two new t-shirt designs this year — the standard Stockade FC logo tee in an “International Edition” (with the text in either Japanese and Arabic). We sold these at a slight markup with the understanding that all proceeds would go to financing our future Youth Org efforts. Due to the sales of these shirts (both online and at game day) we now have a fund with $2300 reserved for our next Youth Clinic (or multi-day Youth Camp!) We’ll be doing a new “International Edition” tee in the spring… probably in Russian (!!) for the World Cup.

"International Edition" T-shirt Sales Sold Online Sold Game Day Total

Arabic 13 59 72

Japanese 27 18 45

All proceeds from our these “International Edition” tees goes towards funding our Youth Academy efforts.

For more of the backstory, just peep the description from our online store (hint, hint… buy one!)

Soccer is the biggest sport in the world, and one of our long term goals with the academy is to use the sport as a mechanism to expose kids to global geography, global economics, and global politics. We made a small batch of Japanese t-shirts in 2016 after someone in Japan bought a Stockade tee from our online store (“we’re huge in Japan!”). We chose Arabic for 2017 based the current political climate and the fact that Kingston, NY is a city that embodies that spirit of “wherever you’re from, you’re welcome here”.

Next, let’s look at some overall numbers. I didn’t have great tools at my disposal last year — we used PayPal’s iPad “point of sale” system and we only used it for credit card transactions — which also makes it hard for me to re-pull the numbers for 2016. This year we switched to Square’s point of sale and used it to track *everything* — cash and credit, merch and tickets — and it has made managing our game day transactions (and writing these blog posts) 1000x easier. (Disclaimer: I am an investor / shareholder in Square)

Going forward, these are some of the metrics I’ll be using to track the evolution of our merchandise sales year over year:

2016 2017

Total game day merch sold <TK TK> $21,808.00

Total game day # items sold n/a 1065

Total game day merch transactions n/a 703 Avg items sold/game n/a 133

Avg transactions per game n/a 88

Avg items per sale n/a 1.51

Average size per sale $28 $31

(aka: “basket size”) % fans who buy merc per game: 10% 11%

Merch revenue per fan per match: $3 $3.55

ADVICE: If you’re going to use Square (a) track everything (merch + tickets) (b) use it for everything (cash + credit), (c) make sure everything is organized and categorized in Square before your first sale (men’s vs. women’s, tees vs. hoodies, trucker hats vs. wool caps, etc). Trust me.

Individual game records 2016 2017 HOME — Total merch sales n/a $5,702 vs. Hartford (Playoffs)

HOME — Total items sold n/a 281

HOME — Total transactions n/a 193 AWAY — Total merch sales n/a $772 @ Clarkstown (Playoffs)

AWAY — Total items sold n/a 28

AWAY — Total transactions n/a 18

The take-away here from these last few data points? If you want to move merchandise, make the playoffs! I know our fans will support our club win or lose and rain or shine, but it’s hard to look at these numbers and say those two extra playoff matches weren’t a huge help to us this year in our quest to get breakeven.

Also worth noting that this season was the first season we sold merch at away games (see the chart above). Last year, I had a wee newborn baby (she literally went to her first Stockade game when she was 8 days old, btw) so I wasn’t able to travel to any of our away games. This season, I was able to make a few of the away games with my Tupperware swag box and iPad cash register in tow. I’d set these up in the back of my SUV (using my Verizon MiFi for internet) and sell swag before and after each match from the parking lot of the away fields. We didn’t make a fortune, but there’s something awesome about seeing up a merch table at an away game, especially when the home team doesn’t have a merch table of their own.

STREAMING VIDEO

Streaming continues to be an important part of the Stockade FC story — we know our story is being followed by people outside the Hudson Valley (and outside the USA!) and so streamed matches that are *enjoyable to watch* are a core part of our story. And this year, our rockstar team of tech-savvy volunteers has raised the bar for what it means to stream a 4th Division soccer game. Last year’s goals were about “consistency” — ”we gotta stream every match”. This year’s goals were around “professionalism” — let’s work in on-air graphics, color commentary and multiple cameras. The team officially outdid themselves when we had live video streaming from a drone during our Conference Championship match (for serious!)

Click the “play” button on the video just below and tell me this doesn’t look like a professional broadcast. Wow! Amazing job, everyone!

Sidenote: Drones are cool, but be respectful. The refs can’t have them flying over the field. Don’t fly them too close to the fans or the players. Give the refs a heads up if you’re using one. Give the police/security a heads up if you’re using one. Give the fans a heads up (over the PA system) if you’re using one. Follow these three rules and you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches.