North American Pro Soccer 2017

[Gothamite]

Holy  , Sacramento just sabotaged its own bid.  The city was working with an outside investor and with Republic FC, their successful lower-division club.  At the last second, the investor and city froze out the Republic without any notice and bid on their own. 

 

That could (and should) move them from the front of the line to the back.  Ludicrous.  

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Deadspin calls it a last second coup: http://deadspin.com/sacramentos-mls-bid-possibly-derailed-by-last-second-ow-1791856813

 

Unsurprisingly, if it's shady and in Sacramento, Kevin Johnson is involved. I feel like these next four years are going to be very good for a man with his scruples.

[dfwabel]

1 hour ago, Gothamite said:

Holy  , Sacramento just sabotaged its own bid.  The city was working with an outside investor and with Republic FC, their successful lower-division club.  At the last second, the investor and city froze out the Republic without any notice and bid on their own. 

 

That could (and should) move them from the front of the line to the back.  Ludicrous.  

 

19 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

Deadspin calls it a last second coup: http://deadspin.com/sacramentos-mls-bid-possibly-derailed-by-last-second-ow-1791856813

 

Unsurprisingly, if it's shady and in Sacramento, Kevin Johnson is involved. I feel like these next four years are going to be very good for a man with his scruples.

Bucsfan56 alluded us to the overall internal bid issues a few weeks back. Now those issues have been made public.

[Sport]

Cincinnati feels like a long shot out of those cities listed, but we had an extraordinarily strong showing in our first USL season. I could see it going either way. 

 

Positives: Phenomenal attendance in the first season surpassed everyone's wildest expectations, plenty of spaces to build a SSS, owners with deep pockets, ownership of the USL team started the club and operated it with the explicit goal of reaching the MLS, A more than adequate MLS sized stadium to use until the SSS is built so the team can play in the big league at a moment's notice, midwest city that isn't losing people - the city's population is slowly growing. Anecdotal: I see FCC stuff all over the place. 

 

Negatives: not a large market, close to Columbus, market may already be overextended with the Bengals/Reds/college sports, less desirable for league footprint compared to other cities in expansion bid, lower ceiling than others. 

[Gothamite]

I think Cincy is in a very strong position, but is potentially hampered by their stadium situation.  They might have a plan, but if so it hasn't been made public.  

[dfwabel]

23 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

I think Cincy is in a very strong position, but is potentially hampered by their stadium situation.  They might have a plan, but if so it hasn't been made public.  

60 days ago, thet didn't have an adequate downtown site as there really is not 15-20 acres available.

 

http://www.wcpo.com/news/insider/fc-cincinnati-looking-at-long-term-stadium-plans-with-eye-on-mls

 

Quote

“A new stadium, depending on the size, would require 15-20 acres,” Berding said. “The No. 1 requirement for the MLS is an urban site, but we live in a dense, urban city, historic in many areas, so yes, we literally put a map out to see are there 15-20 acre sites even out there in our city.”

“It's not real clear at the moment,” he said when asked if there are any sites open Downtown. “And that's a big reason why our focus is on Nippert Stadium as the home of FC Cincinnati. We have a great partnership with UC, and we're committed to continuing to develop and build upon that partnership.”

Berding stressed that FC Cincinnati only looked at a map for potential sites in case MLS decides the club needs a soccer-specific stadium -- and “not recently".

 

[Gothamite]

Well, we don't know what MLS is thinking.  They've never been publicly clear about the criteria.  But we do know they've never put a team into a shared stadium without cross-ownership.   That would seem to put Cincy at a disadvantage.  

[BlackBolt3]

Well honestly, who does have an advantage at this point? I thought that Sacramento had it locked up until their news came out. Most canidates have certain skeletons in their closets.

[FiddySicks]

Sigh ?

[Sport]

48 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

60 days ago, thet didn't have an adequate downtown site as there really is not 15-20 acres available.

 

http://www.wcpo.com/news/insider/fc-cincinnati-looking-at-long-term-stadium-plans-with-eye-on-mls

 

 

Ehh. They could make the space if it comes to that. For as revitalized as downtown is getting and as exciting as OTR's renaissance has been there are a lot of vacant buildings without historical designations that could come down and you'd have 15 acres in no time. "Downtown" in Cincinnati isn't a necessity either. Nippert Stadium isn't technically downtown. Oakley, where I live, has space in the old Millacron area and is about 5 minutes outside downtown, but that's about as far away from downtown as I'd want to get. And they didn't reveal the site proposals that were in their application pitch, but they said they were looking at 2 sites in the Urban core (I interpret that as not the burbs and not Northern KY, thankfully). 

 

Like I said, these people have money and influence in the city to make things happen. 

 

[Wings]

8 minutes ago, Bucfan56 said:

Sigh ?

