Vancouver Whitecaps promise accountability, improvement on eve of season

by Nathan Caddell on February 29th, 2020 at 4:06 PM

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You could literally see various Vancouver Whitecaps front office staffers squirming as newly minted CEO Mark Pannes decided, in spur of the moment fashion, to release season ticket renewal numbers to assembled media at BC Place on the eve of the team’s 2020 season.

It was a rare moment in the often closed-lips world of professional sports, but Pannes’ honesty was refreshing. “Season ticket sales are down, relative to where we’ve been at our peak” he said, acknowledging that the team’s place at the bottom of the Western Conference last year likely didn’t help matters. “Do we think we’re a better organization than a last placed organisation? We absolutely do.”

Individual renewal accounts are down to around 8,800, a number that, if you include five-game packs and other flex passes rises to around 11,500.

It’s still a far cry from where the team wants to be, with the goal of filling the lower bowl the main thing on the new CEO’s mind.

“Our magic number is 22,120,” he said about the stadium’s current capacity with the large sails blocking off the upper portion of BC Place. “I go to bed thinking about 22,120. We’re trying to reach that number for the opening match and then every match after that until we can get enough tickets sold far enough out in advance that we can say, okay, let’s start to open upstairs and really turn this into a big house.”

Pannes was brought in this past January after six years with AS Roma of Italy’s Serie A. He also spent 10 years with the New York Knicks, including three years as vice-president of marketing, when he oversaw all ticket and sponsorship revenue and brand management for the franchise.

“The club sold every ticket in his last nine seasons,” the Whitecaps noted in a release, something that his new employer is clearly hoping Pannes can help them with.

Along with Pannes and sporting director Axel Schuster (a former exec in Germany’s Bundesliga) in the front office, a bevy of new players will represent the team on the pitch as well.

The most prized among the new recruits is forward Lucas Cavallini, a Toronto native who has spent the last three seasons playing in Mexico’s top league.

Pannes is hoping the acquisitions excite fans enough so that they flock to tonight’s season opener against Sporting Kansas City (which wasn’t sold out as of Friday). The past two campaigns have seen sellouts for the opener.

But Pannes seems to know that the team has a long way to go, and though success on the field will be a large determining factor in that, so will off-field activities.

He’s already taken to engaging with fans via his Twitter account, and showed up to the pregame gathering of the team’s largest supporter’s group, the Vancouver Southsiders.