STH since 2013 here. I will say that this is the first year that I’ve been less enthusiastic about going to the games, and we’ve definitely made less of an effort to schedule our lives around them. Usually give the tickets away to coworkers or friends. But the constant losing and - more broadly - the lack of any sense that we might make a comeback or put up a fight has been really draining.

Some of this also may be in comparison to other soccer opportunities in Seattle. This is our first year with season tickets to OL Reign, for instance. For much less than the price of our (relatively cheap, not a super great location) season tickets to the Sounders, we got great club level tickets to the Reign. The soccer is excellent and the vibes at the game are top notch. We also go to all of the Ballard FC games that we can - it’s a short bus ride away, the food and beer is great, the tickets and concessions are way cheaper, and the team is excellent. TBH, the Reign and Ballard FC games have been way more fun this year. So looking as it objectively, Sounders have been the worst value (fun per dollar) by far.

I don’t think that we’ll give up our season tickets personally, but I get what you’re saying. It’s a lot to invest in each match, and the returns have not been there.

It also seems to me like the rest of the experience for season ticket holders has been devalued over the last couple of years. We have a kid and are both pretty short, so we used to always sit up in the 300s. Had a great group of other families around us, an excellent tactical view of the match, our kid could see, and we got to go walk out on the west concourse and see the sunsets over the Olympics at halftime. Now, we’re in one of the few sections that doesn’t stand in the lower bowl, paying way more for seats that we don’t like as much, and always at the mercy of the people in front of us in case they want to stand. It’s fine, but the way that they handled the relocation was very poorly done, and the constant shrinking of the available seats / lack of full stadium games like there were when we started as season ticket holders speaks to the reality of the declining attendance and a lack of organizational ambition. Gone are the days where people would talk about an aspiration to always open the whole stadium.