Connect with us

Uncategorized

Orlando City Still Looking for Ways to Improve Stadium Challenges

Published

on

Whenever a new stadium opens, there are certain kinks to be worked out, and Orlando City has had its share. From long lines for the bathroom and concessions to entrance issues, the club has been working this season to find ways to improve the fan experience.

The club says that it is aware of the entrance problems and, while some are unavoidable, it has been working on solutions for others. It still wanted to give season ticket holders a card to use, at least for now. The club has also collected and examined data on how many people enter, when they enter, where they enter, and how they enter. This data has allowed the club to become aware of any problems and work to find solutions. It has also allowed the club to completely eliminate ticket fraud.

The Introduction of Paperless Ticketing

When the club joined MLS in 2015, playing at the 65,000-seat Camping World Stadium, Ticketmaster advised the club to use its new Presence system of mobile entry. The company has been looking to expand this new software, which is only being used in a handful of venues, including Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Orlando City was the first sports team — and at the time, the largest venue — to use Presence.

“We’re at a time where Ticketmaster is trying to move stadiums toward mobile entry,” a source at the club said. “But we’re probably a good two or three years from everybody being ready to use it.”

This isn’t Ticketmaster’s first attempt at getting rid of ticket stubs or print-at-home options. The company previously introduced a system of credit card entry, where fans would swipe a credit card at the gate, and an employee would print out a paper ticket with seating information.

“I feel like it’s getting better, but there’s still about 25 percent of the population that isn’t ready for it,” the source estimates.

Orlando City’s Problems with Mobile Entry

As expected, Orlando City has had its problems with mobile entry this season at its new stadium. One of the issues that has caused delays for fans is that more people are using mobile entry than expected, people are waiting to pull up their tickets at the gate, and people are arriving at the gate with unapproved items.

All 18,000 season ticket holders for Orlando City are issued cards that they can use to enter. When most of these season ticket holders wouldn’t attend games at Camping World Stadium, they would pass their cards off to friends and family members to use. However, that’s begun to change.

With the introduction of the Lion Nation app, entering using your mobile device has been made easier by the club. So rather than using a card to get in, many season ticket holders are selling their tickets, and more fans are using their mobile devices to enter the stadium.

“We thought there would be one-third to a quarter of fans using mobile entry because of how many used it before,” the source says. “But it’s 65%. We only have 4,000 to 5,000 using season ticket cards and the rest are using mobile entry.”

The club has touted its new mobile entry system since the beginning of the season as being an easier way to enter games for non-season ticket holders. This was based on data acquired over the past two seasons, but that hasn’t been the case. One of the club’s concerns is how long it takes people to pull up their tickets, as too few are doing it in advance.

“It should take each person between seven and nine seconds to get through the gate,” the source explains, estimating that it has been taking somewhere between 30 and 45 seconds. “That’s having a big impact on entrance delays.”

Fans arriving at the gate have often run out of data and have not saved their tickets to a digital wallet, something the club has tried to promote this season. When they arrive at the gate, they attempt to connect to the Wi-Fi. The problem has been one access point at each gate being used by fans, security, and entrance, so fans attempting to pull up tickets are having problems doing so.

For security purposes, Orlando City also introduced a new clear bag policy for the stadium, something that has been done at most stadiums around the country to keep fans safe. Unaware of this policy, many fans show up with bags that are too big or non-permitted items such as umbrellas. Attempting to figure out where to store these items has held up the lines at gates and become one of the largest issues with entry times.

Unavoidable Problems Still Exist

The club is searching for answers to some problems, but others will still exist. Any fans that attend a game will notice that certain doors are not being used for entry. “We wanted to open up more doors at the entrances,” the source says. “But the fire marshall informed us that we had to use a certain amount of our doors as emergency exits.”

That’s not the only impact the fire marshall has had. “If you go through Gate B,” the source continued, “you’ll notice the line wraps around the building. We wanted it to go straight out for more defined lines but the fire marshall told us that needed to be clear. The only gate where I like the way it enters is Gate D. But others are beyond our control.”

