North American Pro Soccer 2014

[FiddySicks]

No link, but local papers are saying the Sounders are looking for a SSS, which may itself be a "power play" to get the Seahawks to install grass.

A SSS should be dismissed out hand, but installing grass at Century Link is obviously a good idea. There is a huge international soccer opportunity cost to not having grass, including potential player signings, international matches, and the potential hosting of a US World Cup match.

If the Sounders left downtown, I'm pretty sure I'd be about done with them. The downtown atmosphere is a huge selling point with the team.

Yeah, that would be really dumb of them to leave CLF. I agree about it being a huge selling point for them. I'd assume it's grass, but do you know if StarFire is grass or turf?

[Gothamite]

It's artificial turf.

Q: Are there plans to replace the oft-criticized artificial turf at Starfire Stadium?

(Sounders GM Adrian) Hanauer: No firm replacement plans. Obviously if we end up with a USL team playing in that stadium, if it continues to be an Open Cup venue, it needs to be addressed. ... Those fields do come to the end of their life span, and we need to look at that surface and start to figure when were going to make that change.

Q: Do you have the ability to just pay for it?

Hanauer: Its not as cut and dried as that. Starfire is a 501c3. Its a nonprofit organization and theyre not allowed to be dictated to by a professional for-profit entity. Now in the field case, I think they understand that its not optimal either. I think wed be able to work something out.

That's from this past June.

http://seattletimes.com/html/sounders/2023928438_sounders26xml.html

[FiddySicks]

Hmm. That surprises me a bit. I would've figured they had grass there. I know they often times play games there, and I'd think it'd probably be more likely to get StarFire to switch to grass than it would be to get CenturyLink to change to grass. I'm not sure it's a big enough facility though.

[VancouverFan69]

New York City FC isn't a placeholder. It's the name, and I assume it was chosen to be in continuity with the Manchester City FC branding.

I suppose they'll also try to pull off Manchester City's sky blue color scheme, which is really the last thing the league needs after the Sporting KC rebrand last year.

My reaction to this news is mixed. It's great to see MLS getting investment from clubs like the Yankees and Manchester City, but I was really hoping for a return of the Cosmos.

Better than Red Bull... i miss the MetroStars, this is a good replacement...

Still wish it was the Cosmos...

Totally agree. I still dream and hope for the day when my Whitecaps and rival Sounders play the Cosmos in MLS action. It would create even more interest league-wide.

[Gothamite]

Absent promotion and relegation, that will never happen.

The NASL is going to try to create a second major league, like the AL did to the NL, but I don't see how that could possibly happen. Especially since MLS is moving to take away all the NASL's major markets.

There was a brief period when the NASL was the only game in Atlanta, metro Miami and New York. If they couldn't leverage their presence in those markets into major-league status, how can they hope to do it with Jacksonville, Indianapolis and Oklahoma City? They don't have anything to offer.

I too was expecting (and even looking forward to) the Cosmos to move up to MLS. But that didn't happen, and now I couldn't be more thrilled with what we ended up with.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

New York City FC isn't a placeholder. It's the name, and I assume it was chosen to be in continuity with the Manchester City FC branding.

I suppose they'll also try to pull off Manchester City's sky blue color scheme, which is really the last thing the league needs after the Sporting KC rebrand last year.

My reaction to this news is mixed. It's great to see MLS getting investment from clubs like the Yankees and Manchester City, but I was really hoping for a return of the Cosmos.

Better than Red Bull... i miss the MetroStars, this is a good replacement...

Still wish it was the Cosmos...

Totally agree. I still dream and hope for the day when my Whitecaps and rival Sounders play the Cosmos in MLS action. It would create even more interest league-wide.

We would have that already if not for MLS's terrible policy on ownership of team marks -- namely, that the league owns them all.

The owners of the Cosmos had the chance to obtain the second New York MLS team; but they found that it wasn't worth it to them to pay the $100 million expansion fee only to lose control of the team's name and trademarks. They made the decision to play in a smaller league but to retain the control of their intellectual property.

Not incidentally, the decision not to join MLS also gives the Cosmos complete say over which players to sign. In MLS, all players are contracted to the league, not to any team. The "investor-operators" of each team (note: not "owners", despite the frequent informal use of that term) actually own shares in the entity MLS, and the right to operate a team. The league generally allows each team's investor-operators to acquire the players it wants through signings and trades; but it retains the right to overrule any team's desire in any case, and had done so occasionally.

It is downright scandalous that MLS's single-entity structure, a blatantly collusive arrangement that was designed to depress salaries, has survived court challenges and has become entrenched. That this could have endured judicial scrutiny says something very ugly about the ideology underpinning judicial reasoning in the U.S.

