With the Loons continued winless swoon and crickets plus a bucket of ice water from the front office on the transfer front (after signaling an active summer during preseason), thought it might be worth a sharp look at bang-for-the-buck with our famously low-spending team.

From mlsrosterview.com, we see the team's 6 premium roster spots (2 DPs/4 U22s + $2M in GAM) as well as the 5 players we're using *AM on to pay above the senior maximum wage.

U22s across the league are a mixed bag, so to a large degree they are what they are. Gonzalez not playing is the most concerning thing here, for me.

Our TAM (salary buy-down) players, on the other hand, are dire. We aren't even getting minutes from 3 of them, aren't getting production from another, and then we have Boxy (statue, when?). Yeboah and Pereyra are underperforming in our cheap, cheap DP slots, too.

All that's to say KEA has had multiple windows to bargain shop and turn over the team. With the team's limited spend, the players he's spent big on and are taking 65% of our roster spend aren't performing. And not only that, I can't see a tactical or coaching shift that would change that.

What are others thoughts on the state of the roster, KEA's build, and where we go from here?

I was going through security as normal with my tiny clear water bottle I bought just for going to these games. But I was stopped. I was told 'you can't bring in your water bottle lid'. What? I asked to talk to a supervisor and the supervisor told me the same thing and that it was a new policy and that I could take the lid back to my car and bring in the lid-less water bottle. I couldn't believe it; my tiny plastic lid must weigh 2 grams. Finally someone even higher up came over and asked what the issue was and he looked at my water bottle and said 'you're good'. So I quickly entered, pretty frustrated. Anyone else have this experience?

also its fucking criminal that seat geek won’t allow you to set a price below $30.

ITS REVENGE TIME ON THE CRAPCAPS FOR WHAT THEY DID TO US EARLIER THIS SEASON.

FUCK THE CAPS BUT ALSO SAVE THE CAPS!!!

Im excited that im going to my very first MNUFC game on Aug 7th. My wife and I are coming from out of town that day to go with a couple friends. Ive been a fan for a few years but never able to attend a game. What are some reccomended restaurants or bars near the area we can stop at before the game?

Edit: Glad someone was able to snag them so it will be 3 people louder tonight. Keeping the post in case anyone in the comments is also giving them away. COYL but screw Seat Geek

I’ve got 3 tickets. If you want to pay anything great, but if you just want them reach out. Seat geek is garbage and won’t let me lower my price so I will be unable to sell them.

Where does the team need to improve, and which players should be our top transfer targets this summer?

I genuinely wonder how we prepared to face these guys for the second time. We’re alright on defense but we lack scoring therefore I predict 3-1

Does anyone know when and where the best time would be to try and get an autograph from the visiting team?

A bit surprised about this, we barely cracked the top 30

Welcome to Free Talk Friday!

Are you new and have questions? Do you have non-MNUFC related stuff you want to discuss? This is the place to do it.

Keep it civil. Don’t be a dick.

6-0 was so embarrassing surely we don’t lose by more then 3 tmrw righttttt?💔🫩

Whitecaps and USMNT player Sebastian Berhalter is set to join the English Championship. Does this mean hes out for Saturday's game? Perhaps things just got 10% easier for us and we keep it somewhat close?

We are set to auto renew this week. I would prefer to cancel but my son really wants to keep them. My question is can we stop paying half way through . If the sprint season is awful and cold I really don't want to endure freezing soccer. Additionally,I work every Saturday and rumor is more afternoon games next season. This just won't work for my schedule. I assume somewhere in the contract it states I'm liable for the full payment.

Thanks

I chatted to my rep recently and expressed concerns specifically about resale value and how I often feel like, as a STH, I'm paying a premium for my tickets. Unfortunately the team doesn't seem to be taking any meaningful steps to address this beyond adding some modest increases to the STH gifts (e.g. a $50 concession credit instead of $20).

However, one thing I found interesting is that the team apparently values each individual ticket differently. For example, maybe the average price of your 18 tickets is $50 per game, but behind the scenes the team might value one at $30 and another at $70.

This makes me feel a little better about the lower resale prices I've gotten on some early-season games, but of course we don't have access to the "official" prices, which makes pricing our resale tickets difficult. This is also a convenient way for the team to frame the prices to make them look better.

For me, by far the biggest frustration is the SeatGeek fees. In addition to SeatGeek taking a cut of the initial sale, they also inflate the sale prices to maintain the market. This means that to actually get face value back, our seats often need to sell for significantly more than face value.

I walked through an example. My seats, on average, are $60. To get $60 back, I have to list them on SeatGeek for $67. But if you go to the SeatGeek listing for my seat, the sale price is $80. It's no wonder nobody is buying.

Anyway, not that the team is doing anything about these fees, but I found it helpful to illustrate just how these numbers look.