Come for free, fan forever? How Sounders' ticket gamble is filling seats ahead of Club World Cup - Yahoo Sports
In a time of great change, how do you appeal to new fans? If you’re the Seattle Sounders FC, you let them come for free.
The Sounders are at a turning point. The arrival of the FIFA Club World Cup, which the Sounders are participating in and hosting, offers a chance to revitalize the team after years of declining attendance (despite the pay-based controversy surrounding it). And next summer, Seattle will also be a host city for the 2026 World Cup, another huge opportunity to tap into the soccer craze.
And the club is tapping in: In February, the Sounders announced their First Match On Us promotion, a unique approach to bringing in new fans. It offers free tickets — no payment, no fees, no putting in your credit card so they can charge you later — to those who have never been to a Sounders match before.
In an interview with Yahoo Sports, Ashley Fosberg, the Sounders' chief impact and fan engagement officer, said that making the tickets completely free was the core of the promotion.
“We didn’t want to have any barriers. If ‘it’s free, but,’ or ‘it’s not free, come try us and pay a little bit,’ it doesn’t have the same resonance, it doesn’t draw,” Fosberg said. “We want them to come sample us.”
But at the same time, Fosberg said, they wanted the promotion to come with “no expectations.”
“We’re really clear about that. We didn’t want it to come with any conditions,” she added.
Kaitlin Bailey, the Sounders’ vice president of business strategy and analytics, told Yahoo Sports that it was something of an investment in future fans.
“When we were looking at the build of the program, we really wanted ‘free’ to mean ‘free,’” Bailey said. “It’s a cost we were willing to incur as a club, in our commitment to growing the sport in Seattle, and our commitment to the belief that if you come experience it, you’ll come back.”
Though it’s still relatively early, both Fosberg and Bailey said that the program has been a great success so far. Starting with the team’s game on March 22, around 1,000 new fans have come to each of the Sounders’ home matches through the First Match on Us program. The club also exceeded its goal of 10,000 RSVPs within the first month of the season.
(Notably, the promotion might be catching on throughout MLS: On Thursday, Nashville SC announced a very similar program, “Locals Only,” that allows local residents to attend their first match free of charge.)
For the Sounders, it’s an investment that the club is willing to make moving forward as well: Bailey said that the club has committed to continuing the program through 2026.
“It was sort of our commitment, both to our [season ticket] members and to the sport, to have this entry point,” Bailey said. “We really believe that if you come and feel what the energy of a Sounders matchday is, that you’re gonna fall in love with it.”
Seattle Sounders FC fans cheers during the MLS match against the San Diego FC at Lumen Field on May 28, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Soobum Im/Getty Images) (Soobum Im via Getty Images)'A massive opportunity for growth'
Heading into the next two summers, Seattle is in an incredibly unique position. The Sounders are one of three MLS teams participating in the Club World Cup, and one of only two (along with Inter Miami) that is also hosting the club’s matches. Seattle and Miami are both host cities for the 2026 World Cup, too.
“It’s an opportunity right in our lap,” Fosberg said.
These two major summers come at an opportune time for the Sounders, who are trying to rebuild their fan base amid declining attendance. For nearly a decade, Seattle boasted the best attendance in MLS: Average attendance peaked in the 40,000s throughout the 2010s, a span when the Sounders won the MLS Supporters’ Shield and two MLS Cups.
But after the COVID-19 pandemic, those numbers started to slip. Last season, the Sounders’ average attendance dropped to 30,754, per Sports Business Journal — still larger than most teams in MLS, but a notable difference from a decade ago. In Seattle’s Lumen Field, a stadium that also hosts the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and can hold up to 68,740 fans, that shrinking crowd can look especially stark.
“We have a challenge: We play in an NFL stadium. And we want to make sure that the atmosphere is electric still,” Bailey said. “So we saw this as an opportunity both to show the accessibility of the game, and also bring back the experience that we had when we first entered the league.”
The club held focus groups with season-ticket holders, per Bailey. From those sessions, the Sounders determined that fans wanted to refill the stadiums, while also providing an entry point for new fans.
The Club World Cup will serve as part of that opportunity, though the Sounders aren’t projected to make it past the group stage. Bailey admitted that the Sounders don’t have a lot of control over the tournament and that FIFA was running ticket sales, among other things. (In the week leading up to the first game in Seattle, FIFA has closed multiple sections and offered partial refunds to some ticket holders.)
As a result, Bailey clarified that the club isn’t thinking of those two tournaments as the end point of this promotion.
“I don’t think that we looked at this program as the roadmap with the finish line as Club World Cup, or World Cup,” Bailey said. “By opening the aperture a bit to reach more fans during these key moments is vitally important for the business, but also I think that the markers of Club World Cup and World Cup weren’t the basis of doing the program.”
But both Fosberg and Bailey noted that the timing was also important, as the World Cup often works as an entry point into an interest in soccer as a whole.
“We know that viewership, ticket sales, attendance go up in World Cup years. People get addicted to the sport,” Fosberg said. “Whether it be on TV, or they [are] at a neighborhood watch party, at a pub watch party, or if they’re lucky enough to go to a match, you can’t help but experience soccer in the global fever of soccer during a World Cup year. So that is our responsibility to make sure that translates to the local team.
“I know that all MLS teams have the same mindset: It’s a moment to capture, to just share and grow the love of the sport,” she added.
Seattle Sounders wave to fans after the MLS match between the Seattle Sounders and the St. Louis City at Lumen Field on May 03, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Ryan Sun/Getty Images) (Ryan Sun via Getty Images)'A very diverse and varied group'
There hasn’t been quite enough time to do a full analysis, but Fosberg and Bailey said that they have an idea of who’s taking advantage of the promotion.
