Why Hasn't There Been A Good Alternative Baseball League to MLB?

[leopard88]

23 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

On an episode of the Good Seats Still Available podcast, MISL co-founder and former owner of the league's New Jersey Rockets made a comment along the lines of: losing a little money is OK; but only if you're losing a lot of money does it become unsustainable.

 

So perhaps there was too much attention to the Cosmos — which, on account of my having named Steve Ross as the ideal owner, is entirely my fault. (I just love the guy!)

 

But a better example of a good owner is probably Tepper. It's not necessary to engage in unlimited spending to bring in the best players in the world; it's necessary only to be willing to absorb small losses in order to sustain the team at a respectable level. There may be a few dozen or so people in the country who could spend like Ross; but every city has thousands of people who could act according to what Tepper said and express their love of a sport by being a team's patron.

 

The basic point remains the same: a start-up league can no longer be run from the standpoint of a traditional business, at least not at first. Unless you have owners who are not expecting immediate return and who are willing to pay the league's costs for many years until the league's teams can perhaps (if they're lucky) become entrenched in various cities' local cultures, then the chances of survival are near zero.

 

The current indoor soccer version of Tepper may be Ed Hale of the Baltimore Blast.  He owned the original version of the team in the late 80s-early 90s and has owned the current version since 1998, across multiple leagues (a total of five, if my math is correct).  I'm fairly certain he hasn't exactly been printing money during that time, but the Blast have usually been an anchor in whatever league they play in.

[leopard88]

1 hour ago, leopard88 said:

 

The current indoor soccer version of Tepper may be Ed Hale of the Baltimore Blast.  He owned the original version of the team in the late 80s-early 90s and has owned the current version since 1998, across multiple leagues (a total of five, if my math is correct).  I'm fairly certain he hasn't exactly been printing money during that time, but the Blast have usually been an anchor in whatever league they play in.

 

Yes, I quoted myself.

__________________

 

I went to high school with Ed Hale's son and still talk to him a few times a year.  I've never asked him why they decided to move from Royal Farms Arena to Towson University's SECU Arena, which has a capacity for indoor soccer that is approximately 2,000 seats lower than the team's average attendance at Royal Farms Arena.  However, it has supposedly been an economic plus for the team (presumably based on ticket pricing and how much of the revenue the team receives).

[Brian in Boston]

On 5/15/2019 at 5:35 AM, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

If not for Steve Ross, the NASL would have had a short and uneventful life and would have died in the mid-1970s.

If not for Nesuhi Ertegun's passion for the sport of soccer, the thought of purchasing an NASL franchise would never have crossed Steve Ross's mind.

[Gothamite]

21 minutes ago, Brian in Boston said:

If not for Nesuhi Ertegun's passion for the sport of soccer, the thought of purchasing an NASL franchise would never have crossed Steve Ross's mind.

 

Indeed.  

 

Ross might well have been a great guy, but he was a dilettante who came into the sport, threw a bunch of other people’s money at it, soaked up all the attention that bought him, and then just walked away uncaring when the people he forced to pay the bills cut him off.

[sky1324]

On 5/21/2019 at 8:53 AM, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

On an episode of the Good Seats Still Available podcast, MISL co-founder and former owner of the league's New Jersey Rockets made a comment along the lines of: losing a little money is OK; but only if you're losing a lot of money does it become unsustainable.

 

So perhaps there was too much attention to the Cosmos — which, on account of my having named Steve Ross as the ideal owner, is entirely my fault. (I just love the guy!)

 

But a better example of a good owner is probably Tepper. It's not necessary to engage in unlimited spending to bring in the best players in the world; it's necessary only to be willing to absorb small losses in order to sustain the team at a respectable level. There may be a few dozen or so people in the country who could spend like Ross; but every city has thousands of people who could act according to what Tepper said and express their love of a sport by being a team's patron.

 

The basic point remains the same: a start-up league can no longer be run from the standpoint of a traditional business, at least not at first. Unless you have owners who are not expecting immediate return and who are willing to pay the league's costs for many years until the league's teams can perhaps (if they're lucky) become entrenched in various cities' local cultures, then the chances of survival are near zero.

I assume you're referring to David Tepper, in which case my post will make sense. If not, then just ignore me.

 

I love what Tep's been doing with the Panthers. He is indeed the ideal owner, one who's invested in the game and willing to simply write the check for improvement. He's already building us a brand new practice facility (one that's actually indoors!), and he seems to be willing to stay involved in the team and its operations, while also letting the football guys do their thing. My favorite part about the guy, however, is his commitment to the city of Charlotte. We'll have to see how inevitable stadium negotiations go, but he seems to want to keep the team in Charlotte, and he's even looking into buying an MLS team for Charlotte (yes please!). I'd say he's the guy people should be looking up too, and I sure hope it works out for both him and the team.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 hour ago, QueenCitySwarm said:

I assume you're referring to David Tepper, in which case my post will make sense. If not, then just ignore me.

 

I love what Tep's been doing with the Panthers. He is indeed the ideal owner, one who's invested in the game and willing to simply write the check for improvement. He's already building us a brand new practice facility (one that's actually indoors!), and he seems to be willing to stay involved in the team and its operations, while also letting the football guys do their thing. My favorite part about the guy, however, is his commitment to the city of Charlotte. We'll have to see how inevitable stadium negotiations go, but he seems to want to keep the team in Charlotte, and he's even looking into buying an MLS team for Charlotte (yes please!). I'd say he's the guy people should be looking up too, and I sure hope it works out for both him and the team.

 

I was actually talking about Ed Tepper. I see now that I somehow neglected to write his name in the first paragraph of my comment. Sorry about that! I have gone back and edited my comment to include his name where I had intended it to be.

 

My comment also included a link to the podcast episode in which Tepper made the remark to which I referred. Here is the URL of that link.

 

http://goodseatsstillavailable.com/listen/2019/3/9/episode-103-the-major-indoor-soccer-leagues-origin-story-with-co-founder-ed-tepper

 

As far as I can tell, there is no relation between Ed Tepper and David Tepper.

 

Your description of David Tepper's style of ownership certainly defines him as an excellent owner, in that he treats the Panthers more as a local institution than as a source of profit. When you combine that attitude with David Tepper's wealth, you have a very good situation indeed.

 

It's unfortunate that this country does not have a culture that produces very many owners of that sort.