Sykotyk

I hope they use the original team names and if they go with cities and not just the nicknames.

Three games delayed due to weather and one postponed entirely. Two shocks of the night were Chicago winning at Portland, and RSL won surprisingly easily at STL. LAG had a shot at a win, but blew it late. Austin winning big was a surprise. 3-0 and it never felt like it was even that close. LAFC with the first minute goal that held up to win 1-0 over Seattle. Though they had a handball called back for a second goal late. Cincinnati has clearly established themselves as the king of the mountain. Only a matter if they slip up later in the season, or a fluke playoff loss. But if they give up the Supporters Shield that would be a shock. The West playoffs are wide open.

Never been to a college hockey game. But have to imagine like any other collegiate game I've been to in other sports that the atmosphere is much livelier than a pro game.

Think holding on to Delmarva is more important when they have Philly and Washington to contend with nearby. Meanwhile, western Maryland is either already lost to Pittsburgh or ardently 'anti DC' and sticking with Orioles anyways through state allegiance.

And they were pretty well penciled into that spot, too. Seemed like such a reach given the support Minnesota had given the team since their arrival. There seemed to be far more stark failures. But the Sunshine State teams weren't going to be touched. MLB is running out of available markets that have the finances to support a MLB team's 81 game schedule at MLB prices. They mostly have resorted to pretending that the team can be contracted to get a new stadium. Now that LV is viable as a team and actively persuing a team, they found their new boogie-man. Like LA was for the NFL for decades.

1 Pittsburgh 4-6 2 MIchigan 4-6 3 Philadelphia 4-6 4 New Jersey 3-7 evenly balanced trashed.

Raiders waited out their lease. Or, rather, waited for their new stadium to be built. The main argument seemed to be they didn't want to unveil themselves in Las Vegas at Sam Boyd Stadium for a few years, and there was really nowhere else to go. Chargers went to StubHub Center since staying in San Diego was basically impossible. And they were limited where they could play (not at the Coliseum, the Rose Bowl has restrictions on dates, and neither baseball stadium could/would even be considered as viable). Plus, there's the 'aura' of the Raiders that their fans would follow them to Las Vegas, even if via television. So, sticking out two unproductive years in Oakland wasn't exactly a negative like it would've been for the Chargers. The A's though... we saw how bad the support will be when they just THOUGHT they weren't going to play in Oakland. If they sign a deal and construction starts in Vegas... they could count attendance with three digits at some games. The fans would simply shun them. Baseball relies much more on the ticket buyer than other sports. Part of having 81 home games. They'd fare better playing at LV Ballpark for a year or two at exorbitant MLB adjusted rates in the 10k stadium than to even consider playing in Oakland another year. As for the lease having a year left. There's got to be a financial out clause, and I have to imagine they'd pay whatever fee was necessary and recoup the money in Vegas at the small stadium for two years.

Really, it was the 90s that saw the pushback. That 90s building boom of stadiums and arenas saw fans start to revolt. Browns and Sonics especially. Houston tried, but in a city that big with a team that had been on a downward spiral but couldn't live out to see Fisher do anything with them, couldn't get the groundswell support. Ohio even passed a law about moving teams. Which is why the Crew got saved. But in the 80s you saw relocations like the Colts, Cardinals, Flames, Rockies, Clippers, and Kings. Only the Rockies changed names, and that was primarily because the New Jersey Rockies would've only worked if they played near Philly. The rest just kept their name. Some were ambiguious names, like Kings or Cardinals. Some had a regional tie like Clippers but worked for their relocated city. Flames kinda works with Calgary but could've been something else. The 90s saw things like the North Stars move to Dallas, and then around the same time or after the Browns every team got a new name. Avalanche was an obvious as Nordiques wasn't going to translate well to Colorado. But Whalers and Jets both got rebranded. NBA didn't have any late 90s relocations, but a few in the early 00s. Vancouver still is a headscratcher that they didn't get a new name but there was apathy about a Canadian team given the economy at the time. After what happened you saw the Sonics get a new name, it seemed such a shocker that the Hornets took their name to New Orleans. Which had a huge backlash. They righted it after the Bobcats fiasco, but that was still such a bad reading of the room. It took the Sonics AFTER the Hornets to finally get the NBA to basically force it through. One of the few times a team changed their name for reasons OTHER than weaponry or bigotry. Browns, obviously, got a new name and was one of the first 'modern' teams to get their team back with the same name (this happened much more often previous especially in baseball with things like the Senators barely missing a beat). After the Hornets, the only real team(s) that moved without changing their name has been the Nets, Chargers, Rams, and Raiders. Two returned to a city they had already been to. Raiders moved to their third city in their third relocation after stopping at one stop twice. And the Nets have bounced around all over the NYC metro area under various location names (NY Nets, NJ Nets, Brooklyn Nets). Yeah, the NJ based fans might have an issue, but it's not like they moved to Kansas City. Hard to call that a huge issue. This is much more "Baltimore Bullets move to DC"