This arrangement is blatantly counter to the interest of players; and, as the Cosmos have shown, it is counter also to the interests of ownership groups that want to run a club. The fact is that, as entertaining as some MLS matches can be, their teams aren't clubs that are truly competing with each other, but are simply offices of the entity MLS.

Perhaps MLS will one day abandons its single-entity wage theivery and become a proper league. But, by then, with two New York teams already, it will have no room for the Cosmos.

The Cosmos made their decision; and they are standing by it, as the pros outweigh the cons for them. Even though we can see the Cosmos play the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers and the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the NASL, I, too, would like to see the Cosmos playing the Sounders and Whitecaps. But the blame for our not being able to see this falls squarely on MLS, and on the courts which approved its offensive business model.

[sportstar1212]

Absent promotion and relegation, that will never happen.

The NASL is going to try to create a second major league, like the AL did to the NL, but I don't see how that could possibly happen. Especially since MLS is moving to take away all the NASL's major markets.

There was a brief period when the NASL was the only game in Atlanta, metro Miami and New York. If they couldn't leverage their presence in those markets into major-league status, how can they hope to do it with Jacksonville, Indianapolis and Oklahoma City? They don't have anything to offer.

I too was expecting (and even looking forward to) the Cosmos to move up to MLS. But that didn't happen, and now I couldn't be more thrilled with what we ended up with.

There are still some decent markets where neither league has planted their flag yet, such as Milwaukee, St. Louis, San Diego, or even Phoenix. The NASL would be wise to look at those places to counter MLS' moves.

And count me in the camp that was hoping for the Cosmos to move up to MLS. Though, the identity that NYCFC has created is fantastic. I got a jersey for Christmas, and I absolutely love it.

[Gothamite]

Had the Cosmos wished to change the business model, they would have done well to join and work from within. Recruiting like-minded owners to change the bylaws is far more likely than a court challenge. But I suspect the Cosmos' owners were simply outbid; we don't actually know who owns them.

I too love NYCFC's identity. They've done an amazing job using local iconography without being too obvious or showy.

As for Milwaukee, I think MLS might be too rich but think they'll be a natural fit in the NASL. Maybe as a landing point for the Silverbacks or another displaced team.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

Had the Cosmos wished to change the business model, they would have done well to join and work from within. Recruiting like-minded owners to change the bylaws is far more likely than a court challenge. But I suspect the Cosmos' owners were simply outbid; we don't actually know who owns them.

I too love NYCFC's identity. They've done an amazing job using local iconography without being too obvious or showy.

As for Milwaukee, I think MLS might be too rich but think they'll be a natural fit in the NASL. Maybe as a landing point for the Silverbacks or another displaced team.

There is actually no realistic prospect of MLS changing its business model, as there is no call for this from its current crop of investor-operators. For the Cosmos' owners to enter into MLS with the goal of changing the minds of all the other investor-operator groups would have been utter folly.

And the Cosmos' owners (which are known; I don't know where you get the idea that "we don't actually know who owns them") were not outbid. They were in negotiations with MLS for the right to the franchise that eventually went to the Man City / Yankees partnership. When the Cosmos found out what the single-entity structure meant for their brand, they walked away.

Regarding NYC FC -- I also think that they have done a great job with their logos. I have a warmup jacket, and I hope to get a hat or two. But no jersey; I wouldn't wear a soccer jersey that has an ad on it. (I have two Cosmos jerseys that came out before they put ads on them.)

And I really like having the Manchester City owners as investor-operators of this team. Despite my being a Chelsea fan, I greatly respect Manchester City's owners for how they have transformed that club. They, like Chelsea's owners, are doing things the right way, the way that's in the interests of all concerned. These sorts of owners benefit their own fans, of course. But they also benefit all other fans by elevating the competition, and thereby putting pressure on other clubs to get better owners.

So I hope that NYC FC will succeed. Because of NYC FC, I will surely pay more attention to MLS than I ever have done before. Still, my distaste for the league's way of doing business remains, as does my admiration for the Cosmos' decision not to take part in it.

[Gothamite]

Dude, you don't need to shout. We can hear you just fine.

Sure, Sela Sport owns the Cosmos, but who owns Sela Sport? They're a private company who has not, so far as I know, revealed their investors except to say they're "100% Saudi Owned". But until we actually know where their money comes from, we don't know if they could have hoped to outbid Sheikh Mansour.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

Dude, you don't need to shout. We can hear you just fine.

Sure, Sela Sport owns the Cosmos, but who owns Sela Sport? They're a private company who has not, so far as I know, revealed their investors except to say they're "100% Saudi Owned". But until we actually know where their money comes from, we don't know if they could have hoped to outbid Sheikh Mansour.

