Last night, I got a call from Real Salt Lake

No, they're not planning on signing me as the solution to their goalscoring woes (Melvin Tarley's confidence must be lower than Paris Hilton's standards right now.)

After I organized the BlueSkySoccer.com 2nd Annual Minnesota Thunder Fans Awards Banquet, RSL felt that such an event was something that they would like to organize for their club. They wanted to ask me a few questions about how it went and how I went about organizing it. They said that they wanted their supporters group, The Loyalists to take over the event. As such, there were a few points that I made as clearly as I was able given that the discussion came after a 12½ hour day of work.

• Try to find a location that is suitable to the event. One that is amenable to drunk soccer fans and which will have enough space for them to comfortably speak to players and staff. A sponsor or a potential sponsor is a good place to start.


• Bring as many players as possible. In the USL, autographs are easy to get, but in the MLS, not so much (see my post, Small Fish, Small Pond) and the fan interaction is what makes these events work.


• further on that, give the supporter's goup as much reign as possible. While it might seem counterintuitive to make them do most of the work, if you want them to run it, you need to give them full ownership of the event. Help out wherever they ask for it, but let them do it the way they want. It's all about making the fans feel like they have a real ownership of the team.


• Put ads up (once the fans have figured it out) in the programs, on stadium PA announcements, in season ticket holder mailings, whatever you can to get the word out there. The more people who attend events like this, the more 'true' fans you'll get because these are the sorts of things that create a community feeling amongst fans and keeps people involved.

Probably very little of it will actually help them, but I think I made it pretty clear as to where my priorities lie.