But they did it, too. This is like someone stealing your car, and they're really sorry they stole it, but they need to drive to work so they're going to keep it. But totally feel bad for taking it.

I think ownership of a term/name/logo/colors is really dependent on origination. You can love the Giants or Dodgers all you want, but they're not San Francisco's and Los Angeles'. They're just there currently. It's the same as the Rams. They started in Cleveland. Cleveland essentially spoke with their support that they wanted to get behind the new team the Browns and not the defending NFL champions (if you can believe that). So, Rams are wherever. Nobody outside St. Louis cared that the Rams were leaving STL just as nobody really raised a huff over the Rams leaving LA before that. They're a vagabond now. Now things like the Colts or Oilers, yes. Those had a bit of a harshness since they had been in their two cities since founding, and it was a lot harder for fans to accept that their old name was never returning. This isn't the 20s and 30s where teams moving and taking their name with them was a matter of finances of not replacing uniforms or equipment. Today, even the city name changing is a huge PR move that will probably be followed by a slightly changed/tweaked logo/uniform. But once a team moves and keeps the name, the name travels with the team no matter how long it plants itself in its current city.

Philadelphia Athletics. Kansas City Athletics. Oakland Athletics. Las Vegas Athletics. Oakland Raiders. Los Angeles Raiders. Oakland Raiders. Las Vegas Raiders. Yes. Oakland's identities.

The line has been closed for repairs since Covid basically, but the RTA in Cleveland had the blue/green lines extend to the stadium on game days. Was nice parking out in Shaker Heights or Warrensville Heights, or even closer inside the city such as at E55th or and just pay a couple bucks each to ride in. But the ride after the game was abysmal. The RTA NEVER had the trains running quickly from the stadium. Why? Don't know. They should be lining up a few or have two connected instead of one double set. But now you get off at Terminal Tower and walk the 0.8 or so miles to the stadium. Still cheap. But not as friendly.

Then someone needed to submit it. This was a contest among fan submissions and fans voting. As a Browns fan I like it. I also like the subtleties in it. It would've been disingenuous to hold this and then not use the one submitted and chosen by the fans.

We don't know how much of that is startup costs, and how much were annual expenses. As well as what they were projected to lose compared to what they did lose. No business is a success year one. None. Especially since part of their expenses would be buying the league for Vince, and then sitting on it for a year before actually even playing a game. MLS took decades for the whole league to be successful. And if you want to talk about the losses from earlier seasons funded mostly by AEG, they might still not be in the black.

At this point, almost every major market that doesn't already have a team has big red flags. And even those with teams are probably at their breaking point.

