Major League Soccer’s ground-breaking ticket sales school, a 45-day training program dubbed the MLS National Sales Center, held its first graduation, and 10 trainees moved on to jobs with sevenclubs.
The program, which costs in the low six-figures, will continue with two more sessions in 2010 and six or seven in 2011. Students are paid a stipend and attend classes in Blaine,Minn. They also work on sales campaigns.
“This is really a play around league expansion,” Bryant Pfeiffer, MLS vice president of cluboperations. “There’s a need for sales people in this league.”
MLS clubs generally employ 15 to 20 people in ticket sales, but it isn’t easy to fill the spots withexperienced sales people. Entry-level positions pay in the mid-$20,000s.