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North American Pro Soccer 2019


Gothamite

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Well thats some much needed good news for Sacramento. Sacramento deserves to get into MLS. Phoenix and St Louis have solid bids too. Ultimately I would love to see all 3 in but if MLS is going to stick to its 28 teams then its gonna be a dog fight for that final spot.

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On 1/21/2019 at 7:35 AM, Gothamite said:

 

:blink:

 

Just because MLS was able to come up with a compromise that ended with clubs in both cities doesn’t mean that Precourt, his allies in the municipal government, and whatever fan support they had in Austin weren’t trying to move the Crew away from its home and its fans.  I didn’t hear a lot of “expansion not relocation” talk coming from Texas. 

 

And fair enough, you deal with what’s in front of you. But let’s not pretend that wasn’t what it was. 

 

There were several prominent Austin supporters who became well-known trolls towards Columbus during the entire mess. People who seemed to take pure delight in not just receiving a team of their own, but taking one from someone else. People who'd go out of their way to kick those supporters while they were down. It all became very ugly. 

 

Of course you're going to have bad apples in any fanbase, but those people will be a part of Austin FC and it's bond with the club and the roots and all that nonsense moving forward. I won't forget about them. 

 

It is unfair that's there's good people in Austin who just want to root for the local team who will be vilified because the rest of us want their owner to suffer humiliation at every turn, but that's the breaks. Hopefully one day he'll sell the team and you won't have to represent that slimebag. 

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Those Austin fans can go :censored: themselves. No one tries to take away our yellow :censored:ing team and gets away with it.

Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (CHL - 2018 Orr Cup Champions) Chicago Rivermen (UBA/WBL - 2014, 2015, 2017 Intercontinental Cup Champions)

King's Own Hexham FC (BIP - 2022 Saint's Cup Champions) Portland Explorers (EFL - Elite Bowl XIX Champions) Real San Diego (UPL) Red Bull Seattle (ULL - 2018, 2019, 2020 Gait Cup Champions) Vancouver Huskies (CL)

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2 hours ago, McCarthy said:

 

There were several prominent Austin supporters who became well-known trolls towards Columbus during the entire mess. People who seemed to take pure delight in not just receiving a team of their own, but taking one from someone else. People who'd go out of their way to kick those supporters while they were down. It all became very ugly. 

 

Of course you're going to have bad apples in any fanbase, but those people will be a part of Austin FC and it's bond with the club and the roots and all that nonsense moving forward. I won't forget about them. 

 

It is unfair that's there's good people in Austin who just want to root for the local team who will be vilified because the rest of us want their owner to suffer humiliation at every turn, but that's the breaks. Hopefully one day he'll sell the team and you won't have to represent that slimebag. 

The Columbus-Austin rivalry could be the nastiest in American soccer history.

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52 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

I’d hate to imagine how poorly baseball fans in Tampa Bay would have behaved on social media had it been around in 1988-1992. Hopefully, Precourt develops a Naimoli-level poor reputation and sells the team, going back to doing keg stands on his dad’s money.

Think about it this way, in December 1992, there were some media members who wanted to throw a celebration after Marlins team president Carl Barger had a grabber and died during the Winter Meetings.  Many a Tampa resident hold Barger, while a team president of the Pirates, responsible for Miami getting the expansion team over Tampa Bay, thus forcing Namoli to pursue the Giants and getting Lurie to agree to sell the team in August of 1992.

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36 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

Think about it this way, in December 1992, there were some media members who wanted to throw a celebration after Marlins team president Carl Barger had a grabber and died during the Winter Meetings.  Many a Tampa resident hold Barger, while a team president of the Pirates, responsible for Miami getting the expansion team over Tampa Bay, thus forcing Namoli to pursue the Giants and getting Lurie to agree to sell the team in August of 1992.

