Defiance are fun to watch, they deserve marketing to match
TUKWILA, Wash. — A crowd just shy of 1,800 people packed the stands at Starfire Sports Stadium on Tuesday night to sing and shout as the Tacoma Defiance came up just short of a famous result against the Portland Timbers. A pair of late goals including a stoppage time penalty gave Portland a 3-2 win over the hosts. Despite the result, there was plenty to like from a Seattle Sounders perspective.
From the team’s first season in 2015 when they were called S2, the primary purpose of the Sounders’ second team has been to provide a final step along the developmental pathway for players before they reach the first team. From that perspective the team has been an undeniable success. The current Sounders MLS roster includes 15 players who either started with or have spent a significant part of their time with the club playing with Defiance. There are more and more players lined up to make that jump with every coming season.
That talent was on display against Portland. Five players in the Starting XI for Defiance are already on MLS contracts but are part of that 15-man cohort that have Defiance to thank for a significant portion of their development, and another joined them shortly after as Osaze De Rosario’s signing with the Sounders was announced just days later. Beyond those guys already signed to the first team, Defiance players like Snyder Brunell, Sebastian Gomez, Yu Tsukanome and Kaito Yamada (currently on loan from Vissel Kobe) all showed their ability to more than hold their own against MLS competition, further staking their own claims to be among the next to take the step up.
The proposition of Defiance as a key part of the development pathway is a known quantity, though. What has been less certain is the role the team can play as a way to connect and engage with fans.
That crowd of 1,800 was by multitudes the Defiance’s biggest during their MLS Next Pro era, but we’re not too far removed from a time when the team was drawing significantly larger crowds. During the two seasons before the start of the COVID pandemic when S2/Defiance actually played in Tacoma at Cheney Stadium the average attendance was 3,370 in 2018 and 2,636 in 2019. The team was bad —finishing 16th in the West in USL in ’18 and 17th in the West in USL Championship in ’19 — but the community was still showing up. Even in 2021, Defiance’s final season in USLC before moving to MLS Next Pro, they averaged 1,105 in attendance as they finished 5th in the West.
The move to MLSNP meant a drop in competition and a move back to Starfire for Defiance, along with a change to how ticketing is handled. The result is a lack of readily available attendance information, but the crowd’s are often literally just friends and family for a range of reasons including that drop in competition, a name that no longer really fits the team’s circumstances, as well as a complete lack of real marketing. The Timbers match showed what a change to the organization’s marketing approach could do for Defiance.
The Sounders have long acknowledged the need to reach new fans and have finally started to act on it, launching the First Match on Us program to give free tickets to fans who have never been to a game. That’s a good start, but attending one game probably won’t be enough to turn someone into a regular at Lumen Field or a season-ticket holder. Tickets are expensive, to say nothing else of every other thing you might want to buy once you’re inside the stadium. While Starfire is certainly less convenient to get to, it’s also a lot less expensive to catch a Defiance game with entry only costing a pay-what-you-can donation going to the RAVE Foundation.
It’s not just that watching Defiance is less expensive, though. Despite the small crowds, game in and game out the team is putting on a show. Since the move to MLSNP the team has finished 2nd in the West in 2022 and ’23, and 4th in the West in ’24. Under head coach Hervé Diesse in ’24 the team averaged over 2.0 goals per game (59 goals in 28 regular season games), and so far this season with only seven games played they sit at the top of the West and their 22 goals scored leads the league (the next highest total is 18 goals scored by Huntsville City FC, who have also played seven games) as he’s turned them into an attacking juggernaut. Defiance games are FUN, and the players deserve a crowd to match their performances on the field.
The games are fun and tickets are cheap — if you’re already a Sounders Alliance Member, entry is free — but Defiance games also provide a rare opportunity to experience some of what I’m sure got many of us hooked on the Sounders in the first place. With the stands right on top of the field at Starfire, attending Defiance games gives you an opportunity to connect with players that simply isn’t possible with the first team anymore. You can have the kinds of interactions that made Open Cup heroes of the past into fan favorites and cult figures throughout our fan community. You can cheer on and get to know the games of these young players before they make the jump to the first team. Not only does that earn you some credit when you can honestly say, “oh, yeah, I knew he was legit when he was playing under the lights at Starfire,” but it makes the successes that much sweeter when the crowds at Lumen are screaming their names.
I say all of this not to lay any sort of blame at fans’ feet for not showing up to more Defiance games — I know it’s not easy, and there’s only so much time any of us can commit to watching and attending sporting events — but to emphasize why the Sounders organization should be doing more to market the team. Making the personalities in the team, including Coach H as well as the players, more accessible through social media and coverage on the team site would be a start, allowing fans to get to know them and form those connections. Doing more to promote games so that fans can make plans to attend, with crossposts on the first team accounts to help get the word out would help too. As it is now, fans can’t even buy basic Defiance gear, let alone actual jerseys. These are the bare minimum basics.
Getting more folks out to games isn’t just about bringing new blood into the fan base or deepening connections, it’s not simply providing a crowd to match the effort that players are putting in, it also would serve to help prepare players for a potential move up the competitive ladder. Whether they’re going to be future Sounders first-teamers or their career paths will take them elsewhere, fuller crowds and more lively atmospheres in the stadium help to create a more competitive environment. The jump from MLSNP to the big leagues is always going to be a big one, but even making it marginally smaller increases the chances of success when players take that leap.
With a little more investment from the club, nights like that Open Cup match don’t have to be a once a season occasion. That would be a good thing for everyone.