I'm right there with you 

[Waffles]

Brian Straus at SI has done a really informative, thorough series looking at the backstories and merits of each MLS expansion bid. Just going through the pro-con sections, there really doesn't seem to be a clear frontrunner (I might've leaned toward Sacramento before yesterday). Every strong candidate has a fairly considerable "yeah, but" attached.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Of the application packages submitted I think Indianapolis has the coolest looking stadium. I also think MLS could stand to build out the center of the country -- they have Columbus, Minnesota (just) and KC right now. Adding Indy/Detroit/Cincinnati would help build the national blue print.  The east and west coast feel pretty well accounted for. The holes are in the Midwest and Southeast (shading the states overstates the regional impact, I think):

 

.

 

 

[FiddySicks]

To be totally honest with you, none of this really surprises me. The club has been having some serious problems with organization and structure as long as I've worked there, and there's always been a bit of a recklessly laid back attitude when it comes to dealing with the investors. There have been several closed door meetings with our management team and the investors where they've basically relayed to us, in a more wordy form, "get your together". We've had some pretty basic problems that no successful business should have. For example, we had one of our top business managers (and my main boss) just up and quit on us one day mid season last year because there was a payroll screwup and it took them nearly two months to rectify it and pay everybody. That's the kinda crap that would be fatal for a freaking McDonalds franchise, let alone an organization that's aiming to be as big as Republic. I didn't realize that we had quite gotten to the "get your together or else" phase, but the writing was kinda on the wall. And now, as I suspected, it looks like the Chargers moving to LA and San Diego opening itself up as a strong candidate to jump us (or in the very least, delay our bid) basically scared the pants off of the investors and they wanted to make absolutely sure things were done their way by their people. Republic has been run as more of a "grassroots" bid than I've seen before, and while that's been one of the reasons why it's been so much fun, it's also one of the reasons why I always felt it was so untenable. Everything has to go damn near perfect for it to work out. Something goes wrong, and we end up where we are right now. 

 

I was PISSED when I found out this morning. I'm still pissed. But the more I think about it, the less surprised I am by all this. I truly doubt I'll ever support a Sacramento based MLS team that isn't Republic, and after all this, I'm not sure many others will as well. This is still a dumb move IMO. We wanted SO badly to work with the investors to make this happen, but they clearly didn't give a :censored:. Pretty much like everything else in this world. Money talks and to hell with everything else. Even common sense 

[JTernup]

32 minutes ago, Bucfan56 said:

To be totally honest with you, none of this really surprises me. The club has been having some serious problems with organization and structure as long as I've worked there, and there's always been a bit of a recklessly laid back attitude when it comes to dealing with the investors. There have been several closed door meetings with our management team and the investors where they've basically relayed to us, in a more wordy form, "get your together". We've had some pretty basic problems that no successful business should have. For example, we had one of our top business managers (and my main boss) just up and quit on us one day mid season last year because there was a payroll screwup and it took them nearly two months to rectify it and pay everybody. That's the kinda crap that would be fatal for a freaking McDonalds franchise, let alone an organization that's aiming to be as big as Republic. I didn't realize that we had quite gotten to the "get your together or else" phase, but the writing was kinda on the wall. And now, as I suspected, it looks like the Chargers moving to LA and San Diego opening itself up as a strong candidate to jump us (or in the very least, delay our bid) basically scared the pants off of the investors and they wanted to make absolutely sure things were done their way by their people. Republic has been run as more of a "grassroots" bid than I've seen before, and while that's been one of the reasons why it's been so much fun, it's also one of the reasons why I always felt it was so untenable. Everything has to go damn near perfect for it to work out. Something goes wrong, and we end up where we are right now. 

 

I was PISSED when I found out this morning. I'm still pissed. But the more I think about it, the less surprised I am by all this. I truly doubt I'll ever support a Sacramento based MLS team that isn't Republic, and after all this, I'm not sure many others will as well. This is still a dumb move IMO. We wanted SO badly to work with the investors to make this happen, but they clearly didn't give a :censored:. Pretty much like everything else in this world. Money talks and to hell with everything else 

Really bummed for Sacramento and all Republic fans. I think without SRFC, Sacramento is a no go. The city isn't what made SRFC an attractive bid it was the club and its supporters. The crap that the investors just pulled should be a clear red flag to MLS to pull away from their bid. I think the best bet now is to wait for SRFC and hope that they can get their crap together. If they mess that up then too bad but Sacramento as a city is not worth taking a lame duck bid that many local soccer fans won't support. 

 

With that said SRFC was my front runner. Now I think it has to be Indy, Detroit, Phoenix and either StL, Charlotte, or Nashville. That would give the league a great national footprint. The midwest and south are way underrepresented and AZ needs an MLS team, it is too big of a market to not have one.