Despite these issues, the club is still looking for ways to alleviate the problem. They’re looking at taking out wire welded fences around the stadium in areas where more emergency exits can be used. “We still have to keep x amount of doors open for emergency exits. But we’re going to be working on changes this off-season to make things easier. This includes canopies over the entrances.”

Solutions

When Orlando City Stadium hosted the U.S. National Team’s World Cup qualifier against Panama recently, lines were longer than normal. Despite the stadium being run by U.S. Soccer that night, rather than Orlando City, the club took notice. That night, the club took back control near kickoff, to help things run smoother. However, the club noticed problems which it knew needed addressing.

New software for the Presence program is installed prior to each game, but that hasn’t solved the connection problems. So, last Friday Spectrum installed new access points at each gate, meaning that there are now multiple access points instead of one. Those access points were first used for the NWSL Championship Game and Orlando City’s final home game this season against the Columbus Crew this past weekend. While previously the only access point was on one wall, there will be access points on each wall and overhead.

According to a club source, they currently have 20 employees that are staffed with helping attendees with paperless ticketing. These employees are given special training on how to help fans with an aspect of stadium entrance. At games, these staff members hold purple mustache signs, asking if they can help.

Local businesses have offered up lockers as a revenue stream and to help the stadium alleviate some of the bag issues. Fans can use lockers at these businesses for a small fee. The first company to join in this partnership was the Yard Bar. Seeing the advantages, they were shortly followed by Flamingo’s Coffee Shop and Sy’s Supermarket, all located next to the stadium.

Looking Toward the Future

A club source says that mobile entry is moving toward a “tap-and-go” system using radio-frequency identification rather than scanning barcodes, which is something Ticketmaster is currently working on. Without having to individually scan everyone’s ticket, which can be a problem in direct sunlight, this new technology would allow much quicker ingress to the venue.

For some, entering Orlando City Stadium has been a frustrating experience at times. This is in large part due to an evolving system and user error, but also due to the newness of mobile ticketing. As the club continues to identify problems, it is confident it will be able to make entering the stadium easier for fans in order to improve the overall experience of attending an Orlando City game. For now, despite its issues, Orlando has the country’s premier soccer stadium, which will only get better in the coming years.

Uncategorized

Reflecting on Eight Years with The Mane Land

A look back over my time with The Mane Land (so far).

Published

on

Nick Leyva, The Mane Land

As of last week, I have been a contributor at The Mane Land for eight years. That’s longer than I’ve ever been at any of my actual jobs in my life. There are literally only a couple of people who have been with the site longer, but I’m still amazed at how long it’s been. This is not to say I’m going anywhere, but rather I wanted to take the opportunity to look back at the past eight years, and look ahead to the future.

Unlike some, I didn’t come to be a supporter of Orlando City until it was announced that the club was joining MLS. At the time, I was contemplating picking a club to follow in MLS, but being in Tallahassee, there were no nearby options at that time. I considered FC Dallas and D.C. United, given the two were geographically closer in proximity to me than any others. Fortunately, it was literally while I was considering my options that the announcement was made regarding Orlando City’s jump to MLS. It was an easy decision.

As I do in many aspects of my life, I immediately started researching my new club, which led me to the content being produced by The Mane Land. There was also an article on the site titled “Join The Mane Land Staff.” I had often over the years internally bemoaned that I rarely used my Bachelor’s degree in English, and the desire to write welled up in me so much that I emailed the staff. 

In response, one of our former editors, Andrew Marcinko, contacted me and said “I think your voice would be a great fit on TML.” He asked me to submit a Fan Post (those went away with our presence on SBN), and then another piece for review. Following that, our founder and managing editor, Michael Citro, emailed me to welcome me to the staff. I had no idea at the time how big a part of my life this blog would become.

I started out writing Monday’s Lions Links — often one of the more difficult days to write — and a feature piece. It’s been many years gone by now, but there was a time when the feature piece was “Pride Pub,” an ongoing series that paired craft beer and good food based on Orlando City’s opponent. I can tell you that the research for that was very enjoyable, and I still use some of the recipes I found to this day.

