Sounders have form to follow for inaugural season

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — The Major League Soccer experience in this Denver suburb, home of the Colorado Rapids, is built around a family atmosphere, a celebration of diversity and sensory overload.

Three things that would also seem to work for Seattle Sounders FC at Qwest Field when the club makes its MLS debut next spring.

Sensory overload? For Sounders FC, let's start with the rave green jerseys, a marching band, Qwest Field's reputation as a loud stadium and the towering downtown Seattle skyline.

Here, just a few miles northeast of Denver, soccer works in a patch of green amid the flat and dry brush lands. Fans like Cesar Caramo, a member of the Legion 5280 support group, can bring their kids and pound away at drums next to others in similar fan groups with names like Centennial Firm and Front Range.

"It's the time you spend with your family," Caramo said as air horns sounded and fans decked out in scarves and burgundy Rapids jersey filled the stands around him. "It's a good environment."

Commerce City is a predominantly Latino enclave of the Denver area, and the Rapids embrace the culture with targeted game-day promotions and marketing. Techno music pounds from the stadium loudspeakers right up until the national anthem. Teenagers congregate on the concourses and entire youth soccer teams sit together in sections.

In short, if MLS can succeed in greater Denver, it seems certain to work in the urban environs of Seattle. Saturday's game was played on a cool, breezy night resembling a late-spring Puget Sound evening. The stadium was three-quarters filled to its 18,000 capacity but still boisterous and buzzing.

Rapids midfielder Ciaran O'Brien, a Federal Way native and a Sounder for five games earlier this year, said Seattle can expect an exciting atmosphere. "The support from the fans is great," he said. "If they pack 25,000 in there you can only guess it will be good."

Colorado vies for the attention in a heavily saturated sports market and draws well for the size of its stadium despite the presence of four pro teams with seasons that either run concurrent with the Rapids or share parts of it — baseball's Rockies, football's Broncos, basketball's Nuggets and hockey's Avalanche. Plus arena football and major college sports.

Sounders FC won't have as much competition. The Sonics are gone. The Mariners will be playing across the street but there shouldn't be many conflicting game dates. The Storm has a short season and the Seahawks, whose owner Paul Allen is a part-owner of Sounders FC and who has a major stake in the operations of the team, should be very accommodating stadium partners.

The Rapids have been there, done that — twice in fact. Five seasons at the old Mile High Stadium and six at Invesco Field, sharing both stadiums with the NFL's Broncos.

The Rapids, as Sounders FC will do at Qwest, used only the lower bowl of Invesco Field for their games. It didn't really work for them, necessitating a move to their own more intimate facility.

"There was no atmosphere," said Kieran Cain, the Rapids' senior director of marketing and game entertainment. "Even though you've got 30,000 people in the building, [the noise] would just kind of evaporate up into the upper decks or out of the stadium."

Cain feels every team should have its own soccer stadium, but Sounders FC's situation makes it a good exception, he said.

"You don't get as much of that international-soccer knowledgeable person [in Denver] which you do in Seattle," Cain said. "Seattle kind of has a better situation walking into it."

Seattle figures to draw better than the Rapids' 13,488 per game average, with 16,800 season-ticket deposits already taken. (The league average home attendance is 16,395.) Qwest Field is near the downtown core, while Dick's Sporting Goods Park is 9 miles from downtown Denver and cannot be reached easily by public transportation.

Qwest's acoustics should make it noisy for soccer despite being less than half full to total stadium capacity, setting it apart from the distant atmosphere at other football stadiums used for MLS play — Giants Stadium in the New York metro area, Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts and RFK Stadium in Washington D.C.

"Qwest Field's different," said Jeffrey Plush, the Rapids' managing director. "It's built with soccer in mind. Invesco was never built for soccer. Frankly, they're going to do fantastic with their crowds. I ... would imagine it'll be loud and fairly intimidating to play there, which is exactly what you want."

Based on what Colorado has achieved, Sounders FC fans can expect the following on game day or night when the team opens play next March.

• An inexpensive ticket, relative to other sports' prices. Sounders FC tickets are as low as $16 per match in a season-ticket package.

• Fast-paced action on the field most of the time, with no breaks until halftime and the final whistles.

• Constant drum beats and chants from hard-core fans, and the use of other sound-generating instruments. It's encouraged.

• Something related to the region as part of the atmosphere, or entertainment that follows the promotional theme of the evening. The Rapids held an Oktoberfest and had a German folk dance troupe perform at halftime Saturday. "One thing our fans can count on, there's always going to be a party here," Cain said. "Whether the team wins or loses, you're going to have a good time."

• Heavy use of the stadium graphics and video boards. The Rapids do a pregame introduction routine where they show the flags of countries where their players come from.

• Something for the kids. If not a youth mini-game at halftime, then some kind of furry mascot.

The experience at Qwest for a Sounders FC match is bound to be unique in its inaugural season.

"It's going to be fantastic," said the Rapids' Plush. "Everybody's excited to add Seattle to our league."

José Miguel Romero: 206-464-2409 or jromero@seattletimes.com