Thursday, May 22, 2008

Sons of Ben to get their own stadium section on the Chester Waterfront

There's been little going on on the surface of MLS Philadelphia - but as you can tell from this update from the Philadelphia Daily News' John Smallwood...there's a lot going on underneath.

A couple weeks ago, MLS Philadelphia hired their first two executives - Dave Debusschere as Chief Financial Officer and Rob Smith as Director of Operations. Debusschere joins from PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Smith is the longtime FC Delco director. FC Delco is one of the premier youth programs in the company and being a longtime coach of the game, Smith is a perfect choice for this job. If there is someway MLS Philly can incorporate FC Delco into their youth academy and development programs, we will already be caught up tremendously in terms of producing and fostering soccer talent.

Smallwood gave us a couple tidbits today...

- season ticket sales are above 4,500, over 23% of the desired capacity - 23 months before the home opener
- construction on the stadium will break ground in the fall - a mere 3-4 months away
- the SONS OF BEN will get their own special section and possibly entrance to the Chester Waterfront Stadium according to Dave Mosca, the senior VP of Corporate Partnerships
- the brand, logo, etc. will be unveiled by the end of the year