Eventually, I started contributing more match coverage and analytical pieces. Staff came and went, but I never thought to leave since I was enjoying myself. Sometime after that, I was promoted to senior columnist, for which I’m grateful. I can without reservation say that I’m a better writer thanks to my time with the site, and from working with such excellent staff.

In November of 2016, Michael asked if I wanted to give co-hosting The Mane Land PawedCast a try. My first recording was for Episode 71. We just recorded Episode 354, and with the exception of maybe two or three episodes, I have been on every single one of 283 episodes over the last six plus years. Michael and I have spent a lot of time talking on and off the podcast over the years, and I’m proud of what we have produced and to call him my friend.

We recently added an Orlando Pride-specific podcast called Skopurp: An Orlando Pride PawedCast. For years we wanted to give the Pride the time and attention the club deserves. Now, it is a reality, but one that I ask you to listen to and share. I’ll even put out that although Michael and I are the current hosts, we merely consider ourselves stewards and are hoping to get others to come onboard and eventually take it to the next level.

When I started with The Mane Land, the site had just made the move from a free WordPress site to the SBNation network. It was a big deal, and for many years it was a good partnership. Of course that all came to an end not too long ago, and our blog went the independent route thanks to the incredibly generous support of our readers and listeners. In fact, if you want to be one of those supporting our efforts, please go to our Buy Me A Coffee site to become a member. The move has allowed a flexibility we didn’t have before, but I really want others to have the same sense of joy and accomplishment that I have as a member of our staff. 

At one point we had nearly twice the staff that we do now, and as you know, many hands make light work. The opposite of that is also true. I genuinely believe that there must be others out there with the same passion for Orlando City as I have — with the same desire to have their voice heard, whether through the written word or on a podcast. I promise you there is an opportunity to contribute here with us. Our internal discussions are informative, engaging, and often funny. Please consider joining us, as I did eight years ago. I haven’t regretted it and I know you won’t either.

I want to thank all of those who contributed to The Mane Land over the years. There are many that I am still in touch with, though they are no longer a part of the staff. Of course, the current staff are a pleasure to work with, and I appreciate their dedication to what we are trying to do.

Finally, I want to thank the readers and listeners over the years. From those who regularly comment on our articles, to those that I’ve personally met at matches or even randomly on the street, you are a big reason that we do all of this. You are a big reason why I’ve been doing this for the better part of a decade. it is always a genuine pleasure hearing your thoughts or simply sharing a moment of joy together — U.S. Open Cup final, anyone?

So, thank you. I look forward to many more years of this journey together.

Continue Reading

Orlando City

The Mane Land Announces Membership Program

Maximize your Mane Land experience with our new TML membership program while supporting our independent efforts.

Published

on

Hello, readers of The Mane Land and listeners of our podcasts. Before you start reading this, please note that the most important part of this post is at the end. So, don’t stop until you get to the bottom.

You may recall that when we left SBNation to become independent, we really weren’t sure the best way to go about that. Many of our readers and listeners generously offered to help us make that transition, but we still weren’t sure the best path forward, so we took a poll.

The poll was pretty much split down the middle between those who preferred a one-time, Kickstarter-style campaign (which we did, and those of you who stepped up to help completely blew us away!) and those who favored a Patreon-style, subscription-based membership with extra perks. In fact, the member subscriptions option got a few more votes in our poll.

The folks who took part in our GoFundMe fundraiser were fantastic and are now immortalized on this very site on the “Our Founders” page. But we had always planned to give folks the option to choose whichever method of support they preferred and we tried to communicate that throughout the process. It took a little longer than expected to get up and running, but our membership subscription program is now in place! (You may notice the fancy new banner ad about it on the home page, echoed below.)

Supporting TML helps build a better TML for you to enjoy, so you’re really subscribing to your own Orlando soccer fandom.

Part of that delay was thinking up something that didn’t encroach on the benefits we gave our Founders. Those folks helped us get started and deserve the exclusivity of the perks they got. The other part of the delay is that there just aren’t enough hours in the day. (However, for you guys, I’m willing to be cloned.)

