Red Bulls, FC Barcelona game puts more eyes on club and Harrison stadium

The New York Red Bulls and one of the most prolific sports teams in the world will go head-to-head in a friendly match July 30 at Red Bull Arena.

Tickets to the Red Bulls’ game against FC Barcelona sold out almost as soon as they were available. However, the secondary ticket market is going gangbusters with available seats selling for between $280 and $4,927.

The exhibition game against the Red Bulls is part of a four-match U.S. tour for FC Barcelona, which has won 75 trophies domestically and five Champions League tournaments overall. The Red Bulls have played several friendlies over the years against other international dynamos, including Chelsea FC of the Premier League, but Chief Marketing & Revenue Officer Joe Stetson said that “to host FC Barcelona, a global powerhouse, is incredible.”

Stetson said friendlies like the upcoming FC Barcelona match help expand awareness of the Red Bulls club, and that the awareness translates to more fans, more national partners, and a bigger national presence.

“[Our partners] were, as you could imagine, pumped [and] excited” to find out about the FC Barcelona match, Stetson said. “Some of our partners, they raised their hands immediately saying ‘can we do more for this match?’ Hackensack Meridian Health is going to activate. Audi is the presenting sponsor of the post game fireworks show. We’ve had other partners that really wanted to know, ‘can we make sure some of the content that we’re sponsors of will be present at that game?’ We’ve been able to accomplish that.”

Goal!

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Tickets were mostly reserved for Red Members. The ardent supporters of the club get tickets to the team’s 17 regular season games as well as bonus matches. Tickets were also available as an add-on for folks purchasing admission to other games. In June, the final few thousand seats were made available to the general public, and they quickly sold out.

“Really, we wanted to make sure that we were taking care of our Red members. They’re the lifeblood of our club and we wanted to make sure they had access to tickets and that they felt this was a special perk,” Stetson said.

The national – and even global – eyes on the Red Bulls due to this game are exciting for a couple of key reasons.

For one thing, Major League Soccer has the youngest, most diverse and fastest growing audience in sports. Additionally, the match is just months ahead of the upcoming FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. And in four years, part of the World Cup, one of the biggest sporting events in the world, will be held just down the road at MetLife Stadium.

The FC Barcelona-Red Bulls match begins at 7 p.m. on July 30. Activities and performances will kick off at 5 p.m. Following the game, Audi is sponsoring a fireworks show. The match will be broadcast on MSG Network and on RedBull TV, a free app, and its associated webpage redbull.tv.

The game and its reach provide “a great opportunity for us, for our building, for our fans, to really showcase what we do here,” Stetson said. “To really get in front of new fans, to get in front of new potential partners.”