“Visually, anecdotally, it’s all over the board. Young, old, kids, no kids, groups, singles,” Fosberg said. “It’s a very diverse and varied group, which is exactly perfect for soccer.”
That was apparent in speaking to First Match On Us fans at the Sounders’ match against San Diego FC on May 28. The fans, marked by their green and black scarves (given out for free as part of the promotion), were everywhere on the concourse, scattered throughout the crowd at the unseasonably warm, oddly early 5:30 p.m. match. And they all had different reasons for being there.
Some fans were longtime Seattle residents, others new to the city, and even some who were visiting for the week. Some were soccer fans, but were loyal to other teams; some played soccer, some didn’t care much for the sport at all. Some were Sounders fans, but hadn’t seen the games in person.
There were people of all ages, including teenagers, and kids there with their parents. They heard about the promotion through TikTok, Instagram, club emails, billboards. (A few had already been to Sounders games, but on another person’s ticket, so their name did not get flagged in the club’s system as a repeat attendee.)
One couple, Andrea and Kevin S., who asked that their last name not be used, took the tickets as part of a larger quest to try out events in the Seattle area. Andrea, a recent transplant, said she wanted to do “all the experiences” the city had to offer.
“The fact that it was a complimentary ticket was enticing,” Andrea said.
Several of them wanted to see lots of goals, or a Sounders win. (Seattle would go on to beat San Diego, 1-0.) But most just wanted to be there to test out, in the words of one fan, “the stadium’s energy.” And, of course, because it was free.
“We’re always looking for a good deal,” said Carly Hanson, a fan on the concourse with her boyfriend Kyle Sneddon.
Scarves up by Seattle Sounders fans at the start of an MLS match between the Seattle Sounders FC and Nashville SC on April 19, 2025 at Lumen Field in Seattle, WA. (Photo by Jeff Halstead/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) (Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)The matchday experience
In addition to the idea of First Match On Us, it turned into a larger conversation about creating a matchday experience for a new attendee.
“We wanted to seize the moment that we’re in,” Fosberg said. “We knew that we had room to grow, and so the idea was generated out of that. It was sort of a what-if moment: What if we invited people who had never been before to come try us out? And what if we hosted them? And what kind of experience would we want them to have, and how can we engage them in ultimately being a Sounders fan and a soccer fan? So that was the origin story of First Match On Us.”
To make games more welcoming for new fans, the Sounders adjusted some key aspects of the in-game experience. A pregame video explains some of the basic rules of soccer. A ferry horn signals to fans when it’s time to take their seats. Text scrolls across the screen to tell fans when and what to yell.
When picking their tickets, fans get a chance to request their seats based on what’s available and what kind of game they are hoping for: a chance to sit (or, more realistically, stand) in the Emerald City Supporters’ section, a family-friendly seat, or any of the best available seating.
And then there’s the scarves, which are handed out to First Match On Us fans ahead of the game. Team scarves, a long-time soccer tradition that began in Europe, are a key part of any soccer fan base. The Sounders, like many teams, have a “scarves up” call at the beginning of the match; the free scarves allow new fans to participate without having to pay $35 for a new scarf.
“I think we really feel like this is a full fan journey to experience, and I think that’s maybe the differentiator, [rather] than throwing a ticket your way and hoping for the best,” Bailey said. “I think that’s what we’re most proud of.”
The hope with all of this is to send First Match On Us fans back out of the stadium with plans to return. Per Bailey, the Sounders’ goal is to help turn a first-time attendee into a fan with a few curated moves.
“There’s studies that say ways that drive fandom are: You attend a match, you buy a kit, you watch the team on TV, you know who some of the star players are. And so for us, we then can say, ‘Alright you’ve attended a match. What are some other indicators of fandom that we can help drive?’” Bailey said. “How can we get you to watch the next match, if it’s an away match? And so we’ve partnered with MLS Season Pass to offer a one-month free trial, so that you can continue to watch the team on TV. And then we are exploring merch discounts that follow as well.
“That’s sort of the next step in the journey, is ‘Yes, we want you to come back,’” she continued, “but also, ‘how do we continue to engage that fandom?’”
Seattle Sounders fans hold up their scarves before the game against the Los Angeles FC at Lumen Field on March 8, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images) (Steph Chambers via Getty Images)Success
It’s still relatively early in the process, but Fosberg and Bailey both say that the project has been a big success in a short period of time. With the MLS season just over halfway done, the Sounders have welcomed approximately 6,000 new fans across six home games.
“We’re really happy with how the market has responded — that there’s interest, that there’s engagement. This is exceeding expectations and giving us a lot of hope for how we continue to bring fans in,” Bailey said.
Fosberg said that, in addition to exceeding their goal for RSVPs, they’ve also had great success with the people who show up after claiming their tickets.
“When you give a comp ticket, sometimes you don’t expect as many as you give out to attend. In this case, we’re seeing 70-80% show rate, which is really high,” Fosberg said. “It’s reaching the right people, we’re actually communicating the right way to make sure they wanna come. So that’s really encouraging.”
The club plans to do more analysis and market research on the participants over the summer. Per Bailey, retention will be “a key metric” going forward — “not just who came in the building, but who came back,” she said.
Though the club is committed to running First Match On Us through 2026, Bailey hopes the promotion will continue to grow past that.
“We really are looking at it as just the beginning," Bailey said. "This is a multi-year commitment to grow the game."
