I am guessing you are correct. mls would rather have wealthy owners who own a big stadium to compensate for a lack of a soccer specific stadium. The Wilfs who own the Vikings live in NYC and are a part of the same Jewish social groups as Don Garber. Prediction, the MN franchise starts up in 2019 or 2020 as the last team in this group of expansion. It wouldn't surprise me if they add 2 to 4 teams by 2030.
What does this even mean? There are over a million and a half Jews in the tri state area, maybe close to two million. What's a "Jewish social group"? The 92nd Street Y? Or these guys? "Jewish social circles", come on.
Elite rich people hang out with rich elite people. In this instance thats what I mean by social circles.
[/quote] I think everyone is clearly misinterpreting the map here. I will give that they are likely talking about San Antonio and St. Louis, but clearly the arrows point to Duluth Minnesota, Gatlinburg Tennessee, and somewhere off the coast of Florida, probably in international waters so that they don't need to be bound by US immigration rules.
Ok, fair enough, but casually conflating "rich elites" and "Jews" is just a bit off. If you think that Wilf and Garber have real direct ties, then I'll listen.
I think everyone is clearly misinterpreting the map here. I will give that they are likely talking about San Antonio and St. Louis, but clearly the arrows point to Duluth Minnesota, Gatlinburg Tennessee, and somewhere off the coast of Florida, probably in international waters so that they don't need to be bound by US immigration rules.[/quote] All in for Atlantis United FC! the fightin Namor's!!! Theres even leaked kits! can't believe I actually found a picture of the sub mariner in a soccer jersey....
Did anyone else catch this passing statement by Garber in the Q&A as interesting, or am I just reading into it too much? (approx. 46:30 in the Youtube video) "...That only leaves us a couple of extra spots, if we are in fact gonna stop at 24 by 2020. ...and there are a number of other markets that we don't have teams in that are large swaths of the country." Haven't seen anyone else talk much about this statement, but this this made my ears perk up a little.
@4four4 -- I can't let you go on this as easy as Haig. I don't pull out the "I'm Jewish card" all that often, but when I do it's usually because some knucklehead went and pissed me off. And you're the knucklehead that's gone and pissed me off this time. Well, I'm Jewish, and let me tell you about the roots of what you wrote. See, there's this old in-group/out-group slur about us Jews that goes something like this: Jews stick together, grease the skids for one another, and generally go out of our way to help each other out. But woe to the goyim who wants to deal with us. Those guys we'll screw over whenever we get a chance. When I read your post saying that Garber's going to go out of his way to bring the Wilfs into the league -- well, I know exactly what that insinuates. Maybe you don't realize that. Probably you don't. Consider this an education. Let's leave it at that.
I've been saying this for a while: 24 by 2020 is a goal, not a ceiling. No "major league" in the USA (plus Canada) has fewer than 30 teams. NBA: 30 NFL: 32 MLB: 30 NHL: 30 You really think Major League Soccer is going to stop at 24? I don't believe that for a minute. Never have. But if you say 24 by 2020, then you've got a goal, some buzz, and even the appearance of scarcity to drive up the price and competition -- all things MLS dearly needs and wants.
I don't believe it will stop at 24 either, and statements like the one made by Garber only reaffirm my suspicions. But -what I also found interesting was that he listed off Orlando, Miami, Atlanta.. then said a couple extra spots - but under a scenario which all of those cities join, there would only be one spot left. Could it be he already has on his mind another spot being available by moving/folding Chivas USA??
No, because Chivas would have to be sold first and if they were to relocate, you would have to have a stadium in place. They want more than $70mil for the team, what city would be willing to pay more than the going rate? How can you fold a team if the owner doesn't want out?
How about the league simply contracts the club? Why even bring sale into the equation? MLS can kick the team out of the league for failing to meet standards of the league (financial, attendance, operations, whatever excuse they need), and be done with that failed experiment.
No they can't, when you buy into MLS you own all the teams and a part of SUM. You get the rights to manage a franchise. How long to you think that lawsuit would last? Until this year there attendance was not bad, they would just say they were rebuilding and the fans stayed away. Besides that, why would you want anymore negative publicity if your trying to sell the team, it would drive the price down and hurt the league.
Yeah, I don't think it's quite as easy as QuietType might like. I think the most the other owners could do is to keep ratcheting up the pressure by increasing the standards for all the teams -- both on field and off. Demand more from all the owners: more investment in players, stadiums, better TV deals, better sponsorship deals. The whole shebang. At some point, Vergara won't want to maintain the team. But if that's done, the first to leave won't be Vergara, but Kraft.
Boom and that's it in a nutshell. How can you get rid of one guy, when there is always gone to be teams at the bottom that struggle with moving forward. They just have to reinvent themselves for a few seasons and the price can go up. They're still in LA and five years from now the price might be $200mil for the team with the growth of the league.
Don Garber followed up his state of the league with a stop at Fs1 the crowd goes wild and gave out some interesting information about NYCFC stadium and Miami.