Financial Stability goals stated in 2014:
1. Stadium Sponsor
2. Jersey Sponsor
3. 10000 Season Tickets
Results:
2013 – 7000 Season Ticket Holders ; an increase of 2,700 from prior year; 3 of top 6 best ticket sellers in MLS were Crew employees, sales staff is 7th out of 19 MLS teams – Columbus Business First in March & then Anthony Precourt in July.
2014 – 1000 New Season Ticket Holders – Andy Loughnane in Columbus Dispatch.
2015 – 1000 New Season Ticket Holders, Mapfre Insurance Sponsors the stadium, Cut the entire Spanish Language Outreach program – Andy Loughnane in Sports Business Daily, Grant Wahl 2016 MLS Ambition Rankings & @espnino74.
2016 – 1500 Project New Season Ticket Holders with Two USMNT World Cup Qualifiers vs Guatemala and Mexico as the lure and added 5 employees in Academy and First-Team Staff, waiting list for season tickets. Grant Wahl 2016 MLS Ambition Rankings, Columbus Crew SC web site.
2017 – Acura is new record setting Jersey Sponsor, increased sponsors by $1.5 million which does not appear to include Acura, cut front office staff by 5 positions, zeroed out marketing budget, cut promotions to a minimum, waiting list again for season tickets, had worst MLS home schedule of any team in last 5 years.
2017 Grant Wahl MLS Ambition Rankings, Matt Lampson World of Bone podcast, Columbus Crew SC web site, @timmyers15 report.
Final Conclusion: All 3 business goals were met before the start of 2017 season, yet business metrics failure was declared in October 2017