Follow the chain from a moment to a receipt.
The Memory Rate is not a single number. It is a story told in five links — Experience, Memory, Return, Belonging, Revenue — each with its own capture mechanic and its own way of showing value. Scroll to walk it.
A moment is designed.
The lawn chairs unfold before the match even starts. A KC-135 breaks over the outfield in Daybreak. A father buys two scarves at the north gate. None of it is accidental — each of these is a beat that was scored into the night.
FC Cincinnati built a $250M soccer-specific stadium engineered for atmosphere, with a 3,000-capacity supporters' section (The Bailey) at its heart. The experience was designed before the results arrived.
Designed-moment participation
Every intentional beat — pre-match plaza, first-pitch ritual, mascot moment — gets an operator tag. We count who was present and who took part.
- Beat-level attendance capture at ticket scan and geofence
- Opt-in participation via app check-in and QR at the moment
- Staff-logged designed-moment execution rate per event
The moment lands.
By Tuesday, someone at work says did you hear about the grand slam. A nine-year-old redraws Cleo the mascot from memory. A group text photo makes another round. The night has left the venue.
In its first MLS season FC Cincinnati averaged about 27,500 fans despite a league-worst 6–22–6 record. Demand outran the scoreboard — memory filled the building, not wins.
Voluntary story rate
We measure how often a guest retells the night without being asked — the earliest honest signal that a memory was made.
- Organic social tellings per 1,000 attendees, tagged and untagged
- Post-visit story submissions to the Miller Memories archive
- 60- and 90-day first-visit return cohort
They come back.
The same family, the same seats, a different Saturday. The middle generation buys the peanuts this time. A Bees household turns into a Megaplex household turns into a Royals household — the portfolio stitches itself together in their calendar.
By 2023, near-capacity crowds of roughly 25,400 a night were standard and the club won the Supporters' Shield for the league's best record — worst to first in four years.
Household repeat and cross-property stitch
One identity across the portfolio lets us watch a household move from property to property. Every crossover is a receipt on the thesis.
- Household repeat frequency per property, rolling 12 months
- Cross-property visitation graph (Bees → Megaplex → Royals → RSL)
- Second-visit conversion window from a first-time attendee
They belong to it.
The renewal arrives before the notice does. The scarf hangs by the door year-round. A colleague gets brought to a match and, weeks later, becomes the person who brings someone else. The property has become part of how a household describes itself.
FC Cincinnati sold out season ticket memberships for 2024 and launched a paid waitlist — the Orange & Blue Reserve — charging $200 a year, credited toward a future membership. Fans now pay to stand in line.
Renewal, per-cap, and referral
Belonging shows up in the numbers as a change in behavior: earlier renewal, higher spend on nights that carry meaning, and referrals that arrive unpaid.
- Season membership renewal rate and time-to-renew
- Per-cap spend on signature-moment nights vs control nights
- "Bring someone next time" intent and its conversion
The receipts arrive.
A Lehi software team books a suite in September and closes a deal in October. A youth-club channel fills 400 seats it did not fill last year. A partner renews because their brand is now stitched into a night people already remember.
FC Cincinnati entered MLS on a $150M expansion fee (2019) and built 53 suites and 4,500 premium seats — the enterprise value that belonging compounds into.
The revenue tally
The lagging metrics — the ones a CFO already believes in — reframed as the last link in a chain we have already instrumented upstream.
- Season membership growth by property
- Group sales volume from designed corporate and youth channels
- Premium pipeline and partnership renewal rate
Measure quietly. Celebrate loudly.
No guest should ever feel the instrumentation. If designed moments don’t eventually show up in per-caps and renewals, the thesis fails — which is exactly what makes it a strategy rather than sentiment.
Benchmarks: FC Cincinnati club releases and MLS attendance records, 2016–2024; season-ticket sellout and Orange & Blue Reserve waitlist per club releases. Ranges marked ‘est.’ are anchored to public industry data — promotional / theme-night demand lift (AdWeek / BDA), multi-sport fan overlap (S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan; For Soccer), in-venue social sharing (Deloitte), and fan digital-engagement interest (Oracle) — and remain forward projections to be re-based on internal MSE data.