We have utilized the popular Buy Me a Coffee platform to run this program. You can find the basics here. The Mane Land premium membership program includes three tiers of membership, as well as the option to click on the “Support” tab for those who just want to help us out whenever, without joining the program or adding any recurring “appointment-based” payments to their budgets. We love that feature of Buy Me a Coffee (or “Buy Us a Beer” in our case…you drink what you like).

For those who do choose to become members, we hope we have provided value and we are planning to add benefits along the way, in addition to providing special giveaways, events, etc. (more on that below). We have also provided subscription options — with monthly or annual memberships. The annual cost essentially gives you 12 months for the price of 10.


Current Benefits

The current membership benefits depend on which level of support you choose — Homegrown Player, TAM Player, or Designated Player level. Each level includes all benefits from the lower tiers, with additional benefits for each higher level.

Homegrown Player: This is a basic set-it-and-forget-it level of support for The Mane Land, providing a way for our readers and podcast listeners to contribute to the success of TML‘s independence goals. We want to compensate our current volunteers, replace lost income of those who previously received small stipends from being part of the SBNation network, add photographers, attract new writers, and expand our coverage. Additionally, each Homegrown Player Level member will be recognized in a Lion Links column, which is still typically our most widely read post of each day and one of the top daily links columns among soccer sites. Homegrown Player Level members will also be included in any future prize drawings we have or events we host and may be subject to future benefits as they are added.

TAM Player: In addition to Homegrown Player benefits, TAM Players will receive a new weekly e-newsletter in their inbox (unless you opt out…some people hate email). These will be informal missives from myself, other TML writers, or a combination, discussing what’s on our mind regarding Orlando City, the Pride, OCB, or soccer in general. Think of it as an extra post from our site that may cover multiple topics. Additionally, you’ll get a 10% discount from our web shop items that we control (presently, that means everything except our listed MLS Shop items). We will definitely have more benefits coming for this level soon and will look for opportunities to include additional benefits as they become available.

Designated Player: This limited availability level of support includes all perks from the Homegrown and TAM levels, but it goes beyond. Your discount at our webshop (for items we control) will be 15% off. Additionally, we’ll send you Zoom links to watch us “make the doughnuts” whenever we record the podcast. This includes when we interview guests. You’ll see how the sausage is made behind the scenes and everything that we say, some of which will end up on the cutting room floor before the final podcast is sent out. This includes both The Mane Land PawedCast and SkoPurp Soccer: An Orlando Pride PawedCast. And after two months of membership you can commission a bonus episode of either podcast simply by letting us know what topic you want us to cover. Think of this as an extended Ask Us Anything. We’ll do a whole show about your topic and you can even join us to discuss it if you wish.

The DP Level will certainly have additional benefits tacked on as we move forward. It is currently limited to 40 members but could be expanded slightly depending on demand and our Zoom attendance.


Future Benefits / Benefits Under Consideration

While we won’t be able to schedule these due to the random nature of items falling into our hands, there will be periodic prize giveaways in drawings that include all of our members, regardless of level. The catch is that you get one entry per level of support, meaning Homegrown Player Level members will get one entry per prize drawing, TAM Player Level members will get two entries per drawing, and Designated Player Level members get three entries for prize drawings. Some of the kinds of items we have come across in the past include match tickets, trinkets, posters, scarves, and so on.

We are planning to add a message board to our website, well…soon-ish is the word that comes to mind. The plan for the message board is to build our community and further the discussion about the club. As part of this, we’re planning an exclusive, members-only area of that message board that TAM and DP members can access. This will be a place our staff can share informational nuggets we can’t necessarily write stories about for various reasons and interact with our members on a daily basis.

Other things in the works include meet-and-greets/watch parties where you can chat with TML staff members and catch a road match with a bunch of like-minded Orlando City/Pride fans while we all cheer on the team together. There may also be other informal outings with one or more members of the staff, organized fantasy leagues, random Zoom calls for Q&A sessions, and perhaps even some organized group outings for Orlando City / Pride matches, national team games, etc.


The Most Important Part of This Post

Remember at the top of this post, when I said the most important part is at the bottom? Well, that seems like a long time ago, now, so it’s OK if you’ve already forgotten.

