North American Pro Soccer 2017

[Gothamite]

13 hours ago, DG_Now said:

Speaking of, some cool shots from the parade and rally today (from Seattle Times): 

 

Edit: none worked ?. Gallery here: http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/sounders/photos-from-sounders-mls-cup-victory-march-in-seattle/

 

That's awesome.  Couple of my favorites:

 

 

[Nyk33]

Cosmos Chairman Seamus O'Brien continues to say stupid things.

 

Quote

“Some things you could have done differently? No, I don’t think so,” O’Brien told EoS last week. “Belmont would have been great, but we didn’t control that process. We performed on the field to a level that raised the standard of the league. We were competitive whenever we played in U.S. Open Cup or when we played overseas.

“I don’t think we could have done more on or off the field than we did."

 

Really Seamus? Maybe you could have not try to mess with Garber by demanding you not be included in the single-entity model so that you could be treated like special snowflakes and have your own little kit deal, on top of the other things I mentioned before. On top of that if Garber & Dave Martinez (reporter from Empire of Soccer) are saying about the Cosmos turning down MLS are true then this is just a whole other level of hubris and stupidity.

[bosrs1]

5 hours ago, wences said:

It's sad because no Cosmos, no money for their employers. I really don't care about the Cosmos legacy but yes about the people who worked and didn't get a salary.

 

Looks like they're not the only ones. Jacksonville released their players and staff today, unpaid for the month of December despite working.

 

http://www.empireofsoccer.com/jacksonville-armada-terminate-all-player-contracts-56384/

 

NASL is down to what 6 teams now that OKC, NYC, and JAX are dead.

[-kj]

The Armada leadership has disputed that they've done that, but I'm not terribly surprised that they would be having problems.  Apparently they're in a rather expensive lease situation where they play.

 

In less contentious news: USMNT friendly in San Diego in late January.  Even if it's just Camp Cupcake... woohoo!

[dfwabel]

1 hour ago, Mockba said:

The Armada leadership has disputed that they've done that, but I'm not terribly surprised that they would be having problems.  Apparently they're in a rather expensive lease situation where they play.

 

In less contentious news: USMNT friendly in San Diego in late January.  Even if it's just Camp Cupcake... woohoo!

Is a minimum of $4K/ game expensive?

Their rent/fee to the city was based on a ticket surcharge with aa maximum of $10K/game. Within the lease, the team had to manage a portion of the parking, but received the revenues. They received 30% of the concessions too.

 

It was the city which forked over $1M in a retractable pitching mound and amending their contract with SMG.

[Gothamite]

39 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

Is a minimum of $4K/ game expensive?

 

Depends on what percentage of their attendance pays to get in, I guess.  We know that over 70% of Rayo OKC's tickets were paper, at least through July.   I've seen it speculated that the Cosmos' season ticket base may have fallen as low as several hundred; they've certainly had matches with less than a thousand in attendance.  But most teams in the NASL report tickets distributed and given away, not turnstile clicks, so we don't actually know. 

 

Shame, because Jacksonville came into the league with a bang, breaking attendance records.   I wonder how many of those were also paper, like Miami's big crowds were reported to be. 

[dfwabel]

25 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

Depends on what percentage of their attendance pays to get in, I guess.  We know that over 70% of Rayo OKC's tickets were paper, at least through July.   I've seen it speculated that the Cosmos' season ticket base may have fallen as low as several hundred; they've certainly had matches with less than a thousand in attendance.  But most teams in the NASL report tickets distributed and given away, not turnstile clicks, so we don't actually know. 

 

Shame, because Jacksonville came into the league with a bang, breaking attendance records.   I wonder how many of those were also paper, like Miami's big crowds were reported to be. 

But they don't give away parking or concessions.

 

For 2014, they claimed over 2,000 season tockets sold. In 2016, they averaged about 3,500/game in attendance.

 

[Gothamite]

But did they actually have 3,500 people at every game?   Or did they give away 2,000 tickets to people who never showed up?  That's the flip side to papering; a paper audience doesn't actually proportion as someone who actually paid for that ticket.   Which is why I'm kind of curious about the Cosmos numbers, because based on the no-shows it looks like their actual season ticket base may be pretty small. 

 

And if that actual butts-in-seats number was closer to 1,000 than 3,500, then the parking and concessions would be greatly affected.  

[Nyk33]

Back by unpopular demand here's more NASL silliness and rumors! 

 

The NASL now has high exit fees to discourage teams from leaving.

 

The Cosmos, allegedly, have a buyer that's interested in buying them and the Red Bulls so they can make a Cosmos MLS team.

[PacoRamirez]

Good grief. I wish USSF would step in and set up a D2 and D3 league to stabilize the situation instead of letting all this drama and instability go on. D2 for more ambitious clubs, D3 for smaller clubs and reserve teams. That way club owners and leaders and focus on running and developing their clubs instead of worrying about what the landscape might look like next year.

