Orlando City’s final USL Pro season came to a disheartening and disappointing end Saturday night as the eighth-seeded Harrisburg City Islanders upset the regular season champions and ended a long-standing home unbeaten streak that spans the entire 2013 season at Disney’s Wide World of Sports and much of the 2012 season at the Citrus Bowl. Orlando City is set to take a step up to the “majors” by joining Major League Soccer at the renovated Citrus Bowl.
It will be an exciting time for the city of Orlando as Magic season will roll right into the start of the first MLS campaign beginning in March.
With training camp coming up, as I have mentioned plenty of times before, many of the Magic players are already in town training together getting ready. Victor Oladipo, Kyle O’Quinn, Maurice Harkless, Elfrid Payton and Dewayne Dedmon were among the players given VIP status for Orlando City’s playoff game this weekend. They got their own Orlando City scarves and got to take in the game. It is the first time I am aware of that Magic players showed up en masse for Orlando’s soon-to-be second major sports franchise.
As Paul Tenorio of the Orlando Sentinel discovered, the big thing they took away was the charged atmosphere provided by the supporters’ sections and groups, namely the Ruckus and Iron Lion Firm:
"“Me and my teammates wanted to come out and support them,” said Oladipo, who grew up a soccer fan in the D.C. area but never played the sport. “[The atmosphere] is crazy. We need something like that at the Magic games definitely. Hopefully these fans can migrate over there to Amway [a few minutes] down the block.”“I didn’t know soccer was that big here,” O’Quinn said. “It makes you want to come back. When we walked in we said can we borrow [the supporters’ groups] at a Magic game? They’re non-stop. There’s a lot of energy over there. We wouldn’t mind having them at a Magic game one night.”"
Yes, Victor and Kyle, we have noticed too. As an editor’s note, I am an Orlando City season ticket holder and sit in the Supporter’s Section with the Ruckus.
There are a large amount of passionate soccer and sports fans in Orlando and they do bring the energy when the time calls for it. We remember how electric Orlando Arena was in the early 90s and how crazy Amway Arena was for the 2009 Finals run and the 2010 season. Boisterous fans are hiding in there somewhere.
I asked a few Ruckus members over the year about what the Magic would have to do to get that kind of support and get that kind of passion coming from the fans. There is, somewhat surprisingly, a bit of a rivalry between Orlando City fans and Magic fans . . . or something akin to a chip on their shoulder.
Soccer has that in general as a supposed “second-tier” sport in the American sports landscape. Although, if you listen to Orlando City co-owner Phil Rawlins tell it, MLS is second behind the NFL in terms of popularity with 18-32 year olds (or whatever demographic is used there). Even moreso than the NBA.
I spoke to someone with the Magic a few months ago, and there did not appear to be any worries from the Magic that Orlando City would eat into their ticket base. Nor should there be. In fact, with the way the seasons complement each other — the NBA runs from October to April, while MLS runs from March to November — there is no reason to think Orlando fans could not support both the Magic and the Lions (provided they have the necessary disposable income, of course).
Orlando City fans packed the Citrus Bowl and set a U.S. minor league attendance record at the 2013 USL-Pro championship game.
So what is preventing the Magic from having an atmosphere like we saw at the Citrus Bowl and at Disney the past three seasons with Orlando City? There are a few things:
First, the culture of soccer fandom is different than the culture of NBA fandom. NBA games cater a lot to corporate customers. It has become a place to be seen rather than to see games. It is this way around the league. That is why you see stadiums get built the way they do.
When I talked to Orlando City fans and the Ruckus specifically about getting their brand of passion to Magic games, it seemed the corporate nature and atmosphere of games turns them off. Many of these fans are going to be stuck up in the cavernous upper bowl where it can be difficult to be heard. The fans that are in the lower bowl are generally there to be seen and make it a social event rather than a sporting event. Maybe that is too much of a generalization. But consider stadium construction.
Orlando Arena’s bowl was built to get fans on top of the court and create an intimate experience for passionate fans in the lower bowl. Amway Center was built to accommodate corporate suites and high-rollers in the lower bowl. Ever since moving to Amway Center, the Magic have struggled to get fans back to their seats after halftime. The lower bowl is often deserted when you look on TV.
The upper bowl though? It is relatively full. At least as full as it can be considering point number two.
Yes, ultimately people come when the team is winning. The Magic are struggling attendance-wise right now because there is not a whole lot to cheer about. Orlando City had a passionate fan base built in that helped make some major headway for attendance entering their first season, but the team was also a winner. And not just a winner, but a dominant winner. It helped make things that much easier to lead USL-Pro in attendance at the Citrus Bowl.
Then again, you do not set a minor league sports attendance record without a little something extra there too.
Orlando City is still relatively new. Certainly the move up to MLS will make attendance at the Citrus Bowl next year look pretty good too (and the move to the soccer-specific stadium in 2016 will be good too no matter what the team’s record looks like). Magic fans have had 20 years of the ups and downs of building and rebuilding. There are plenty of jaded basketball fans who are not quite sure what the Magic are doing — dating back even to the John Gabriel days. They just need a reason to believe.
There is hope though.
When Tobias Harris finished off the Thunder in February, Amway Center was plenty loud.
The 23-win Magic got 19 wins at home last year. When they defeated the Thunder and the Pacers, Amway Center was rocking like it was a playoff team and a playoff game. Some of the playoff games at Amway Center have been very loud. Magic fans have risen to the occasion.
There is also a growing trend around the league for college basketball-style cheering sections. Milwaukee has a vocal cheering section that has added to the atmosphere at BMO Harris Bradley Center. And they show up every game for that team.
Magic fans likely remember seeing the boisterous Hawks cheering section carrying Kryptonite signs at Philips Arena during the 2012 Playoffs. A large group of Hawks fans actually traveled south to Orlando for a game earlier this season, making a ton of noise in the upper bowl.
Roy Hibbert also sponsors “Area 55” at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. These loud cheering sections do exist.
And the thing about them is that when you have a group consistently making noise and cheering passionately, it spreads.
If there were an official or unofficial Orlando City night at a Magic game and the supporter’s sections arranged to have a cheering section for the Magic, it would not be surprising to see that passion spread throughout the stadium. It also would not be surprising to see it become consistent if the Magic set aside a section, like these other NBA teams do and like Orlando City does, for supporters looking for this experience.
There definitely seems to be a market for it. And fans want to be involved in the game. That is what makes soccer, college football and basketball really great viewing experiences. As teams fight against the power of the DVR and the comforts of watching in high definition, this could be an avenue to draw fans to the games.
The Magic can certainly create a much more energetic fan experience. Maybe someday soon — as the team continues its rise, not just when it is at the top — Magic fans will see something resembling the supporting groups at Orlando City games. It will never be the same — the cultures of MLS and NBA are too different. But it certainly would be nice to inject some life into Amway Center on a consistent basis.