 

Maybe I read Stadium for Rent wrong, but the wasn’t the big reason why Tampa Bay’s group (spearheaded by DC attourney Steve Porter) lost out was that they were scrambling for money at the 11th hour because Porter got into heavy disagreements with big investor Sidney Kohl over who controlled the group?

 

Stadiuk for Rent made a point of highlighting the Tampa Bay Area’s distaste for the Marlins/Huizenga/Barger. Those protests outside of Blockbuster Video locations were a repeated point for Andelman’s 1990-93 chapters. Heck, Rick Dodge and Jack Critchfield even had some low-key accusations against Huizenga.

 

For those who haven’t read Stadium for Rent, go read it.

 

Back to MLS and potential expansion, I hope Sacramento gets in. After all of the BS they went through, it’d be nice. It’d also give the Fake Quakes a decent rival.

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1 hour ago, TrueYankee26 said:

The Columbus-Austin rivalry could be the nastiest in American soccer history.

Potentially one sided though. Willing to bet most Austin fans won't give a damn about Columbus once their club enters the league.

Hotter Than July > Thriller

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9 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

Maybe I read Stadium for Rent wrong, but the wasn’t the big reason why Tampa Bay’s group (spearheaded by DC attourney Steve Porter) lost out was that they were scrambling for money at the 11th hour because Porter got into heavy disagreements with big investor Sidney Kohl over who controlled the group?

 

Stadiuk for Rent made a point of highlighting the Tampa Bay Area’s distaste for the Marlins/Huizenga/Barger. Those protests outside of Blockbuster Video locations were a repeated point for Andelman’s 1990-93 chapters. Heck, Rick Dodge and Jack Critchfield even had some low-key accusations against Huizenga.

 

For those who haven’t read Stadium for Rent, go read it.

 

Back to MLS and potential expansion, I hope Sacramento gets in. After all of the BS they went through, it’d be nice. It’d also give the Fake Quakes a decent rival.

3

Porter was selected by MLB over Tampa area car dealer, Frank Morsani, who previously had agreements to purchase the Twins, A's. and Rangers, years before the expansion process and didn't have his group selected as the Tampa Bay expansion bids owner. Porter/Kohl went to NYC and balked to pay the $95M expansion fee and Wayne Huizenga conveniently stepped in late in the process. Namoli basically took up the cause which Frank Morsani started after Morsani wasn't selected.

 

Morsani sued MLB in 1993 and the case was settled in 2002 and became more of a local philanthropist, with the family name on USF's medical school. 

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There were a ton of poor sports in Seattle when the Kings and Coyotes talked about moving. I was one of them.

 

The difference is that people liked the Crew. No one cares about the Coyotes and the Kings were in a darker place then. Chris Hansen astroturfing Sacramento was inexcusable though.

1 hour ago, ShutUpLutz! said:

and the drunken doodoobags jumping off the tops of SUV's/vans/RV's onto tables because, oh yeah, they are drunken drug abusing doodoobags

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2 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

Porter was selected by MLB over Tampa area car dealer, Frank Morsani, who previously had agreements to purchase the Twins, A's. and Rangers, years before the expansion process and didn't have his group selected as the Tampa Bay expansion bids owner. Porter/Kohl went to NYC and balked to pay the $95M expansion fee and Wayne Huizenga conveniently stepped in late in the process. Namoli basically took up the cause which Frank Morsani started after Morsani wasn't selected.

 

Morsani sued MLB in 1993 and the case was settled in 2002 and became more of a local philanthropist, with the family name on USF's medical school. 

 

Ah yes, I remember that from Stadium for Rent. Morsani’s group (calling themselves the “Florida Panthers”) didn’t make the final cut because of Morsani’s bankruptcy proceedings. Morsani really went through the ringer with the various bids to buy teams falling through (some of that may have been his loose lips when discussing deals to the press). Losing Bill Mack as an investor didn’t help matters. The whole operation also helped to hasten the death of famed Yankees executive/Morsani’s baseball advisor Cedric Tallis.