[wences]

On 16/12/2016 at 6:26 PM, Nyk33 said:

Back by unpopular demand here's more NASL silliness and rumors! 

 

The NASL now has high exit fees to discourage teams from leaving.

 

The Cosmos, allegedly, have a buyer that's interested in buying them and the Red Bulls so they can make a Cosmos MLS team.

If it is possible to see a Cosmos-Red Bull in the MLS it will be great.

[MJWalker45]

I'd rather have the Metrostars back.

[Gothamite]

17 hours ago, PacoRamirez said:

Good grief. I wish USSF would step in and set up a D2 and D3 league to stabilize the situation instead of letting all this drama and instability go on. D2 for more ambitious clubs, D3 for smaller clubs and reserve teams. That way club owners and leaders and focus on running and developing their clubs instead of worrying about what the landscape might look like next year.

 

The only way this happens is if they let the NASL run itself out of business, as their "ambition" is the single biggest impediment to a stable league system. 

[Jer15]

Here's a quality article I read this morning (note the sarcasm). 

 

http://www.expressnews.com/sports/columnists/roy-bragg/article/MLS-in-SA-A-kick-and-a-miss-10803663.php?t=7af73a930039a20598&cmpid=twitter-premium#photo-12060850

 

But if you want some real fun, you should look at this guy's twitter timeline this morning: https://twitter.com/roybragg

 

I mean he needs to do some research next time he writes (more than 12 MLS stadiums can hold more that 21,000 people for example) but the explosion of anger on Twitter is good for a laugh.

[bosrs1]

On 12/17/2016 at 11:49 AM, MJWalker45 said:

I'd rather have the Metrostars back.

 

I think the feeling would be nearly universal. The Cosmos brand is like Ebola for soccer leagues at this point. It's a death sentence.

[MJWalker45]

19 minutes ago, mr.negative15 said:

Here's a quality article I read this morning (note the sarcasm). 

 

http://www.expressnews.com/sports/columnists/roy-bragg/article/MLS-in-SA-A-kick-and-a-miss-10803663.php?t=7af73a930039a20598&cmpid=twitter-premium#photo-12060850

 

But if you want some real fun, you should look at this guy's twitter timeline this morning: https://twitter.com/roybragg

 

I mean he needs to do some research next time he writes (more than 12 MLS stadiums can hold more that 21,000 people for example) but the explosion of anger on Twitter is good for a laugh.

I almost stopped reading when he said he wanted to throw a warm beer into the face of a soccer fan. He obviously doesn't care about soccer at all and he also forgot to mention that if the Spurs aren't greenlighted to MLS by 2020, they'll have to start paying back almost $18 million to the county. He also refuses to acknowledge that in England, too many teams overspend trying to avoid going down that promotion and relegation actually hurts them in the end. 

[Jer15]

19 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

I almost stopped reading when he said he wanted to throw a warm beer into the face of a soccer fan. He obviously doesn't care about soccer at all and he also forgot to mention that if the Spurs aren't greenlighted to MLS by 2020, they'll have to start paying back almost $18 million to the county. He also refuses to acknowledge that in England, too many teams overspend trying to avoid going down that promotion and relegation actually hurts them in the end. 

Notice his "solution" is "promotion/relegation"?

 

Now how to execute it, now how much it would cost, not acknowledging that there are 3 (I'm including NASL in this) different companies/leagues that would need to somehow work together.

Also, why don't you ask every team that's joined the league since Seattle how they'd feel about paying the expansion fee but then suddenly, with pro/rel, another team just gets in, no fee?

 

Also he says: "Here’s what probably happened: MLS teams did well in seven or eight cities that are soccer strongholds or where other sports teams stink." 

 

Really? Explain Seattle? Let me guess, that's just one of the strongholds? Convenient 

 

.......I wasn't going to do this, lol.

[MJWalker45]

He probably looked at a map of Texas, didn't see Seattle on it and called it a day. Sports guys can be pretty insular here, just like the rest of the media.

[Viper]

The Cosmos aren't the only warmed-over NASL brand linked with an MLS move. Now there's word that the Tampa Bay Rowdies could get in (setting up an I-4 rivalry with Orlando City) if David Beckham's Miami bid doesn't get its  together in time.

 

 

[bosrs1]

3 hours ago, Viper said:

The Cosmos aren't the only warmed-over NASL brand linked with an MLS move. Now there's word that the Tampa Bay Rowdies could get in (setting up an I-4 rivalry with Orlando City) if David Beckham's Miami bid doesn't get its  together in time.

 

 

 

True, but they also seem to have their stuff together unlike the spend free Cosmos who've always been a money sink.