That’s a question posed by the informative David Falk of the Seattle Examiner. Falk’s a Port Orchard resident who has covered pro and college soccer in the area since 1974. He’s also the webmaster of GOALSeattle.com and GOALKitsap.com.
In this post, he pointed out that the Tacoma Tides, defending Northwest Division champs of the Premier Development League, drew a few hundred fans for home games. The Kitsap Pumas, Tides and Seattle Wolves will be playing in the shadow of the MLS’s Sounders this season. Or will they? Maybe those clubs will benefit from the soccer craze being created across the pond.
The Pumas and Sounders schedule does NOT have any conflicts, so die-hard soccer fans will be able to attend the games of both teams if they wish.
It’ll be interesting to track the support of the local soccer community for the Pumas, one of just two professional teams in the PDL (the Vancouver Whitecaps Residency is the other).
Here’s the Pumas’ league schedule. I posed the following question once before and I’ll do it again. How many fans do you think the Pumas will average this season?
a. 3,000
b. 2,000
c. 1,000
d. 500 or less
I sure hope the best for the Pumas, but if they get anywhere near 2,000 they’ll be a roaring success. The national average for their league is under 500.