The most important part of our membership program is you. We want your feedback so we can make this program something that interests and excites you. We want to know what you like and dislike about this program. We want to know if there are some things we didn’t think of that interest you. If you like what we’re offering, tell us! If you hate what we’re offering, we want to know what you’d prefer instead or in addition. If you want to go drinking with Dave, we can probably arrange that, but it’ll be a unique tier and we’ll have to figure out the cost of that.

No idea is too crazy to suggest, even if it’s too insane for us to actually offer. Let us know what you want from your subscription and we’ll see if that’s something we can do. We’ll make it easy for you by putting the form right here below this post, which is now concluded.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Welcome Home!

Published

on

Where do I even start? When we were told in January that SBNation was pulling its support of The Mane Land and other MLS and NHL blogs — and many podcasts — I was devastated. The site had become my new baby in September of 2014 and after eight and a half years, I wasn’t ready to let it go.

I was in a pickle. I couldn’t afford to lose the monthly stipend I had been getting from SBNation to manage the site and provide a steady stream of content. It wasn’t that it was a huge monthly sum, but it mostly covered my car payment. That car was purchased when my salary was higher. The pandemic hit my day job like it did to many, and after a four-month layoff, I got my old job back but not at the same rate. So, imagine taking a pay decrease at work and then, on top of that, losing the amount you spend per month on your car payment. There was simply no way to launch The Mane Land independently, I thought, because I simply couldn’t cover the startup costs. Even with some generous offers from the staff to pitch in, there simply wasn’t a way.

Once we took the news public, there was an outpouring of support on social media. We appreciated both the pledges to help out that we got from the community and the signal boosting that the national media gave blogs like ours. Those national folks rely on local reporting for background.

Encouraged by this outpouring of public support, I met with the TML staff and we threw some ideas around. We polled our Twitter followers to see how our community would prefer to show their support. We got pretty close to a 50/50 split between those who wanted to provide a one-time donation via a Kickstarter or GoFundMe crowdsourcing effort, and those who would prefer some sort of premium subscription add-on service like Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee.

We didn’t get a lot of responses to that poll, but we decided as a group that since the results were so similar, we would offer both and let the public choose one path, the other, or even both. (Stay tuned for news soon-ish on the premium subscription level, but rest assured, everything you’ve been getting for free at TML will remain free!)

I was, admittedly, skeptical that we could raise enough startup money to create a private business, pay for hosting a new site and two podcasts (having long wanted to give the Orlando Pride their own unique show), registering a domain, paying for some design work and consulting, and any unexpected expenses that might come up. However, I thought we’d at least give it a try.

Then the amazing Orlando City, Orlando Pride, and TML community got involved. You guys pushed us past our bare minimum goal in just four and a half hours when our fundraiser went live on March 1. We reset our goal and you met that by midnight. We reset our goal again, to the dream total we discussed on our initial staff Zoom chat and you met that by that first weekend.

Stunned. Humbled. Amazed. Touched. All of these words apply to how that made us feel, but they don’t quite cover it. I think we all felt an enormous responsibility, as well. We felt a mandate to provide you the best site and the best coverage we can.

We got everything we needed to run the site for two years, even if we don’t earn a penny after our launch — and we plan to try, via advertising, a Patreon (or similar) program, an online shop, affiliate links, and anything else we can think of. But we decided to leave the GoFundMe open through the end of March, just in case there were folks who wanted to contribute but needed to wait for payday, or if more people wanted to become founding members of this new site.

Now, here we are. You guys did this. We’re here because of you. And this site isn’t quite what it will become. I’m still learning my way around WordPress, after being away from it for years. There’s more to build, and some of the things you’re seeing on this site now will be improved in the future. We’ll continue to tweak it, add things, and upgrade as we go.

For now, I just want to welcome you to your new online home. On behalf of our entire staff, I thank our founding members, who are now immortalized on this site in our founders section. If you weren’t able to contribute to our transition from SBNation’s network to an autonomous and independent, new version of The Mane Land, you can thank the folks on our founders page, because without them, we wouldn’t be here. And if you still want to help out, we’ve got more things on the way.

Vamos.

Michael Citro
Managing Editor

Continue Reading

Trending