Goff: Thohir/Levien to be introduced as new ownership team Tue 7/10

I know this has been rumored for quite a while, but it looks like it's officially going to happen next week.

Sixers owners in on MLS team

Philadelphia 76ers minority owners Erick Thohir and Jason Levien are expanding to another sport by reaching an agreement to become co-owners of DC United in Major League Soccer, according to NBA sources familiar with the move.

http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/st...inority-owners-purchase-dc-united-mls-sources

That's a lot of Philly stink coming down here. But if they can get us a stadium, I'm good with it.

Look at it this way. Would YOU want to invest in the Phunions? Maybe it's their way of divesting themselves from Philly stink.

ZMOG!

To steal a quote that Ed Morgans stole from Kent Brockman over on teh twitterz, "I, for one, welcome our new Indonesian overlord."

Has their been an official announcement? If not, I'm going to wait to celebrate. Heck, we've already lost a a set of investors that *were* officially announced -- the sale to MacFarlane and Chang was the *second* sale of DCU by AEG after the first set of owners, announced the day of the Chelsea friendly in 2005, backed out.

are we worried that these aren't soccer guys? they both appear to be basketball guys. maybe no soccer guys were available?

i guess it is good news but i am always wary of MLS investors who's main priority isn't soccer but rather some other sport ... the track record of ownership groups who aren't at least 50% or greater made up of people who's sole sports focus is the MLS team isn't so great.

fingers crossed this leads to a stadium.

It's hard to make a statement like that very conclusively, for the simple reason that there really aren't very many investor/operator groups in MLS that *do* fit that description.

Our new stadium shall have Indonesian rijsttafel. That's good enough for me.

Portland
Seattle (75% sole sports focus MLS)
Vancouver
Philly
SKC
RSL
Montreal

the two AEG teams (LAG/Hou) are the only two i can think of that are owned by a group that in majority has other sports interest other than MLS that are both relatively successful on and off the field.

not sure how big these two guys are invested in the Sixers .... in most of the articles i read some other guy is the big investor and Levin was named sometimes mostly in relation to his former agent/GM experience and not his investment amount and the other Thorir guy was often not even named at all.

This is GREAT news. And I don't care what other sports they are involved with, as long as the new owners bring lots of dollars to DCU.

Since Jeremy is excited, I now feel less optimistic than I did earlier .....

I'm not worried about whether they are "soccer guys" or not, they see the team as a worthy (hopefully long-term) investment. You can take Hunt's teams if you want those run by soccer guys. I was happy to see Nash (basketball) come in, maybe that had a little bit to do with these guys, who knows.
In two years if they fire Kasper and Payne, and bring in some douchebag businessmen to run the team into the ground, I reserve the right to change my mind.

except that the Hunt Sports Group owns an NFL team which is their main priority ... which would go part way to explaining why their two MLS teams suck donkey balls off the pitch.

When it comes to the success of the organization, I think it's too early to say anything about three of those six.

As far as your concern (about whether teams do well), is it really important whether the investor/operators have other, equally strong (or stronger) interests in *other sports teams*? Or is it whether the owners have outside interests that leave them less-involved (and thus possibly less emotionally invested) in the success of the MLS team? I know you said the former; but the latter would seem to me to be the thing that matters.

Me neither. I care mostly about the depth of their pockets. Priorities are priorities at this point.

Didn't you cite SKC in your list of successful teams? They won an MLS Cup, a US Open Cup and a Supporter's Shield when they were still owned by Hunt.

As I think about it, I suspect the concern that OG is voicing is not that they won't be interested enough in the team, but that if their primary experience as a sports owner is with other leagues, they'll try to run the MLS team like they do an NFL team or NBA team or MLB team or whatever -- which gets to your question of whether they stand on support (and supporters groups).

Concur. Nothing on Soccer Insider yet. Really the Stein blurb seems to be the only piece so far. Hard to imagine why MLS approval would be a hang up, but things happen in hard-to-imagine ways when it comes to DCU ownership.

Or you could have a single focus, monomaniacal owner like Danny Snyder. Diversity has its virtues.

I had Jerry Jones in mind too; you're quite right.

Fixed your post.

As long as they keep Payne in charge of managing the club I don't see why anything would change. These guys have enough things to worry about. I doubt they would go out of their way to meddle in supporter issues ... At least until it's time to build and design new stadium. Who knows who will be in charge of that. We could end up like Houston with supporters packed in a tiny section in corner with no flags and fascist asshole cops. As long as Chang and Payne keep their influence maybe that won't happen