[Gothamite]

55 minutes ago, Bucfan56 said:

To be totally honest with you, none of this really surprises me. The club has been having some serious problems with organization and structure as long as I've worked there, and there's always been a bit of a recklessly laid back attitude when it comes to dealing with the investors. There have been several closed door meetings with our management team and the investors where they've basically relayed to us, in a more wordy form, "get your together". We've had some pretty basic problems that no successful business should have. For example, we had one of our top business managers (and my main boss) just up and quit on us one day mid season last year because there was a payroll screwup and it took them nearly two months to rectify it and pay everybody. That's the kinda crap that would be fatal for a freaking McDonalds franchise, let alone an organization that's aiming to be as big as Republic. I didn't realize that we had quite gotten to the "get your together or else" phase, but the writing was kinda on the wall. And now, as I suspected, it looks like the Chargers moving to LA and San Diego opening itself up as a strong candidate to jump us (or in the very least, delay our bid) basically scared the pants off of the investors and they wanted to make absolutely sure things were done their way by their people. Republic has been run as more of a "grassroots" bid than I've seen before, and while that's been one of the reasons why it's been so much fun, it's also one of the reasons why I always felt it was so untenable. Everything has to go damn near perfect for it to work out. Something goes wrong, and we end up where we are right now. 

 

I was PISSED when I found out this morning. I'm still pissed. But the more I think about it, the less surprised I am by all this. I truly doubt I'll ever support a Sacramento based MLS team that isn't Republic, and after all this, I'm not sure many others will as well. This is still a dumb move IMO. We wanted SO badly to work with the investors to make this happen, but they clearly didn't give a :censored:. Pretty much like everything else in this world. Money talks and to hell with everything else. Even common sense 

 

Yeah, but isn't this your own owner screwing you over?  He dropped his own team from the bid?

[FiddySicks]

Well, I had alluded in the past to some "instability" within the ownership group, and this is basically a lot of that infighting going public damn near WWE style. Our founder and our VP (who is the one my department reports to directly) have been at serious odds with one of the main investors and his band of merry idiots (Jed York, apparently Kevin Johnson (that :censored:ing snake), so that tells you the kind of morons involved in this) on the direction of the club. Smith has basically had the say on a lot of this due to his involvement from the start, but that leverage he had seemingly just got yanked out from under him. Part of it is his fault, but part of it is just shady :censored:s being shady :censored:s. 

 

I've tried to let you guys know a lot of this while still trying to keep in house what didn't need to be made public, but there's seemingly not much point to that any longer. It's all public. This whole thing is :censored:ed. 

 

And I'm over here with my thumb up my butt waiting for a call/E Mail from our management team explaining some of this and where the hell we possibly go from here. That's the part that's starting to annoy me a bit. The front office is taking this Animal House-Style "All is well" approach to this and we've been left in the dark up to this point while the media blows up and the supporters group threatens to riot. We have our season starting literally one week from today so we've gotta figure this out and fast. 

[bosrs1]

3 hours ago, BlackBolt3 said:

Well honestly, who does have an advantage at this point? I thought that Sacramento had it locked up until their news came out. Most canidates have certain skeletons in their closets.

 

Seems like San Diego has a pretty solid advantage at this point. Site is city owned, not subject to public vote, being privately paid for (both land and stadium), has a joint ownership plan with San Diego State should the university accept (which they've indicated they're very interested in doing). And it's a soccer crazy market (always high international and USMNT ratings, 2nd or 3rd highest in the country for rec participation, etc...) MLS and Garber have had a hard on for, for over 15 years (Garber was in SD in person to accept their bid). And it has never been more rip for the taking with the Chargers recent departure (and could end up with the same "rebound" effect the Sounders got post Sonics in Seattle).

 

70,000 signatures and a city council vote (of which several council persons and the mayor have indicated they're supportive already) and SD is ready to go.

[tigerslionspistonshabs]

Hopefully Detroit gets a team. I honestly couldn't give a rat's behind about the MLS, because I don't have a team to cheer for. A team in Detroit would force this upon me. Gilbert and Gores are putting in an offer for the jail site within the next couple of days. It's a great spot that's sat idle for years. Unfortunately and 'coincidentally', Wayne County officials have stated that construction is resuming in the coming months. But who knows- if the price is right. 

[JTernup]

11 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

 

Seems like San Diego has a pretty solid advantage at this point. Site is city owned, not subject to public vote, being privately paid for (both land and stadium), has a joint ownership plan with San Diego State should the university accept (which they've indicated they're very interested in doing). And it's a soccer crazy market (always high international and USMNT ratings, 2nd or 3rd highest in the country for rec participation, etc...) MLS and Garber have had a hard on for, for over 15 years (Garber was in SD in person to accept their bid). And it has never been more rip for the taking with the Chargers recent departure (and could end up with the same "rebound" effect the Sounders got post Sonics in Seattle).

 

70,000 signatures and a city council vote (of which several council persons and the mayor have indicated they're supportive already) and SD is ready to go.

I will say, I don't like SD as much because of LAG and LAFC. However, I think they could be a really good choice. It is a huge market that is ripe for the picking. Bring in a team, make them wear Brown and call them the Saints and you have a winner IMO. There is also a really great opportunity for a great international derby that could take place yearly between SD and Xolos which play about 30 minutes from the Q.