Real Monarchs: USL Pro affiliate (was San Diego)

I thought the majority of the academy players are paying to be there. It's not 100% scholarships covered by RSL. At a minimum, the USL team needs to break even. Didn't RSL barely make it into the black in the last few years? This whole notion of making the team better by running a USL team doesn't make financial sense. Better players doesn't necessarily equate to more fans. Sure, you may get more local fans if you bring East High's star player, Joe Blow, up through the ranks and he plays for the 1st team, but the uptick won't be an enormous amount. You still have to have a way to cover the costs of running the operation. If it is a money pit and it takes your main operation back into the red, is it something that you will maintain? Del Loy is supposed to just sink money into a pit at the dream of creating better homegrown players?

 

The players pay (for the most part) but that doesn't cover all the other costs.
There is essentially no income on the academy. It's just a lot of money to run. Like half a mil a year.

I was opposed to the USL idea until I found out that it was something MLS was making the clubs do. I still don't get why we aren't just partnering, but whatever. I don't think Del Loy sees a significant difference in placing this USL side in San Diego as opposed to Ocean Side because he isn't going to invest more effort in it than he does the first team.

You bring up costs of running this thing and it needing to make money, yet your proposal is to have it built in San Diego. That doesn't make sense. That's not cost efficient. That would cost a shit load of money to start/pull off. Instead of putting all that money into building a stadium and complex in San Diego proper, build it outside the city a bit. Lower the land/building costs. Then that money you had tabbed for the stadium in San Diego can be used to build a proper facility

 

I didn't propose putting it in San Diego. I think that is a terrible idea. I think it would've been better to either keep here in the valley (Ogden or Provo), or put it in Arizona. Phoenix FC was bankrupt and dying. Buy them out and build your team there. Then you are 45 minutes from Casa Grande and can utilize the facilities and players there if needed.

 

misunderstood you, my bad

Agreed on the Phoenix proposal. I don't think this valley has enough of a populous to support both RSL and the USL team. It's just a matter of numbers. However, I think Phoenix makes a ton of sense. This talk of having Casa Grande/Phoenix area locked up seemed strange to me. I think you could yank more kids out of that area - a really good soccer area - to go to your academy with that USL side.

 

Well it's 40 miles from downtown... but who is counting right?

 

Or a better plan would be to build the complex out in Oceanside, but arrange to use a stadium in San Diego proper such as Torero Stadium for a fee closer to downtown and the city proper.

 

Phoenix was recently bought out and is in much better shape financially now so that's right out...

 

Oh, I know they were bought out. But last year RSL said they would monitor the Phoenix situation before committing to a partnership. I was merely saying that RSL could've been the group to buy out Phoenix FC.

 

You're up in the night if you think minor league teams turn profits, AT BEST they are lucky to break even and that's only because the parent clubs cover salaries. Almost every sports team itself is a losing enterprise, including NBA, NFL, MLB, etc etc. It's how the owners spread the costs around and build profits in other areas that they make money of their teams. Minor league teams don't have the wide variety of money making areas that pro teams do (think large profits of things like ticket sales, parking, concessions, merchandise sales, tv contracts, none of which minor league teams make much off of).

Oh and if you think Paulson really worked hard to find a local place for the Beavers to play (or a local investor to buy the team) you really out of touch with the reality of this situation. He put about as much effort as it took to drive to a city council meeting and say "look, I've looked around a little, nobody wants them" and then he was out the door. The fact that Hillsboro landed a team not long after the Beavers left only goes to show how expendable the minor league teams really are.

 

You obviously don't know too much about this then based on what you're saying about the Beavers. I followed that situation VERY closely for a number of years being a Pads fan (and the Beavers being our MiLB AAA squad). There was a concerted effort at several locations around PDX to build a ballpark for them before they left. It didn't work out.

Also if you can't understand that MiLB teams do make money I don't know what to tell you. Yes it is in large part due to them not having to pay salaries and public assistance on ballparks more often than not. But they're almost all in the black. Owners wouldn't bother with them if they weren't. You seem to be mistaking MiLB with indy ball or the like. Either that or you believe the "we need money" BS that they use when trying to get public assistance on ballparks. Fact is they all make money off concessions, ticket sales, parking, etc...).

 

He lives in PDX, so I'd hope he has some idea of what went on. I remember reading about Paulson trying to get a stadium built in the Rose District, but that's about the extent to which I followed the Beavers saga.

As a side note, seeing as how you are a Padres fan (my condolences), do you know why Tucson sold and the team was moved to El Paso (the Chihuahuas. Really?). Did the Padres change their affiliation, or did Tucson decide they weren't making enough money.

Having bid a lot of work with LHM (Bees owner), and my boss used to work for LHM, I can side with the belief that it is a profitable venture. They were in the top 25 for merchandise sold last year, they're are usually in the top of the league for attendance, and the concessions prices are not cheap. However, there isn't a lot of parking they make money off of due to the area the stadium is in.

