Mike Gastineau
Seattle’s Mike Gastineau remembers the date, October 7th, 2012. That’s when it came to him. He’d just seen the Seattle Sounders beat their arch-rival, the Portland Timbers along with the wildly enthusiastic Emerald City Supporters, behind the south goal at Century Link Field. After the 3-0 win, the thought followed him as he walked to his car.
“This is a great story. I have to tell it.”
Earlier that fall, Gastineau had made the decision to leave his job at Seattle’s KJR 950 AM sports radio station as an announcer. Now he was consumed with the need to tell this story. “What better way than with a book”, he thought.
A year later, the result is a new book, “Sounders FC: AUTHENTIC MASTERPIECE: The Inside Story Of The Best Launch in American Sports.”
http://www.amazon.com/Sounders-FC-AUTHENTIC-MASTERPIECE-Franchise/dp/1491068345/ref=zg_bs_16638_5
The book (Gastineau’s first, with a forward by Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl) is a must for any Sounders fan who wants a behind-the-scenes look at how the Seattle Sounders have become the talk of, or some would say the envy of, the rest of Major League Soccer. “Seattle’s the New York Yankees of this league”, says Gastineau. “We’ve got the money because we draw the fans.”
That success was no accident as “Authentic Masterpiece” reveals. The secret? According to Gastineau, Sounders management knew they couldn’t rely only on Seattle’s soccer moms and dads, a rich vein by itself. Sounders research showed that, “The last thing a lot of soccer moms and dads wanted to do after watching their kid play was … watch more soccer”, says Gastineau. “What Seattle did was go to places like The Atlantic Crossing in Seattle’s U-District and Fremont’s George & Dragon Pub, places where legions of hard-core soccer fans would pack bars at 7am on a weekend morning to see English Premier League soccer.” Mike says, “That’s a hard-core, underserved fan base. They (Seattle Sounders) really focused on who were fans of the sport.”
And then that October night at CenturyLink Field came back to him. He remembered the feeling of watching a Seattle sporting event for two hours, on your feet. That revelation leads to another secret to the Sounders’ success. “It wasn’t the fact that the Sonics left town”, says Mike. “It was the Mariners’ mediocrity.” Mike Gastineau says, “If Seattle sports fans had entertaining baseball to distract them, it would have been a different story.”
And if there’s one thing a repurposed sports announcer like Mike Gastineau knows, it’s a good story. His new book tells this one with authenticity and passion, like a night behind the south goal with the Emerald City Supporters.
Emerald City Supporters
the repurposed journalist 