The "Thoughts That Don't Require Their Own Thread" Thread VI

I listened in for a bit. He was in as a guest host, seemed kinda like they were semi-auditioning him for something. Did pretty well, was more knowledgable of the other boston sports teams than I thought he'd be (nothing special though). Him and Holley seemed to click personality wise on air.

Couple callers asked him about the Revs, he said we're a player or 2 away from being a real contender, that the Krafts won't pay for those 2 players. Briefly discussed that in addition to not paying up for the DP's, the turf, stadium, etc. all add up to not being able to attract top tier talent. Couple more called in to fanboy it up, talk about being at games when he scored the bicycle kick, his 100th, etc. Overall I thought he did well, if he got a full time gig there I'd probably listen in a little bit more if only for some occasional Revs talk.

 

Interestingly no one is making any noise on this Board that the 22nd MLS team in Atlanta will be playing in an NFL Stadium on turf. The only difference between the Razor and the Falcon stadium is it's down town. I wonder what happened to the MLS rule that to get an expansion franchise you need to have a SSS?

 

It has come up in the non-revs thread.

 

The Krafts made it clear that the league wasn't respecting them enough anymore. Buying Chivas, letting the Boston Mag thing happen, etc.

So, the SSS rule got moved way down the priority list. It's now been pushed down below the rule that says keep all saviors/founding fathers happy by providing sufficient air cover for the state of the savior's franchise; AND, if necessary, ignore other rules to ensure said air cover is in sufficient supply.













[These are not facts. I am not representing these as facts. They aren't even opinion. Call it what you will, but it ain't either of those. ]

 

To quote former commish Doug Logan, "MLS rules are etched in Jell-O." Or to put it another way, Never say Never.

They surely look at the entire package when it comes to expansion cities, and now with the 2 Florida cities in the fold, they have at least some presence in the southeast. Of course, Florida is not "The South," so it would seem that they would eventually want to go to Atlanta at some point. The real question is whether Atlanta will be Seattle or New England, or something in between, like Vancouver. If they drew crowds like Vancouver (in numbers and passion), and were a "serious" team, that would be more than acceptable.

The whole "Atlanta is not a good sports town" is also somewhat of a red herring. Sure, lots of folks there are transplants from other areas, so they tend to root for their old hometown teams. Soccer hasn't been around as long, so this team has a decent chance at really being a local team. Soccer has a totally different demographic than the "major" sports, not to mention a large Latino population in recent years, so there'd also that.

Bottom like is that it seems highly unlikely that Arthur Blank would spend this kind of money to just Kraft his way through the motions to have some other tenant to keep his stadium busy when the Falcons aren't playing.

 

I am surprised that there has not been any discussion of these comments. I am curious about the tone of what Twellman said. I am surprised that he would say anything that could come across as negative towards the Krafts/Revs.

At the risk of criticizing one of our own, I am not a big fan of Twellman as a soccer/sports commentator/personality. It is probably just me, but I often feel like he is still too much a member of the players fraternity and wants to be one of the guys. He wants to be like the clowns who cover football for ESPN. I think that he is better than Harkes, but he could be a lot better. I feel like I am still looking for or expecting more from former players in the national TV booth.

 

but Twellman frequently criticizes players from the booth. in fact Yedlin's G/F was tweeting at Twellman yelling at him for criticism (which was pretty funny).

 

Perhaps he is getting better. I honestly have not heard his commentary yet this year as I have been watching the Revs on MLS Live at odd hours and I am not sure he would have had the chance to do a Revs game yet. The Yedlin G/F thing does sound pretty funny.

 

I thought about it, but it would end up just like all the other discussions:

NNN: See, Kraft is cheap!
KAD: No he's not! You can't prove that! Besides, Kraft "said" he was "willing" to spend money on the "right" player, so that should be good enough.
NNN: But Twellman said it was true!
KAD: Twellman is just a bitter ex-Rev with an axe to grind because he thinks the medical staff mis-diagnosed his concussion, so what he says doesn't count.

 

Reminds me of the post-game pub scene when I played with a bunch of Scottish guys, equally divided in their Old Firm loyalties.

"Rrrran-gurrs arr crrrraaap!"
"Celtic arr roooobesh!"
"Rrrran-gurrs arr crrrraaap!"
"Celtic arr roooobesh!"
"Rrrran-gurrs arr crrrraaap!"
"Celtic arr roooobesh!"

 

Revs giving STH's free extras to the 4/26 match for STH appreciation night... Coincidentally, I also got an email from my employer for company night at the revs in June - I've been with this company for 15 years, this is the first time this has ever happened... free ticket for all active employees, and steep discounts on extras. Something tells me Kraft is getting pressure to boost the attendance numbers, and without a double header friendly to artificially inflate things, they are resorting to any means necessary.

 

can't ever recall it in my time as a STH.

 

I want to believe that, but I'm not sure its true. On one hand, the Revs don't have the worst attendance in the league and have gotten decent numbers this year so far. On the other hand, the Revs have the most empty looking stadium in the league, so maybe its true.

I think its probably a shift in strategy to try to make more money. Instead of getting 10K people at $30 avg. ticket, they're looking at getting 20K people at $15 a ticket, and having them buy more food/drinks, so they still make more money.

 

I'd agree with this. to them, it's still 10K @$30/ticket... but they also get an additional 10K to buy concessions and hit the bars and restaurants before or after the game. the food deal is similar to one they did last season ($7 for a hot dog or pizza, small drink, small popcorn). that was a NIGHTMARE last season -- 45 min lines for concessions.

 

Exactly. They've probably calculated Customer Lifetime Value for each STH and their models probably tell them each customer is worth potentially 3-4 more in word of mouth. Since it's often more expensive to acquire a customer than it is to retain one, the revs are banking on STH friends at minimum paying for themselves in concessions, memorabilia etc and providing more foot traffic to the man mall tenants. Everyone wins.

 

Not sure if this was posted and I just missed it somewhere but I just noticed on the Revs site that CSN will be making the State of the Revs a "regular" bi-weekly show on Thursday nights. Not too shabby. I'm not expecting a whole lot out of it other than the segments that already go onto the the Revs site, but it's still good to get the Revs a bit more exposure.

 

I saw that about CSN as well. Now that the Celtics are done, they have room to add in Revs content. It's up to us to watch it, tweet about it, comment on the content...

 

If you want some over the top koolaid gushing from Feldman about the prospects for this season, watch this pre-season State of the Revs, with Paul Mariner.

High praise for Bunbury, Kobayashi, and expecting Mullins and Neuman to "step right in and contribute." Ha!

 

This is just a friendly reminder for all Rev STH's that the deadline for the free extras is 4/23 at 5pm!

 

My sincere apologies for the David Moyes faux pas. I was completely unaware of the importance of thread status. It won't happen again.

 

Thread status? I don't know what that even means. It's just ridiculous to start a new thread for any European manager or player that is out of a job. Clearly David Moyes isn't coming to the Revs, so what's the point in starting an entire thread about it?

 

Pats schedule will released tonight at 8pm. So we will find out then how many games with NFL lines Revs will have

So far

Pats pre-season games
Pats home
8/14-8/15 or 8/17 and Revs home 8/16
8/21-8/22 or 8/24 and Revs home 8/23

UMass games
8/30- Revs away
9/6- Revs home 9/7
10/18-Revs not playing that weekend

Revs games in Sept/Oct not above
Sat 9/13
Sat 10/4
Sat 10/25

 

And next week we will then find out how many Revs games get moved to Wednesday night!