Land of Enchantment FC

One obvious factor is calling the team 'New Mexico' and heavily marketing the Las Cruces and Santa Fe areas, as well as peppering the other small cities like Gallup, Santa Rosa, Roswell, T&C, etc try to and garner support (some teams will have "(distant city) Day" where they'll discount tickets and paper the town with discounts to get fans from that area to come out for a game. Another way MLS could work is to A) MLS team to Albuquerque and put the MLS2 team in Las Cruces and have the same identities to try and draw fans in to supporting the other. Funny thing is that Las Cruces is more associated/rivalry with El Paso, which has a slightly larger market size. Clearly MLS could be supported in El Paso, but it's never seen as a big city due to its remoteness and that it's far more transient as a border town and that not a lot of money in the city to support a major league team in pretty much any league. Yeah. DM is definitely a long shot. Iowa being a major farming nexus of the country means there's a lot of money but it's thinned out over a lot of people and you don't have a ton of 'uber-wealthy' people to consider bringing a team to town. AAA/AHL/AFL seems to be the top of the level for them. Chiefs definitely draw from much of the Great Plains as 'their team'. And with their success, there's a lot more KC fans all the way up in SD and Fargo/Bismarck than there ever was where it was staunchly Vikings territory. Even areas where Denver had a lot of sway (Wyoming, western NE, NE NM) you see Chiefs stuff far more often than just bandwagoners. They relate more to KC being the 'plains' team. Other than Colorado, you don't see any Denver fans around the plains like you used to. It's much more mountain states (Utah, CO, northern NM, Cheyenne/Laramie). Also thanks to Denver losing their appeal after the Manning blip in success. Omaha could definitely support a team, but I just don't see that market supporting basketball as a whole. You can look into that as much as you want. But Omaha would probably much rather have Baseball OR hockey. Baseball with 81 games is just not going to happen. NHL could happen. Especially with KC vacant. Football is king in that area, and amazing that the Omaha Beef are in their 24th season of indoor football in the city. Their success has varied over the years bouncing from arenas at times. But that's a ridiculous longevity for a sport with as much turbulence as indoor football.

Problem is that New Mexico as a whole is quite poor and Albuquerque is extremely isolated inside the state. There's Rio Rancho/Bernillo and South Valley down to about Los Lunas/Peralta that has population for suburbs, but lacks a lot of the exurbs to draw from. If Albuquerque supports any team, it will be an MLS team. I can't imagine the city latching onto an NBA team and fully supporting them. Montreal is always a possibility. Big enough city. Chicago could definitely support a team out towards Aurora/Naperville/Arlington Hts (where the Bears want to move)/around O'Hare/Hoffman Estates (smaller arena built there that hosted indoor football/minor league hockey). Rosemount area could, as well, but may be a little too close to downtown that the Bulls would go nuts fighting the prospect. Des Moines would be another SLC/OKC/Sacramento type situation. Try to be the big fish in a small pond. Collegiate sports are big in Iowa, but at least ISU and UI are far from Des Moines. They support minor league baseball (AAA Iowa Cubs) and hockey (AHL Iowa Wild) quite well. Rochester is an interesting idea. Buffalo owns western New York, but couldn't support a third team. They struggle to keep up with supporting the Bills and Sabres. However, a team in Rochester would siphon a lot of support from Rochester and Syracuse that would be spending sports dollars at U of Syracuse or the Buffalo pro teams. Also draw some basketball fans from Buffalo to them. And grow a new base of fans who may watch on TV Buffalo sports and be fans of them but don't actively spend money attending games might latch on to a Rochester team. And become a regionally aligned team. There are better options out there, but it is an interesting idea. It was somewhat the basis the Rhinos had growing soccer in western NY, but they missed the boat not believing that MLS was a viable option. Which eventually killed them. At least for NBA, it would be a known quantity.

GFY San Diego

This would be like UTRGV winning the Frozen Four.

The Inter Miami name is forced, however, as the club's full name by their own badge is Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami. Even if you abbreviate it some, Inter Miami is still overlooking a lot of the rest of the name. it would be like team taking the name "Association Football Club" aka AFC, and a team calling themselves "Houston Association FC"... Something about it feels so wrong. Internacional describes the type of club, rather than the name of said club.

Many state associations don't allow kids to play on football teams during the off season and then be eligible in the fall. Ohio is one such state. Also not all states allow NIL so they'd instantly be ineligible. And unlike the college fight over NIL the high schools and associations aren't selling the player's NIL for video games, etc. So it would be hard to force many of them to accept this for players. Secondly, this league isn't providing insurance and underage kids traveling across state lines for sports dealing with their families insurance or state children's coverage for an injury that might detail their entire playing career for a few thousand possibly from an NIL deal since they're not actually getting paid. And which fans will be watching? This seems destined for failure.

think they spent what they had and now are coming up empty when it matters. I was not expecting this outcome. I think Panthers regroup at home, but even then I still don't see how Vegas gets beat in either of the next two games. Either Vegas completely relaxes and thinks they can just waltz through the next game and not have to try too hard. Or some fluke goal gets scored at the right time that gives Florida a 2-goal advantage that they can camp out on and force Vegas to tire themselves out in desperation. I just don't see it likely. And not enough for 4 of the next 5.