Business View Magazine | August 2019

179 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE AUGUST 2019 ALL I ANZ F I ELD Borrell: “Minnesota United has played eight games, thus far, at Allianz Field, and we’ve also played host to an International ‘Friendly’ with Hertha Berlin out of Germany, as well as the international tournament, the Gold Cup; they played their first stage round here with the U.S. Men’s National Team, in June. The U.S. Men’s National Team played Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago played Panama.” BVM: How have ticket sales been? Borrell: “We sold out of season’s tickets a year in advance of our opening, so in April 2018, we were completely sold out of season’s tickets and then we sold out of single game tickets very quickly, thereafter. We’ve had sellout crowds for all of our season’s games, and we actually had the quickest sellout in Gold Cup history, I believe.” BVM: How many employees are there? Borrell: “30 full-time staff between the building operations folks, our food and beverage team, our security team, and our housekeeping team. The Minnesota United front office has an additional 70 or 80 employees between the sponsorship team, the sales team, the marketing team, and so on.” BVM: Is the field being used by any other organizations? Borrell: “We’re working through some of that program for the long term. This year, we’ve been a little bit protective of the field, just to make sure. We planted it in October, last year, which, if you know anything about Minnesota, is not an ideal growing time of year. So, we really wanted to see how it came back, this spring. Early on, since we had some young grass, we had some patches that needed to be addressed, and we wanted to make sure we got the field right and got soccer right before we explored too far outside that parameter. Looking ahead, we’re trying to be thoughtful in our integration around potential high school or other community opportunities. This October, we will play host to two Division III college football teams – St. Thomas and St. John’s - and host their rivalry match.”