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My First Two Weeks At The Chicago Red Stars, Women’s Professional Soccer Team
By Amanda | July 16, 2008
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The Chicago Red Stars front office is located at Toyota Park. Our paint-job is currently in progress, but you can see that we’re going BOLD. Shortly, we’ll add big red stars on the outside, and our web address across the top of the building.
The last two weeks have been super-busy here at Chicago Red Stars. Here’s a look at what’s been going on since I started on July 1st.
We put the pedal to the medal right away - Jeff Roth, our AWESOME Marketing Director who started on the same day as me, and I started drafting the team’s marketing plan. It’s been exciting to write a plan that combines social media marketing and online technology with traditional marketing and grassroots efforts. Every person within this organization has so many innovative ideas, such an incredibly strong background, and so much quality experience it’s extremely inspiring. I’m excited to see this team develop. We’re just as energized as our fans and supporters about getting players!
Carrie Sear, Alyse LaHue and Kait Sawyer greet visitors when they walk in the front door at the Chicago Red Stars office.
Last weekend, our interns and marketing executives played in a Saturday/Sunday Chicago Street Soccer tournament. I went on Sunday to cheer our team on… they were in a solid position to win. There were some really great teams in the women’s division so the Red Stars Front Office team didn’t go through based on point differential. However, it was an awesome opportunity for us to spread the message about WPS and the team. There were probably about 500 soccer-enthusiasts there, all extremely receptive to WPS, men and women alike. We bulked up the email list too which was great. If you’d like to receive the Chicago Red Stars Email Insider, click here and sign up in the third box down on the right (we don’t spam nor will we sell your email address to anybody, ever).
I’ve been to two Chicago Fire home games since I moved here. The Red Stars have a Suite at Toyota Park and we invite people to join us all the time. The last match against Toronto was great and we scored in the final minute - Go Fire!!!
Everybody on staff wears their Chicago Red Stars t-shirts to events. When we went to the Section 8 part of the parking lot we felt like mini-celebrities (Just wait until the players arrive!!!). Everybody wanted to know about the team, when we’re starting, who our players are… and of course where they could get a t-shirt. It was great to feel so much support from the Fire’s die-hard fans.
On Sunday, July 14th, Emma Hayes was virtually Skyped into the Gameworks viewing party from Dicks Sporting Goods Park in Denver.
This past weekend we had a couple of events. We sent a team to the Windy City Rollers match on Saturday where they smashed the Tucson (my home town) Saddletramps. We also hosted a viewing party at Gameworks out in the suburbs. There were about 120+ people there - mostly families - to watch the USA take on Brazil at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Denver. Before the game, Peter “I Sell Tickets” Wilt introduced the team and the staff with the flash video and a brief hello. Marcia talked about the team and the current status of allocations, drafts, and tryouts. At halftime, we Skype’d Emma in over a huge screen. (Emma was at the game in Denver watching the game.) People in the audience drafted questions and Marcia led the discussion via microphone. It was awesome! Of course, the big question on everybody’s mind was, “Which player do you want the most in Chicago?”
Ops and Community Relations Director Amber Simons and Chris Buczkowski are hard at work planning the Beach Soccer Event with Leslie Osborne next weekend.
We’ve also been selling tickets, selling tickets, selling tickets! It’s been going really great so far and our numbers are growing every day. Our Director of Ticket sales, Greg, was born for this job - he’s INCREDIBLE. We have an internal campaign right now to sell seats for charity (we’ll be going public with this very soon, but you’re getting the inside scoop right here at Soccer Science) to help send a child (who may not be able to attend a professional sporting event otherwise due to financial concerns or otherwise) to every game next season - quick math… one ticket to every game + 12 games = 12 kids! If you’re interested, just send me an email at avandervort@chicagoredstars.com and be one of the first to donate.
Tomorrow, our staff and street team will be at the Chicago Bandits game vs. the Philadelphia Force. Chicago Bandits are the women’s professional softball team here - you might know their infamous Olympic pitcher, Jenny Finch.
Next weekend Chicago Red Stars Front Office Team will participate in Chicago Beach Soccer at Montrose Beach. Leslie Osborne will be joining us at 10am on Saturday, July 26th, so if you’re in Chicagoland reading this post be sure to stop by. And if you have a second, check out Leslie’s website, it’s really cool.
I caught Emma and Marcia a little off-guard in the conference room planning their trip to the Olympics in China. We’re currently working on building their China-blog.
Between writing the Chicago Red Stars Facebook page and the MySpace page (c’mon, friend us!!!), we’ve been working with the League on our website and social media platform… more to follow on all of this.
Chicago Red Stars is truly positioned to be a successful franchise and a leader in the League - I’m so excited to be here! Today we have another USA vs. Brazil viewing party at a restaurant downtown called Fodo Irish Pub. It’ll be a different crowd than Gameworks, with more 21+ people out for a fun social night out and some great soccer. We’re all excited to hang out with the Red Stars supporters and we’re expecting a pretty big crowd. Go USA!
Wow! All of this in just two weeks… I’ll be sure to keep you posted on the work we’re doing here at the Chicago Red Stars. You can also check out Peter’s blog at http://chicagoprowomenssoccer.blogspot.com as he updates frequently. More than anything, these first two weeks are have been a whirlwind indication that we all share a unique dedication, commitment, energy and enthusiasm for Women’s Professional Soccer. Bring on the allocation, we can’t wait to meet our team!
Topics: Emma Hayes, Women's Soccer |
July 17th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Amanda:
Wow - you guys are really moving forward fast. Keep up the good work. I know your team will be the league’s finest.
July 17th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Thanks Scott!
July 18th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Why oh why is my hand so close to the dunkin’ donuts box?! GUILTY!