How about "resting on his laurels" then? No, by not sucking up to the people who WERE Adrian Fenty's fraternity brothers. He had an incredibly naive view of DC politics and what it takes to get something done in this city, and the entire time all that was going on his attitude towards the public in general was "don't worry, this is a done deal. I got this!" I don't live in DC, but I know enough of DC politics to know that you don't get something built in Ward 8 (or anywhere else in DC) without sucking up to the powers that be. To me, Payne's biggest failure with Poplar Point was that he deluded himself into thinking he WAS a close personal friend of the mayor, and was tight with the rest of the city council. Did Fenty and his folks lead him down the garden path? Yes. Should Payne have took what Fenty and his folks told him at face value? No. He should have hired people who have been successful getting big projects built in the district, but it certainly seemed as if his own ego got in his way. I think Payne is at least 50% at fault for Poplar Point falling through, and at least 75% for any stadium deal in PG County falling through. He has zero political clout in the DC Metro area, but certainly thought he did. Which is one of the reasons I think Thohir and Levien showed him the door. And am I being a bit irrational? You betcha. But I honestly don't care. I'm a fan, and when things don't go my way, especially when every year seems to involve a threat to move the team to some other city (Baltimore, Philadelphia, St Louis, wherever) I'm gonna be irrational and I'm going to blame the general manager more than I am the local politicians who don't want to do business with him. Actually, I have no idea where mine is. I think I threw it out. Just like I did with the 2005 and 2007 Blackout shirts. I didn't buy a 2012 Blackout shirt, so at least I don't have to worry about that curse. I do still have my 2004 Blackout shirt edit - to add one more thing I think that things really started to go south with KP's leadership when he started to actually believe that winning three MLS Cups and one InterAmerican Cup in four years was more his doing than it was Arena's and Rongen's. I also think that he thought the 2004 MLS Cup was more his doing than it was Nowak's, because it happened the year he stopped working for both AEG and DCU, and worked for DCU only.
You're probably right. Which is kind of a shame, because I think a lot of what was screwed up in the front office was due to Payne's micromanagement, and that if Zack hadn't had to deal with KP's ego, he would have done a much better job. Right now, he has a target on his back because I'm sure that Thohir and Levien look at him as a Payne guy, not a DC United guy.
I give Payne credit for his terrific leadership in the early years of the club, hiring Bruce Arena, avoiding silly 90s branding gimmicks, and fostering the best gameday atmosphere in the league. I give him much more credit for his marketing contributions than his soccer contributions, although he did make an outstanding choice in Bruce Arena, who I assume was the most instrumental figure in assembling our 90's super-team. Payne probably deserves some of the blame for the subsequent (early 00's) fall from grace as well, but there were other factors out of his control that contributed to the demise. KP deserves less credit for the mid-00's renaissance, which basically amounted to (re)-acquiring two players (Moreno and Gomez) that were simply better than the rest of the league. '08-'11 is a sad chapter in the club's history as the stars faded, stadium deals collapsed, and the FO made increasingly desperate short-term moves, each of which seemed to be a larger failure than the last (until the DeRo trade). However, the Payne/Kaspar duo was instrumental in improving the club's Youth Academy at a time when the rest of the league was too cheap/dis-interested to follow suit. This has already provided us with several young standouts, and could play an even larger role for the club going forward. Throughout his time at D.C. United, Payne almost always took care of the club's core fans. Even through the down years, United did all it could to cater to its most loyal followers, while many MLS clubs continued to treat their own supporters as a mere annoyance. The culture of inclusiveness between players/supporters comes straight from the top, and I hope that legacy will remain. Our young players seem to have been indoctrinated with this culture early on, so as long as the current squad is together, I believe it will continue. This is the biggest positive Payne can bring to Toronto, where the once-lauded supporter culture is on life support (at best).
KP is going to make bank at a team that, if they rebuild properly, could become a perennial Eastern power. Maybe I wasn't being clear when I meant exactly this- that in the final analysis, who cares why he left. We'll never know.
I hope you'll forgive me for being confused. And it does matter a little bit if he was forced out or if he left "100%" on his own, because that could have ramifications for the whole club, as has been discussed here already. Does it matter as much as the fact that he's gone and the reality of what's to come? No, obviously not. At any rate, if I didn't understand you because you weren't clear, that's cool by me.
To those who disapproved of Payne, I respect your opinions but disagree. While far from perfect there are not too many realistic GMs candidates I would have traded for in his position. As far was why PP didn't happen, wasn't nothin' gonna get built in this city with all of the circumstances they way they were. If you think some googoo eyes from Payne/DCU were going to get any DC public dollars towards a stadium post Nats Park/Lerner boondoggle, economic crash, no lending environment, current political climate, etc. then you are mistaken. The only thing that would have made the project feasible was DCU LLC rolling up to PP with a gigantic wheelbarrow full of cash (some of which would even be for the construction) and that wheelbarrow as we all know was not forthcoming. I will say this whole thing has happened in the best possible way. So fair play to all parties involved.
Yeah, TFC is its own worst enemy. Payne actually has a lot more to work with there, from a financial perspective, than he did in DC. If he can get that organization functioning at even the average MLS level, they will be a very competitive team. Toronto is a massive underperformer, given everything it has going for it. That team doesn't need a genius to run things, it just needs someone who won't make horrible mistake after horrible mistake.
I really wasn't arguing with you, I was simply saying that "it could very well be money" as to me Toronto is well interested in sinking money into their investment and money is usually the motivating factor in sports management. I'm open to the possibility he was fired, had an affair, whatever Also with regards to TFC, they really did suffer from a culture of losing. It was almost impossible to win when the team just expected to lose. They are soccer's Wizards.