 

Paulson didn't make much of an effort to get anything built, he pitched a couple ideas for ballparks around town including at Hillsboro stadium and also a few neighborhoods. They were almost all universally shot down in one foul swoop by local neighborhood NIMBY's who felt that the beaves should just keep playing at then PGE Park. Once it was realized that PGE was going to get the money from the city to be remodeled then Paulson stopped putting much of a fight for the Beavers. He tried selling the idea of building a separate stadium for the beavers to keep them in town as incentive for the city to put up the money for PGE and Timbers to MLS. Once the money for PGE came through Paulson all but said ******** the beavers. I was here when it all went down, my cousin was a big Beavers fan and was frustrated with how the situation was handled. The ideas for where to build a ballpark were ok, but nothing was seriously considered except for the Hillsboro stadium and Lents Park. There was a proposal to convert the old Memorial Coliseum into an entertainment district of sorts with the stadium there, but that was almost IMMEDIATELY shot down by Veterans who complained about tearing down Memorial and also the huge costs proposed. Lents park residents rose up and loudly voiced their opinions in public forums quickly and that proposal was shot down. And the Hillsboro/Beaverton ideas never gathered support from fans or the city and were lost like a fart in the wind.

Don't give me this shit that I don't know much about what happened because I was closely following the funding situation for PGE Park, the Timbers, and the Beavers. For ********s sake I lived across the street from PGE for over a year around the time all this happened. There was no concerted effort at several locations, there was some ideas passed around and some proposals by Paulson that never stood a chance for a variety of reasons. Paulson's fight for the beavers lasted a few months and that was it. He knew where the money was to be made, everyone knows the Beavers were losing money hand over fist for many years.

As for minor league teams making money...show me numbers because all I've read in the stadium financing fights over the last decade are that professional sports teams are money losers. Very few teams actually operate in the black, sports teams aren't MEANT to be operated in the black. Again, where team owners make money is from peripheral things like television contracts, merchandise sales, concessions, parking, etc. A lot of owners set up individual companies, LLC's, or operations for each of those things, separate from the team itself. Then they write off the losses of the team and use the massive profits from the other areas to cover it. It's why a franchise like the cRapids has like 8 ********ing separate sub companies, they all operate an individual area and help spread the losses more widely.

Some minor league teams MIGHT make a marginal profit based on the fact that parent clubs cover their salaries and they keep daily/gameday operating expenses low, then cover those expenses with concessions/merchandising/ticket sales. But I highly doubt it's a very successful venture for the vast majority of minor league owners. Again, show me some articles or proof that those teams are making profits or running in the black yearly.

 

Now that, folks, is a healthy rant. It's obvious that we're back into season form. Now we just need a good rant from 15.

 

I got you an array of articles on the subject of MiLB profitability. You'll note not one talks about these teams taking losses. Now a large part of that does have to do with reduced player expenses courtesy of their MLB affiliates, but fact is these are profitable ventures even if not huge moneymakers. Owners wouldn't be lining up for them otherwise. That's why MLS owners have joined up and are in it for the long haul, to make money, not just the love of the game.

http://beacon.wharton.upenn.edu/entrepreneurship/2013/08/the-economics-of-minor-league-baseball/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissm...-profit-from-minor-league-baseball-ownership/
http://www.thesportsadvisorygroup.c...is-what-some-investors-might-call-a-home-run/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2013/07/17/minor-league-baseballs-most-valuable-teams/

 

And that's that. Oceanside has decided to end discussions with RSL. Does Del Loy look at other San Diego options now, or does he decide to put a hold on the idea for a while?

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/Mar/19/goat-hill-oceanside-golf-soccer/?#article-copy

 

Dell Roy Hansen?

Well, maybe now we can add a team in Vegas!!??

 

Well I guess that is that unless DLH looks at one of the other sites he originally passed over in Oceanside (which they did indicate could work). If not and they give up on San Diego, good luck to you all and it's probably for the best.

 

RSL to St George?

 

Best I could find is a 6 year old Forbes article listing what appears to be the 20 profitable minor league clubs (out of 160 total), the profit ranges between ~$100k up to ~$10M for the most profitable. These numbers are all pre-tax, interest, and depreciation.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/06/ba...cz_mo_0806minors_slide_2.html?thisSpeed=20000

This is going beyond the scope of this thread, but I saw the Forbes articles last night. What the raw analysis show is that around 20-30 teams out of 160 total have a "pre-tax, interest, and depreciation" positive operating income (look at the income numbers, not the revenue, to get an idea of profitability) between ~$100k-7mill. That's definitely more than I thought. I would have figured that maybe a handful would be in the black in terms of operating income.

 

Put it in Carlsbad. It's relatively close to Oceanside, you can build the stadium out of Legos and if it fails, stadium construction materials could be 100% recycled.

 

EVERYTHING IS AWESOME