Team official foresees success for pro soccer in Phila.

At the Major League Soccer draft this month, there was a lot of talk about how the expansion Philadelphia Union had sold 9,000 season tickets, and some of the conversation went like this:

If those sales - sufficient to fill half the stadium - are the base for crowds of, say, 17,000 a game, then they represent a major accomplishment. If those 9,000 turn out to be most of the people who go to the games, then pro soccer is going to struggle in Philadelphia.

Again.

So what constitutes - and will constitute - ticket-sales success for the Union, now two months from their first game?

Start with this: Last year, average MLS attendance was 16,037, so anything higher would rank as better than middling. Only four of the 15 teams averaged more than 17,000, so anything better than that would embody top-of-the-league performance.

Union president Tom Veit is certain the team will sell out its new 18,500-seat stadium in Chester, basing his analysis on current sales, trends in ticket purchases, and the depth of the regional soccer market.

"I'm very confident we'll sell out, and could sell more if we had them," Veit said in an interview last week.

People who study how sports teams fill arenas tend to agree.

"To sell half the stadium's capacity two months before the inaugural game is extremely promising, especially in this economy," said New York lawyer Irwin Kishner, chair of the sports/entertainment group at Herrick, Feinstein L.L.P., which represents the New York Yankees and other teams.

Darryl Lehnus, director of the Center for Sports Sponsorship and Sales at Baylor University in Texas, said that "a 50-percent base of season tickets is very good," even if it went no further.

On Wednesday, the Union launched their seat-selection process for season-ticket buyers - a day the club had been working toward for months. During the next two weeks, fans who plunked down up to $1,100 for a 17-game package will pick their exact seats for the games.

Brad Youtz, a member of the Sons of Ben fan club, bought two $275 season tickets in what's called the supporters' section, where passionate fans will stand, sing, and chant.

"To be able to see soccer in person just beats the pants off of watching it on TV," he said.

Union executives are thinking hard about the disbursement of the remaining tickets, a discussion that leads Veit to conclude that a sellout is inevitable:

The team sells additional season tickets every day, the total now nearing 9,100, he said. The Union plan to cap those sales at 12,000.

That would leave 6,500 seats.

About 1,500 would be held for purchase by league officials, players, and sponsors. An additional 500 would go to fans of visiting teams. Maybe 1,000 more would be sold in partial-season packages, a move the club is still considering.

That would leave about 3,500 seats, a fraction of the demand expected from businesses, youth groups, soccer clubs, and fans who can't afford to attend every game.

Still, the Union will take the field amid a sour economy and slipping MLS attendance. Last year, regular-season attendance fell 2.6 percent.

Without the runaway success of the first-year Seattle Sounders, it would have dropped 9 percent. And several teams in key markets, including the New England Revolution, the New York Red Bulls, and the David-Beckham-led Los Angeles Galaxy, saw attendance plummet 21 percent.

But if Veit's assessment - shared by chief executive officer Nick Sakiewicz - is accurate, Philadelphia will become one of the league's three great successes. The others are the Sounders, who drew crowds of nearly 31,000 to a converted football stadium, and Toronto FC, which has sold out every game during its first three years.

Toronto offers the best comparison to Philadelphia: an expansion club entering a crowded sports market in a city where other soccer teams had failed.

In its first year, Toronto FC capped season-ticket sales at 14,000 - and sold them all. The next year, the team raised the number to 16,000 - and sold those. The third year followed form. Despite a mediocre won-lost record, the team is again on track to sell out 20,000-seat BMO Field in 2010. The waiting list for season tickets stands at 17,000.

"There's not a lot of magic to what we did," said Paul Beirne, Toronto's senior director of business operations. "We tried to fish where the fish were, and I believe the Union is doing the same thing."

Toronto executives aimed at the soccer community, reaching into Irish pubs and Italian cafés to connect with fans. They pursued grassroots marketing on Internet sites, a campaign that's become standard operation.

Beirne said that in January 2007, as Toronto prepared for its first season, it had sold about 9,000 season tickets. The Union, in the January of its first year, have sold the same. And they have sold them to fans for whom the team has existed mostly as an idea.

Philadelphia was awarded a team in February 2008, but the club didn't have a name, crest, or colors until May 2009. The stadium is still under construction.

During his career, Veit has handled marketing for the Tampa Bay Storm of the Arena Football League, the Orlando Rage of the XFL, and the Tampa Bay Mutiny of MLS. The Mutiny struggled, and he did anything and everything to lure fans.

"Dancing chickens, Village People concerts. I was just trying to get people to walk through the gate," Veit said, adding that Philadelphia was different. "Our fans don't want dancing chickens. They want quality football."

The big push starts now, he said, as the Union strive to build a fan base, not merely a group of ticket-buyers, knowing that the people in the stands are a subset of those who follow the team.

"I believe soccer has found its time," Veit said. "We take nothing for granted, but we're successful today. We have to do a lot more work to be successful tomorrow."

For Philadelphia Union updates, photos, and videos, go to www.philly.com/soccerEndText