In addition to the topics outlined in the three posts below, Sounders general manager Adrian Hanauer also addressed the topic of making tickets available to visiting fans, especially next season when nearby hot rivals Vancouver and Portland join MLS.

Hanauer said discussions are ongoing between the three Northwest clubs and the league.

“We understand that it’s a very big issue,” he said. “We think that we’re on our way to a good solution that I think will make everyone happy. But we’re not yet prepared to talk about what that plan might look like.

“First and foremost is security. We have what we think is a spectacular gameday experience at Qwest Field today with 36,000 very happy very safe fans. And we don’t want to compromise that in any possible way. So that was the first thing. The second thing is we along with Portland and Vancouver have capacity issues, and we need this to be equitable. Portland has a 20,000-seat stadium, and if they happen to sell 20,000 season-tickets – I’m not sure they will – but we want to make sure that if we’re getting 150, or 200, or 300, or 500, or whatever the number is, if we’re giving those tickets up, we want to make sure we’re getting them in those markets. So those are really the two big issues: safety and equity. People will say, well, why don’t you just open up another section of the stadium, right?, that’s the follow up. But we have a very specific way we want to run our business and keep the fans tight and keep that supply somewhat limited, and we’re certainly not going to open it up for away fans if we’re not going to open it up for our own fans.”