I'm fine with it, but to me, it seems more like he's trying to get control for the rights to concerts in Houston. Les is willing to spend money and make trades. He has a history of it with Clyde Drexler, Charles Barkley, Scottie Quitten , Steve Francis, and Tracy McGrady. He attempted to make moves, and signings every off season. Things came up short, or just got "basketball reasoned." I don't think he gets in the way of the front office. He just tells them the direction he wants them to move in, and he lets his people do it. I think FSN is a dead man walking. The only thing I might see on FSN is poker, Texas Rangers baseball, Dallas Stars hockey, UIL Sports. Anything to get away from AEG is fine with me.
For BBVA yes. For Toyota, not really. Indoor versus outdoor. Of course, the Woodlands should be concerned if this deal goes through because Les can offer a choice of venues and more promoters are going to prefer a downtown locale due to ease of selling tickets (example, I don't go to the Woodlands for a concert - it is 90 minutes).
Whether Canetti goes or not will be up to a new owner. However, Ortiz is an idiot if he thinks a GM/President from the NBA is going to be able to run the operation of a sport that is like no other with its budget rules, transfer fees, loan fees, and ITC certificates. No, bring me someone who knows the global sport first, and a strong second has an idea of how MLS works.
doing that was suppose to free up salary cap room to help facilitate a deal to land Howard. The reason that Martin was not amnestied was because his contract had value in being an expiring contract. You can trade that for "assets." ie 1st Round picks.
I know a guy that the Rockets got from Pana. Some fat white due in Austin who claims to create a whole bunch of video games, and has a youtube channel. (a few here will get that one, I know for sure)
Two things I would add: - The NHL, much like the MLS, didn't have much of a choice when they signed an explatory contract. ESPN only wanted to do a revenue-share with them so it was Versus (OLN actually) or bust. But I think for the core NHL fan, it has been absolutely great on Versus/NBCSN. - MLS does still get significant revenue from SUM. It may be lower than it once was because they sold off a stake in it (so they cashed in that equity) but it still has value. - I think the big difference is that while there is more or less cost certainty in MLS, the revenue guarantee is less robust because it driven by non-TV sources. In the NBA, with the cap and the TV contracts, assuming you could draw half decently, you could cut your player budget to guarantee a profit because your base-case revenue is higher. Essentially you could cut your way to a profit. And non-salary costs are lower in the NBA because you have fewer employees, benefits, travel costs, etc. In MLS, the salary cost excluding DPs are the same for everyone (since the league owns the contracts) so you can't cut your way to a profit there so revenue growth is really the sole profit mechanism.
I think that is incorrect. It goes out until 2019 or so. Below from the Houston Business Journal earlier this year:
Could be right my memory goes with each beer. I thought it was a tiered non compete with different terms per year but someone else knows more about it here than I do.
I think the original issue was the City of Houston could not help develop a competing facility until 2013 under the Toyota Center agreement so in exchange for letting the City help on BBVA Compass before then he got a limited concert non-compete out until 2019.
It perhaps would be a big hit or miss with Les Alexander. His staff might want to go corporate like they have done with our Rockets experience ever since moving to downtown and be a Bob Kraft type of MLS owner with priorities on the "bigger" team he owns, or he might seek out soccer savvy staff to run the club and really build something strong in MLS and Concacaf.
Come on now, you secretly want an owner that will be selling furniture while brandishing a chain saw on late-night TV commercials
I more fear them bringing in some statistical Moneyball genius like Morey, and then using Opta stats to construct a roster, not adjusting for things like guys passing percentage being high because they kick it around the backfield for 8 minutes. I know, I know it's been so successful thus far for the Rockets by changing 70% of their roster over each offseason. I missed this earlier but I think there is some implied Les pressure on the GMs to make some blockbuster moves even if it craters the rest of the roster. The NBA is a different animal because there are so many bad guaranteed contracts given out that teams see value in the "quality" or term of your liability for mistakes. It's like everyone has bad contracts on their roster so the teams that only have one year left on the bad ones are considered "good".
I'm goin with a big hell to the no on this one. Anyone stupid enough to sit idly by and keep Morey on the payroll,or anyone else on his staff, that can do what they've done to the Rockets dont belong in sports period. Expensive tickets, no real stars, and over a decade of ineffectiveness while lying to the fans that this will be the year. If the Rockets were your investment money you'd be yammering for Les and company to be put under a white collar prison. I'm not asking for a neurotic nutjob like Jerry Jones, but I want an owner who gives a damn and knows when he needs to step in and when to back off. There's too much of a good thing here to let another team fall to shit like every single major sports franchise has in this city due to shitty GM and even dumber ownership who only want dollars and could give two shits about a winning team as long as the dumbasses keep lining their pockets.
agree with the people who are complacent with the hands off approach of our current ownrs. but.. what if we could have access to better players by having a billionaire to wine and dine int transfers. i wouldnt mind paying a lil extra in order to see two more bonieks on the pitch.. just let domK decide
Can't wait to see what the tryouts for the Supporters Sections are going to look like. Local Ownership could be good and at least it's not the "That's a fact Jack! guy (Hilton something or other IIRC) but I'm not really sure if Les will lead this team to the promised land.
I wonder if it is really possible to have both? I'm not sure at all we can have our cake and eat it to. And just to hit a cliche trifecta: Be careful what you ask for. You might get it.
