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BYB Provide Driving Force for Indy

By NICHOLAS MURRAY - nicholas.murray@uslsoccer.com, 05/01/18, 5:09PM EDT

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Buoyed by club’s arrival in USL, aiming to raise collaborative supporter culture


Photo courtesy Matt Schlotzhauer / Indy Eleven

TAMPA, Fla. – As Indy Eleven entered its most recent offseason with questions as to where its future lay, its supporters group – the Brickyard Battalion – was looking for any hint of information it could find as to how things were progressing behind the scenes at the club.

When the official announcement arrived on Jan. 11 that the club would join the USL for the 2018 season, BYB President Josh Mason felt as though the club had made the right move for the long-term future of the club.

“We like USL’s model in the fact that it’s regionally based, we have regional rivals,” said Mason recently as he visited USL’s headquarters in Tampa, Florida. “We had a strong desire for a stable league, and we could see the USL being the right model for the United States in total.

“For me, we wanted it to take place, we didn’t know up until January that we were going to make the move to USL, so from a supporter’s perspective we were prepared to go in both directions, if we were going to be dormant for a season what was our work going to look like, we had a model for that, and we had a model for if we went to USL. We’re glad we got to use the latter.”

The fervor the BYB has brought throughout the Eleven’s history has made it one of the better-known supporter groups in the country. The wry sense of humor emanating from its official Twitter account makes clever jabs at opposing teams and fan bases, but beneath that, there is a major goal of collaboration that Mason and the group bring to the table.

That was, in part, the purpose of Mason’s visit to USL HQ while in Florida for business, where he met with USL leadership including President Jake Edwards to see how the organization could help foster growth in the supporter culture around the league. It’s something the BYB has experience in, and has enjoyed undertaking, while also getting to know those who are leading the way for other groups in its region and around the country.

“We actually worked with the Louisville Coopers when they were first forming to help them get off the ground from a structure and strategy perspective, great group of guys and gals down there,” said Mason. “The same for the FC Cincinnati fans. They were fantastic. We met with them previously during the preseason, we met a lot of their fans then, they were great to converse with.

“I think it’s different in the United States than it is in Europe, where in Europe you have a lot of supporters groups that have a rub, there’s a lot of history there. I think in the United States, we tend to work more collaboratively because we were all the guys who played soccer when soccer wasn’t cool, so now here we are having a sport that we can all get behind, and we all want this, so we find there’s a lot more collaboration. Not on game days, necessarily, but on off days, when we can all help each other, we find a lot more collaboration than find reasons to be opposed.”


The Brickyard Battalion share high-fives with this year's players after a victory against Nashville SC on April 14 at Lucas Oil Stadium. | Photo courtesy Matt Schlotzhauer / Indy Eleven

The biggest collaboration the BYB has is with its own front office at the Eleven, which has meant some unique partnerships that have provided mutual benefit to both the club and the group. The BYB’s ticket program allows the group to retain part of the price to help keep the group stocked up with materials that bring a major presence to game day, which in turn makes the sort of atmosphere that has made the Eleven a staple of the Indianapolis sporting scene since the club’s inception in 2013.

“In this situation, obviously we benefit in that the more seats we sell in our section the more energy there is in the stadium, so it’s a great marketing tool in some ways, but to be very fair, they’re trying to get the most organic fans in the stadium, every game, on a regular basis,” said Mason. “It wasn’t necessarily very tough to sell to the front office, as you know supporters sections aren’t always the most premium seats in the stadium, but by having all our section full and the energy we bring game-to-game, that’s our charge, to fill our section, and the easier the club makes it, the easier on us it makes it, they benefit from the fact that we bring all that passion, all that energy to every game.”

The BYB was certainly packed in the club’s home opener against FC Cincinnati earlier this season, when more than 17,500 fans were on hand for the first league meeting between the two clubs. Those in attendance were treated to a “Stranger Things” tifo featuring character Eleven which quickly went viral across social media.

“We wanted to do it for Halloween last year and somehow it just didn’t come to fruition,” said Mason. “It seemed like it was the right time to use it this time. Obviously, Eleven is a great tie-in from ‘Stranger Things,’ but that was hours upon hours of work from our operations team to put that together and ready for game one.

“The coolest thing about it was the retweets we got from it, and you can thank Drew [Powell] from ‘Gotham’ for that. He happened to be at the game and tweeted it to Eleven, and that’s how it got out and became a viral thing ever since.”


The Brickyard Battalion's tifo of Eleven from "Stranger Things" quickly went viral after it was unveiled at the club's home opener on March 31 at Lucas Oil Stadium. | Photo courtesy Matt Schlotzhauer / Indy Eleven

Moments like that, and the club’s strong start to the season, have seen Indy quickly make their mark in the USL ahead of Wednesday night’s USL Game of the Week, when FC Cincinnati is the visitor to Lucas Oil Stadium (7 p.m. ET | Match Center | ESPN3). With a visit from defending USL Cup champion Louisville City FC arriving on Saturday, there’s a busy week ahead for Mason and his cohorts in the BYB against the club’s two newest league rivals.

After his visit to league headquarters and what he’s seen since January’s announcement, Mason is confident in what this season and those to come will hold for his club.

“I would say it’s exceeded my expectations, just in terms of the level of professionalism that the league has shown,” said Mason. “The regional rivalry piece, the communications aspect, the level of professionalism in the front office here are all things that I was looking for when going to a club, obviously choosing an organization to work with, so I’m excited for what the future holds with the USL.”

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