The conditions couldn’t have been better for D.C. United last weekend.
The weather was perfect. After a Memorial Day week of haze and heat, a band of rain overnight Friday ushered in cooler, drier weather, making for near-perfect conditions for a Saturday evening at RFK Stadium.
The home team didn’t disappoint, satisfying nearly 23,000 fans, United’s biggest crowd since opening day, with a win over vaunted MLS Eastern Conference rival New England.
The victory improved D.C.’s franchise-best start to 7-1-3. In any other year, United would easily be the biggest story in American soccer. But on Friday, the spotlight D.C. has worked so hard to earn will be conveniently stolen away by the 2006 World Cup.
“It’s the world’s greatest sporting event and it’s something that is of increasing importance in the United States, so there’s no question that it will diminish somewhat from what we do,” said D.C. United president Kevin Payne.
Beginning Friday and for the next 30 days afterward, soccer fans will turn their attention to 62 games in Germany. Meanwhile, D.C. United has its busiest stretch of the season with six games during the same stretch.
United also currently owns the best record in Major League Soccer, but MLS coverage over the next month may be relegated to an afterthought, replaced by results of Togo versus Switzerland.
“The world cup brings additional attention to soccer in general. I think D.C. United and MLS benefit from that by and large,” said D.C. United spokesman Doug Hicks. But the team’s front office remains wary of the media’s historical treatment of soccer.
“There are still a lot of ways in the which the media exhibit a strange sort of bias regarding soccer,” said Payne. “One of those ways is to assume that a page of coverage on the World Cup is somehow the same as the coverage of Washington, D.C.’s most successful professional sports team. And they’re not the same.”
D.C. has fared well attendance-wise during World Cups in 1998 and 2002, drawing 23,631 and 18,854, respectively, for home games against the Los Angeles Galaxy.
“In our market, our fans have remained our fans,” said Payne, who doesn’t have any specific marketing plans to attract extra attention this time around. “It doesn’t really matter if there’s another soccer tournament going on.”
With Freddy Adu on the roster and a home in a city with a substantial international media presence, United also has advantages smaller market teams don’t enjoy.
Payne obviously has high hopes for the U.S. team, knowing United will reap the rewards if it fares well. It’s the harmful repercussions, should the U.S. crash out in the first round, that both MLS and D.C. United want to avoid.
“As our fan base matures, we have to get to a point where there’s a positive response if our team does well,” said Payne. “But there’s not necessarily a negative response on the domestic league if the team doesn’t do well.”
Record start
» With one third of the 2006 complete, D.C. United (7-1-3) is on pace to finish with the best record in the team’s 11-year history. United finished 24-8 in 1998 and 23-9 in 1999.
» D.C. United went 3-1 in games during the 1998 World Cup. United reached the MLS Cup final that season, where it lost, 2-0, to the Chicago Fire, which was captained by Peter Nowak.
» United went 3-1-1 during the 2002 World Cup, including a 0-0 tie in an exhibition match against Argentina’s Boca Juniors.