 

Andelman does describe Porter/Kohl balking at the expansion fee, but also suggests/outlines some serious disagreements between Porter and Kohl derailing the group. Since Kohl didn’t agree to an interview, we really only have Porter and Rick Dodge’s word on it (and a few other ancillary investors).

 

I’d also argue that Jack Critchfield of Florida Progress also carried on some of Morsani’s burden, but it was Naimoli spearheading the ownership group.

 

Morsani recovered well from bankruptcy and the lawsuit. I read his book for some research, and while he doesn’t really talk about anything not mentioned in Stadium for Rent, it was nice to hear his perspective.

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6 hours ago, Dilbert said:

Well thats some much needed good news for Sacramento. Sacramento deserves to get into MLS. Phoenix and St Louis have solid bids too. Ultimately I would love to see all 3 in but if MLS is going to stick to its 28 teams then its gonna be a dog fight for that final spot.

 

No worries, MLS is not going to stick to 28 teams.

 

They never said 28 was the ceiling, that was just the next stop in their expansion plans. They made it clear when they announced the move to 28:

 

Quote

"There is no shortage of demand for MLS expansion teams and we believe the opportunity exists to grow beyond our current plans," Garber said in a statement. "We will evaluate how to grow the league to 28 teams and establish a process and timeline for future expansion."

 

And since then, Garber has doubled down on that. 

 

Quote

 

Stopping at 28 was only fan speculation, caused by a misreading of the situation and spread as fact online.  I’m confident that when they finally do stop, MLS will be closer to 40 clubs than 28. 

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On 1/21/2019 at 6:35 AM, Gothamite said:

 

:blink:

 

Just because MLS was able to come up with a compromise that ended with clubs in both cities doesn’t mean that Precourt, his allies in the municipal government, and whatever fan support they had in Austin weren’t trying to move the Crew away from its home and its fans.  I didn’t hear a lot of “expansion not relocation” talk coming from Texas. 

 

And fair enough, you deal with what’s in front of you. But let’s not pretend that wasn’t what it was. 

Sorry, but many here had no clue what was going on.  No pretending at all.  We were told we might get a soccer team..people got excited...then many realized we might be, again "stealing" someone else's team, which is never a good feeling.  I'll reiterate what I said before, a lot of these behind-the-scences dealings, the Precourt group etc,. have nothing to do with the people of Austin.  

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4 hours ago, rainmaker17 said:

Sorry, but many here had no clue what was going on.  No pretending at all.  We were told we might get a soccer team..people got excited...then many realized we might be, again "stealing" someone else's team, which is never a good feeling.  I'll reiterate what I said before, a lot of these behind-the-scences dealings, the Precourt group etc,. have nothing to do with the people of Austin.  

The fact an Austin city council member spent more time in Columbus than the team's ownership last year explained how crap PSV were and how much MLS underestimated the mood across the league. I'm sad I probably won't make a game for the Crew this year but I'm more than happy that it's because of work and not because they're somewhere else.

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From what I've heard ticket sales in Columbus are up dramatically, which is what I predicted last winter - if you get that guy away from the team the city will show up to the stadium to give him the finger. It helps when you don't have the owner of the team deliberately trying to suppress attendance through a lot of shady tactics. 

 

Precourt had this astro-turfed social media campaign that vastly overstated Austin's interest in an MLS team. They once sent out a tweet that was supposedly from a fan and forgot to turn off locations so it came from Columbus. LOL. It was very dirty and underhanded and also, like most PSV ventures, poorly executed. 

 

Their club president, Andy Loughnane, was described by Shawn Williams of the Columbus Dispatch as "The most difficult person I've ever had to deal with in any field in my 18 years as a professional journalist". Sorry to the good people of Austin, but you're going to be hated because your team is run by a bunch of liars and snakes and also Precourt, who is one of sports' new villains. I wouldn't wish that fat-faced trust fund :censored: on any fanbase. 

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