Free NASL teams to Rich owners; etc.

Besides, the question of this topic is really what's been wrong with the development of the sport in this country for the past 80 years. Instead of groups of fans banding together to form a trust (and this is still done all over the world, even today), we just pray for some rich jerk to swoop in and drop a team in our laps. Problem is, rich jerks don't have the development of the sport or the love of the game at heart--all they care about is the bottom line. In this country, people need to realize that the bottom line isn't going to turn from red to black until the team AND league have been in operation for at least 5 to 10 years.

Teams that form naturally and move up from lower leagues with long-term development are going to improve the quality of the game in this country, not a bunch of rich yahoos sinking cash into a sport that not enough people are watching anyway.

That bolded statement is the reason why we don't have the traditional means of growing the sport the way they do it in other parts of the world. Not enough people care about soccer in the United States and Canada for them to try and build it from the ground up without a lot of money. Like it or not, rich yahoos like the Hunts and the Anschutzs and the rest of them are the ones that have sunk in a lot of their own millions to try and grow MLS and the game in this part of the world. Without them, USL and all its warts would be at the top of thesoccer pyramid in America.

Not all rich guys are jerks, and we've been fortunate to have a couple of rich guys who have had the love of the game at heart.

Part of the problem is that whoever your owner is, he or she needs to care about both. This isn't a frigging philanthropy, this is a business. Fans love to talk about how they'd do everything for the good and glory of the game and they'd never worry about something as base and untidy as profits and anyone who does is just a robber baron and a jerk besides.

But there's a reason fans don't own teams - because they think as fans. An owner who understands what fans want and understands and loves the game while understanding that this, at the end of the day, is a business is what you really want. There's a reason some people are successful in business and some aren't.

I have gone on the record as agreeing with your point, that we in the States owe a great deal to Anschutz and to the Hunts. In fact, I made it today on another thread. But neither Anschutz nor the Hunts are what I'd consider "yahoos." They are business people who understood what they were getting into when they started--a lot of years of losing a lot of money in the hope that someday the world game in this country would pay off. That's the kind of wherewithal we need from our owners.

I was sure that I'd get this criticism sooner or later. But note that I don't say anything negative about rich people. I am specifically being negative about rich jerks. I would not put the Hunts or the Antschutz in this category, as they've proven that they're invested for the long term for the betterment of soccer in the US. To reference RedRover's post above, I'd like to point out that people who can be found under the category of "rich jerks" are business people like Francisco Marcos, of the USL.

Actually, fans do own teams. Fans own teams all over the world. Most teams are at least partially fan owned. Even the NFL has a fan owned team (Green Bay).

It does and can work in the US, but fans need to realize that we're not going to own an MLS team out of the gate. Instead, we should hope to grow fan support from the lower levels, moving up over a period of decades. To address RedRover's point again, it seems silly to say that there isn't a market for this sort of growth, because the very notion is to build a market from a very small, regional fanbase. But again to your point, regional groups of fans would not run the team--such a team would surely fail. Teams that are fan owned are almost always (with possibly a single exception) run by a board which represents the Supporters Trust. Trusts ensure that business people run the club like a business while being held accountable to the ideals of the fans themselves.

There is a reason that the German Bundesliga is getting looks from big leagues all over the world. Their clubs are the most stable in world football, and it's because they must be 51% fan owned.

But again, there's no reason to hope for this at the MLS level. The best we can hope for in the immediate is D4, with the hope of organically expanding--alongside the NASL--over a period of decades.

I understood that. There are jerks of all levels of worth.

So you think all business people are jerks?

They may hold stock. Or be "socios" like Real Madrid. That's not the same thing.

Most teams where?

Whose stockholders derive no dividends, nominally elect a board of directors but do not actually run the team. You're talking about stock. I'm talking about actually running a club. You let fans run a club, they're going to have seven coaches a year because they'll just keep firing guys left and right. Because fans think as fans, and want results now and want scapegoats now and want to make changes now and have immediate gratification. That's not how business works.

The Green Bay Packers "work" because of a myriad of issues that have nothing whatsoever to do with their stockholders. Yet they're constantly trotted out as an example of the potential of fans owning franchises. Which is silly. It can't and doesn't work in the US.

Nor are you ever going to. Players play, coaches coach, owners own, writers write.

Plus, you know, soccer is popular in Germany. They have promotion and relegation in Germany as well, something else that won't work here.

But we just love the "It works there, so of course it will work here!" thing. We can't get a million people to watch our league's championship game, we can't get - in most markets - more than a few thousand people to make the $500 or $1,000 investment in season tickets, but you think they're going to actually pony up the kind of money it takes - not just once, but on and ongoing basis - to actually operate a team?

Some fans think that because they make their investment in season tickets and scarves and the ephemeral "emotional investment" and because they provide the precious "atmosphere" that they're entitled to an actual vote in how the club is run. This is insane. Your investment is dwarfed by their investment. And when you're ready to make the cash calls, let us know. Get some actual skin in the game before you demand to run things. Actually go buy a club, see how easy it is.

Americans have neither the attention span, the business acumen or the stomach for the actual business of sport. They just play fantasy and kvetch about how their impulsive, emotionally-based reactions have to be catered to right this instant.

That ain't no way to run a business.

You say you want a revolution? We'd all love to see the plan. Go forth. Do it. Report back.

I think you missed a key sentence in my original post. I agree that fans can't run a team.

And fans who own stock in teams do own them. Their shares ensure that the distribution of ownership is spread throughout a large fanbase. Who would you suggest, aside from these shareholders, owns the team?

Most teams in Spain, Latin America, Germany, and many other countries are now and continue to be fan owned. That is true of the lowest levels of soccer in those countries as well as the highest.

I said again and again in my previous post that this is not a model which will work in the US for top flight soccer. Instead, it should be seen as a grass roots movement to build soccer at all levels in our country. We won't get people buying in at $500 and $1,000 dollars, as you say in your post. Instead the model has to be that of a club--like the youth programs that already exist around the country--in which members pay for the right to play in leagues, take part in camps, use facilities, and watch games.

But as you allude to above, this won't work unless people (like me and the rest of the community on these boards) push for such a model. That won't happen until people drop their illusions about rich financeurs swooping in to magically bestow money and a prefabricated product/soccer community on them. The most popular teams in the US and from around the world came from the bottom up--it's time we realize that and start taking action.