No, I wouldn't go for that either. To me it implies that he didn't try very hard. I think he did try hard. He just failed at a lot of the stuff he tried. Some of the reasons were out of his control; but enough were under his control for me to be pretty critical. But I haven't seen/heard anything to make me think he was resting on his laurels. I think the tasks that DCU needed out of him changed from what they were in the early days; and what they are now are things that he's not that good at. I don't think that's a fair description of what happened. There's absolutely no question whatsoever that he, and DCU, sucked up to the powers that be in Ward 8 very heavily, and with great success. Back when Poplar Point was likely, and during the time period when it was dying but not dead yet, I went to many of the Ward-level and neighborhood-level meetings there -- sometimes with Mary, sometimes by myself. I was quite impressed at the degree to which Marion Barry, local organizers such as Phillip Pannell, and all the surrounding ANCs and school committees were all on-board. It was pretty clear that they identified organic support in Ward 8 as the crucial problem to solve, and that they more or less solved it. The problem, to my mind, was that while that was a necessary problem to solve, it wasn't a sufficient problem to solve -- there were others that were also important. My suspicion is that they felt they had their bases covered there too, because Anthony Williams was such a staunch supporter. After all, most people forget that Poplar Point wasn't DCU's idea -- the District came to the team and said "would you consider building your stadium there?" Under those circumstances, it's easy to see how KP & Co. might think their situation was pretty solid. But they didn't get everything done before Tony Williams left office. I don't know whether it would have been possible to do so; but regardless, they didn't. I don't think Fenty was actively hostile, at least not initially; but with Tony Williams gone and Fenty as Mayor, DCU was going to need more champions on the Council than just Marion Barry; and they weren't going to get them because of the political backlash over Nats Park. With people in the District screaming every single day about the sweetheart deal the District had given MLB and the Nationals, there was no way in hell anyone on the Council was going to step up for DC United. I don't know how much effort they did put in; but I know they could have quadrupled it and it wouldn't have mattered. From what I understand, I think he does carry more blame for events re: Morgan Avenue than Poplar Point; but I don't know how to assign percentages. There's lots of blame to go around, including for some people who weren't associated with DCU, and for people who were associated with DCU then but are long gone now.
just two hats that I saw - I have the "baseball cap", I needed another DCU hat to go with my other 20 or 30 or so - they also had a knit version for the cold, but I already have 2 or 3 DCU knit hats so didn't buy another (I have awesome logic, no?).
Truth be told, I took the lead of the team staff early in the season and I wore my 2007 blackout tshirt under my other gear. I was sad face when my fandom trickery didn't work.
I think part of the issue is that many of Payne's traits work both for and against him. He's unabashedly sure of soccer's, MLS', and DCU's place in America and this market. On the one hand, that's a very good thing. Sometimes United and MLS need (ed) an advocate, someone to stand up and make the case that the league and team deserve more respect. And often, Payne was right in feeling that way. But the flip side is that MLS and DCU don't have the same place in the annals (heh-heh!) of US sports. I remember listening to WTEM in like 96 0r 97 and someone called in and asked why they don't broadcast DCU games. The announcer said they had intended to but Payne expected a big rights fee from the station and the station execs laughed and said no thanks. And, Payne had a similar attitude about expecting coverage of DC United from the local media and he had the same kind of attitude in dealing with the DC government (and other governments) about a stadium. In his mind, DCU deserved the same kind of treatment the other sports got. But the sad reality is there is a lot of skepticism towards soccer because of all the pro leagues that failed before MLS and because no matter how much WE like it, it isn't as big a deal as baseball or even hockey. So, it chapped Payne's ass royally when the District bent over backwards to get f**ked in the ass over baseball but in turn, Payne chapped some asses in the DC government with his insistence at being treated as equals. And after awhile, he just became counterproductive to the process. Again, two sides of the coin. A strength and a weakness at the same time.
I doubt he'd leave a company he founded, but I'd love to see United hire this guy as team president. Knows soccer, knows business, knows real estate, would probably do very well with DC politicians. http://cogsvillegroup.com/overview/founder/ College teammate of Chad Ashton, too.
Not completely unrelated: Maple Leafs worth $1 billion Remember, MLSE is mostly owned by Rogers and Bell now, the OTPP having been bought out for the most part (still, some of Bell's pension plan owns a stake). The deal "finalized" in August, so they are in a better place than they have been the first few years of their miserable existance. Thx, Jay!
They had them for sale in the DC United store at he stadium. The plan was to have them ready for our home game against RBNY, which, was of course switched due to the hurricane. They didn't arrive in time for that, but they were available for sale for those of us in the 700 Club who rode in buses up to Harrison in a blizzard.
I guess one of the things that really bothered me were his threats of "well, if we can't play in or near DC, then we'll just move to Baltimore or St Louis." Once the Poplar Point deal fell through, they sort of half-assed the Morgan Avenue project. and in the long run nothing really got done. Everything post Poplar Point seemed like a gigantic cluster f**k And that is exactly how I think Erick Thohir and Jason Levien saw things, which is why Payne is currently an employee of TFC. Right or wrong, the new ownership blames the front office for the two stadium debacles on the front office, and the guy in charge of the front office at the time was Payne. Both of them are sports guys who have seen sports facilities constructed, and I'm speculating that they are asking themselves, and each other, "WTF is wrong with this Payne guy? How did he screw it up twice?" And if the rumors are true they are both pretty pissed off at he way the front office was run in general. I get the general impression that Payne surrounded himself with a bunch of yes men, or at least with a bunch of people afraid to ever tell him that he might be wrong. Personally, I think that Thohir and Levien are correct, and you and I will just have to agree to disagree One quick question though - do you think Payne should still be here running the team?