I don't know why the text came out big. I have edited the post to reduce the size.

Anyway, there was no competitive bidding. The City/Yankees partnership paid the expansion fee that MLS laid out just as the Cosmos' owners could have done had they been so inclined; and the City/Yankees group did so only after the Cosmos chose not to.

I suppose that one could speculate that the Cosmos were never able to meet the $100 million fee. But that's not likely, as their ownership group was well vetted by MLS's expansion people. The league would never have met with the Cosmos in the first place if the club's owners' wealth hadn't been verified.

[Gothamite]

You may be right. We'll never know. Or maybe they were vetted and found wanting.

But once City Football Group came around, the Cosmos lost whatever bargaining power they had with MLS. Before then, it's conceivable that they might have been able to negotiate an exception to the trademark rules, perhaps by granting MLS exclusive rights to use them without formally giving them up. Let's not forget how obviously desperate the league was to get into the market. MLS might have gone for such a deal just to have a marquee name in NYC. That is, until CFG entered the picture. Then their only choice was whether they wanted to try and outbid them.

[kw11333]

Still think the MLS is missing the ball, but not having the NY derby be the season opener

[hawk36]

No, I'd say you need to save the derby for later in the season. Build the anticipation.

[Gothamite]

Agreed. The first match will be a huge event, as will the first time those two face off.

Why cut the number of big games in half?

[The_Admiral]

As for Milwaukee, I think MLS might be too rich but

Don't wanna live in a world where freaking MLS is "too rich" for Milwaukee

[Gothamite]

I'm just saying that the buyin for MLS is now $70 million in expansion fees alone, plus the little matter of a soccer-specific stadium. That's a lot for a city to put in, especially if they haven't had a high-level minor-league team to show interest.

For the record, I think the city would be a slam-dunk. It's been soccer crazy for decades, but there hasn't been a local magnate willing to put in his own money to go pro. Until then, I don't see it happening.

[illwauk]

As for Milwaukee, I think MLS might be too rich but

Don't wanna live in a world where freaking MLS is "too rich" for Milwaukee

I'm just saying that the buyin for MLS is now $70 million in expansion fees alone, plus the little matter of a soccer-specific stadium. That's a lot for a city to put in, especially if they haven't had a high-level minor-league team to show interest.

For the record, I think the city would be a slam-dunk. It's been soccer crazy for decades, but there hasn't been a local magnate willing to put in his own money to go pro. Until then, I don't see it happening.

Milwaukee's problems are as follows...

-The last high-level minor league club (Milwaukee Rampage/Wave United) was hugely successful, but played in Franklin and at 67th & Good Hope... both of which may as well be on Mars for most of SE Wisconsin. Thus, they struggled to draw casual fans and folded.

-Most other potential homes for a high level pro soccer club in Milwaukee either have the same problem (Hart Park in Wauwatosa), or are too small (Engelmann Field at UWM).

-Peter Wilt and Tim Krause both tried to bring MLS to Milwaukee which now makes soccer in Milwaukee a "lost cause" in the eyes of the boomers who comprise most of Milwaukee's civic and business "leadership." Mind you, this was over a full decade before World Cup parties shut down Brady Street and packed it with more bodies than the Lambeau parking lot during game day; but these are the same stuck-in-the-1960s idiots who said lakefront condos would "never happen" in Milwaukee and are just now, after 20 years, admitting that rail transit can work in a city that's more densely populated than Seattle, Portland, and Denver.

-These are the same people fighting off the idea of turning the Milwaukee Mile... which now hosts a whopping three races per year... into a SSS/concert venue (and potential home to a revived UWM football team) because the Mile is "so historical."

-This makes Miller Park the only viable venue for a soccer club in Milwaukee, and I doubt the Brewers would be willing to host a team they would see as competition for fans once it built its own home. This is especially a shame because the Brewers fan base is made up mostly of people from the collar counties, and college/post-collegiate aged transplants who are only here for a few years of good times before they move to the suburbs or back home. The demographic "sweet spot" so-to-say for a soccer club would be in places east of the freeway (Downtown, Third Ward, Bay View, Eastside, North Shore, etc.) and have little overlap with the Brewers fanbase.

[Gothamite]

The Milwaukee Mile? What a fantastic idea.

[MJWalker45]

No, I'd say you need to save the derby for later in the season. Build the anticipation.

Since Lampard may end up staying atMan City until May, I'd expect MLS to minimize the amount of derby games he'll miss. Either way, i just hope that the rest of the league vives them and Orlando a nice warm welcome to the league. And by that I mean they get taken to the woodshed. I won't be surprised to see NYCFC in the playoffs though. Almost all of the players they loaned out this year have done well.