Good points, but I think that it's problematic to expect that MLS will succeed by following the NHL's approach. The NHL could promise its broadcast partner major league sports TV ratings in numerous major markets across a large swath of the US. MLS cannot. The NHL is a huge deal in big cities like Boston, NY, Philly, Chicago, Detroit, and so on. MLS is not. The NHL has had generations in some of these markets to establish itself. MLS has not. The NHL is a better national TV product than MLS. There are some markets in MLS, like Seattle, where the local team gets major league sports TV ratings. But there aren't many. It's possible that Houston could be such a market, but I don't see any reason to think that MLS could offer a broadcaster anything like what the NHL offered as a national TV product. What expectation would a broadcaster have to offer MLS a deal similar to what the NHL just got? It's true that MLS ratings on NBC SN are significantly better than they were on FSC. But that's not saying much. The TV Guide Channel and most infomercials may get better ratings than MLS got on FSC. MLS ratings on the ESPN nets are also, and have always been, dismal. And I don't believe that the "broadcasters creating stars" approach will work with MLS. ESPN actually tried it a bit with their ads in 1996. It didn't work with Eric Wynalda [cue Westside diatribe on Waldo's mental issues ] or the others. Yes, I know that wasn't much, but do you really think it will work nationally with NBC SN and Wondo or Montero? MLS is just not as relevant as the NHL in as many major media markets. A broadcaster can "prime the pump", but there has to be enough water in the well in the first place. Clearly, large numbers of people in the US are willing to watch soccer on TV. But MLS isn't getting those numbers. That's the challenge for MLS going into its next TV contract negotiations, and probably the one after that. You can argue that it'll happen organically, over time. That's true to a certain extent. In a decade or two, MLS will probably get better ratings anyway. But if you want to see MLS get serious TV money in the next set of contracts, they're going to need to do something different. Doing what they're doing now is not working for national TV ratings. And I see nothing to suggest that it will start to work. It's also quite possible that MLS is ok with the slow growth, long-term approach. Maybe they're fine with running multi-use venues and making some extra money with concerts, football, X-games and whatever else they can get in those venues. Maybe they're ok with a few markets, like Seattle, having good local TV ratings, while others, like Denver, mostly just provide filler for regional sports networks owned by the local MLS investor. Maybe. I wouldn't be all that disappointed if that's the case. We have a pretty good thing. But if MLS wants to be a bigger national TV ratings product -- to be a major sports league in fact, not just in name -- then they have to do something different. What they're doing now is not going to get them there. I'm not entirely convinced that the premises underlying the school of thought that says that big-name stars will get bigger ratings are necessarily true. I do, however, agree with at least one of those premises -- that MLS doesn't have to fear the ghost of the old NASL anymore. There's certainly some interest among MLS owners to loosen the purse strings. I wouldn't mind seeing if their approach would work. We'll see where Les comes down in that divide.
What could MLs do different other than start paying big $$ to bring in more Euro talent rather than the current talent of the Americas?
I think that's probably the only alternative in terms of a theory to get higher ratings (although big-name also includes S. Americans who made big names for themselves in Europe).
I think Alexander could be good owner. He's been willing to spend money on the Rockets, it's just that those deals haven't worked out. And I don't see the prices increasing any more than if AEG keeps the team. I'm sure AEG did plenty of research to determine how much they could charge people, and Alexander would do the same, and probably get the same results. The first step is to keep the best talent of the Americas here. MLS needs to get to a point that players don't bolt at the first offer from any European team. Guys that have options in one of the top leagues will still leave, but we shouldn't be losing guys to smaller European leagues/teams. After that it's a question of attracting the best players from the rest of the Americas to play here instead of Mexico, Argentina, or Brazil.
I will absolutely grant you the benefit NHL had over the MLS at the time is that they had been an established presence and it was easier to predict what the "upside" would be because it had been realized once before. However, many of the issue you list were actually some of the same challenges NHL had in the post strike era. NHL had lost their fan base, were getting terrible ratings, and could not even sell out opening games in many of those hotbeds of hockey. And to be clear, I don't think MLS gains the same level of contract that NHL did for the reasons above, however the same model seems to already be in play. My prediction is that MLS is able to negotiate close to the 60-75 million per year with NBC in 2014; IF NBC sees the upside. That is 25% of what NHL just signed but double the current contract totals. It will likely be a 5 year deal with MLS setting sights on breaking the 100 million mark in 2019-2020. The one thing MLS has that NHL didn't, is those very latent fans of the game that have not been converted. With the NHL, networks always knew roughly what their cap would be; because it had been reached in the past. A professional soccer league has not reached that pinnacle. It may take 20 years to hit it, but that is what MLS is selling to a network, untapped potential. I think the steady growth model is exactly what MLS will stick to, until they have a major jump in revenue. My point is this; the only avenue for a major jump in revenue is through TV. That will be MLS' primary focus for the next decade other than occasional and targeted expansion. Let's be frank, the move to get a second team in the city in NY is almost entirely about TV. MLS NEEDS a broadcast partner that buys into the upside and will pay for the chance to market and grow the audience, especially in the young demographic. They have not had that yet. They will not be able to grow big, then get the contract. It just won't happen;the economics don't work because of the high cost of talent worldwide. How much would you have to spend per team to bring in talent that is known and competitive worldwide? 40 million? 60 million? 100 million? You can but together a team that can compete at 20 million but with enough star power to drive ratings? No. The average team spends 5-7 million now in total? That leap is way too big without TV.
I agree that should be a focus. Absolutely. But I don't think that is going to do much of anything to drive revenue. If the top guys are still leaving, those are the only ones with an OUTSIDE chance of being able to drive TV ratings. Improving the middle of the talent pool will make us more competitive but in terms of the discussion on driving revenue, it isn't going to happen.
Yeah but I contend that the price to get those guys; not one or two but a league with enough to drive interest, is way too high without a revenue jump first. I don't see that as sustainable. I think they continue the DP approach, hoping to drive enough interest to highlight the potential, and negotiate from the upside argument. They may have to promise a certain percentage of the revenue from a contract will go into salary.