future considerations survey

i am quite fond of the new england revolution. as a sport, soccer (generally i refer to it as football, but as we are speaking of major league soccer, i will go ahead and call it soccer) is something that is a big part of me, as cheesy as it is to admit such a thing. i watch gol tv and the fox soccer channel incessantly. when i was younger i'd get up early to watch english premier league highlights on tv, and i read magazines and i followed mls on tv when it began- the tab ramos, marco etcheverry, roy lassiter mls with the green and blue mitre ball. i remember the revolution as walter zenga and ted chronopolous and alexei lalas and joe-max moore's team. and now it is andy dorman's team, and khano smith's team, and taylor twellman's team, and jose abundis's team, and so on, and i love it. when they are hot, they are honestly one of the more exciting clubs around and i am proud to be a fan.

the fort, the standing section of gilette stadium wherein cats chant and sing obscene songs and act like a proper fuckin' football crowd, is wonderful, and is the best place to watch sports in all of new england. it is where i stand when i go see the revolution. the people who are there regularly are extremely knowledgeable, passionate, and really quite entertaining. i find their company to be fantastic. we sing about how we are members of nicol's army and how the referee, after a particularly egregious error in his job, is unaware as to who his father is. players run to us after goals. want matt reis acknowledges us before he goes out and doesn't concede any goals (mls's best goalkeeper this season in gaa. you listening, mls awards voting panel cats?). i call opposing goalkeepers eunuchs. it is a euphoric place to be for a couple of hours.

and yet, i have been deciding as to whether or not i want to become a new england revolution season ticket holder for next season. it seems like it should be a no brainer considering how much i enjoy being there, but in actuality i am not very sure as to whether or not i want to go through with it. there are a lot of patriots-related rumors suggesting that there will be fieldturf on the pitch at gilette next season, which would be heartbreaking. there would no longer be us national team matches there (which is a part of why i want to become a sth) and it'd be tricky trying to get other players to want to play for new england. deuce is definitely leaving, and that money could be used to bring someone back in who is of some consequence, but the fact is that playing on turf won't be appealing to anyone outside of the us or norway, really. and let's face it, there are not so many players in mls right now who could replace clint dempsey.

there's a lot of talk on the internerd about how the kraft family does not care at all about the new england revolution and, frankly, i don't really blame them. it sucks, but the team is not a great moneymaking venture and although that group has done next to nothing to improve their standing in that regard, there is really no mls team that could stand up to the moneymaking juggernaut that is the new england patriots. i have no reason to want to support the kraft family, and throwing down the money for season tickets is going to do exactly that. i do not want to spend money to see a team that is boring, and that plays on fake grass that makes the game play like ping pong, and i do not want to be a part of a crowd that is not even worth the time of the management team.

becoming a season ticket holder requires a lot of the sort of commitment that worries me. the $220 is not a big deal, although you have to add in gas considering there is an hour+ drive each way to the stadium. there is the need to take off quite a lot of time from work (about 13 or 14 nights off and a few full saturdays), there is the likeliness that more than once i will have to go alone. there are a lot of little real world problems with doing this that get obscured by the way i look at everything as the ideal situation.

so, readers, should i throw down $220 to become a new england revolution season ticket holder for 2007?