Vergara: Chivas need their own home, in Los Angeles

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2012/11/14/chivas-vergara-its-clear-we-need-our-own-home-socal

That's some nice confident talk from the MLS Commissioner.

Wonder when Garber and/or the league is able to provide some updates on the NYC-Queens situation, since it seems "very preliminary to talk about the where" (exactly) of the (possible/hoped-for) Chivas USA soccer stadium in LA.

And when they move, hopefully they rename from Chivas USA to Chivas LA.

I know they want to keep the Chivas name, but that small little change would make a world of difference.

It'd still be an awful name because it immediately rules out like half the Mexicans in LA from ever considering going to a Chivas USA/LA match. It's divisive branding that limits the market, even if you ignore the lameness of calling them Chivas.

yeah. i'll believe this when i see it. it would require that Vergara spend a shite ton of his own cash because everywhere in California is broke and won't spend public money on stadiums and if San Jose or the NFL LA is any indication this would take over a decade to get done politically. add to that that Chivas is essentially irrelevant in LA and you've got a recipe for a lot of big talk and not much else of substance.

i'd bet both DCU and NE would get a stadium first ... and after another 3 or 4 years of utter failure and dwindling fans support Vergara will change his "i don't want to sell the team and have it moved to place X" pretty quickly.

Not if they build it with private funds. The LA Memorial Sports Arena's future is still undecided. USC is a private university with tons $$$

well then that would be USC's stadium and not Chivas USAs then wouldn't it. and that would just be swapping playing second fiddle to LA Galaxy to playing second fiddle to USC women's soccer ... which would be ironically symbolic of the utter crapness of Chivas USA.

but that wouldn't surprise me, Vergara seems like a cheapskate, he obviously only cares about Chivas Guad and making Chivas USA some sort of feeder club/branding experiment, so basically riding the coattails of a University and being a tenant in their stadium for next to nothing seems like par for the course.

how MLS wants or even allows an owner to own a team that he obviously has a conflict of interest in treating as equal to his other property is beyond me. MLS's goal should be to overtake LigaMX yet one of it's owners has a vested interest in keeping his MLS team subservient and 2nd fiddle to his LigaMX team. it would be like the CFL allowing an NFL owner to come in and buy one of its teams, rebrand it BC Cowboys and essentially relegate it to permanent little sisterhood. baffling.

Spot on. Particularly that last part. His plans are not the kind that will make Chivas a successful MLS club, they'll make them a failure of a branding experiment again, nothing more.

this stubborn *uck will never rebrand. Anyone with an IQ over 80 could tell you branding to all SoCo Mexicans would do wonders. Why segment your fan base? Aztec FC with El Tri color scheme and a new stadium. Looking at 25k on the reg and heated games.

yes ... that would make sense if he cared about MLS .... unfortunately he cares about Chivas Guad and LigaMX. and he certainly couldn't have a team in a league that might surpass his precious Chivas Guad in any way .... so by keeping Chivas USA branded as and operated as subservient to Chivas Guad he can keep his dignity and priorities where he wants them .. firmly in Mexico.

letting this guy and this team in the league is the biggest farce MLS has ever committed. how are you going to be a serious up and coming league if you let an owner from a direct competitor league and team own one of your own teams and run it like some red headed step child ... truly disgraceful.

Well I guess every league needs a version of the Clippers. In the NBA for decades it was the Clippers, in baseball it's traditionally the Pirates (after today likely the Marlins), in football it's the Browns, in hockey its probably Columbus. And in MLS it's Chivas USA.

I am feeling the concept but he needs to shed Chivas. A team for Mexicans that all Mexicans can identify with could be powerful and add that dramatic element to the league. I think they could be a force with a new stadium. Could be the Lakers of MLS if done smartly.

I think a team in Boston of only Irishmen would be powerful and add a dramatic element to the league - wait, you say that would be racist???? Huh, I thought I read Vergara told the press everyone needs to learn Spanish. Yeah, that seems legit

They let him in because they didn't have much other choice at the time and now they're stuck with him. It's not like they consciously wanted a feeder team in the league but in 2004 I guess it was better than nothing. Remember this is a full three years before Beckham even arrived. The Revs are more of a shame, at least Chivas USA rarely pretends to be anything it's not.

Saprissa down in Costa Rica seems like it runs just fine. Not sure that I would say Vergara is a terrible owner so much as mini-Chivas is a terrible idea. Which is coming from him, but its not like he isnt capable of running a 2nd team well.

Fair enough, but a) those are/were established leagues with no single-entity, broader fan bases and closer to 30 teams than 20. (And save for the Clips, unless you are counting the Marlins, all from smaller cities.) If the Clippers are a joke it doesn't affect the owner of the Indiana Pacers or the NBA in general too much. If I'm one of Vergara's co-investors in MLS, where the money comes from local markets and the MLS brand is still trying to establish itself as 'Major League', having a complete punchline of a team occupying a coveted league spot in the second most important market hurts everyone's bottom line, and I'd be giving Garber an earful.

Maybe the compromise with Vergara should be "Los Angeles Goats".

Columbus? I'd have chose the Islanders. They've sucked the suck out of sucking.

You might have an issue with a certain percentage of Mexicans who don't like him being owner period. An America fan might not like LA Aztecs because he knows Vergara owns his rival. Long story short, the league may need to help him exit before any stadium or rebranding occurs. Probably wont happen, because he's going to want to make some money.

Agree with this.

To me, MLS seems most interested in and somewhat focused on "the new stadium" question/possibilities.

The business of MLS loves itself some appropriate venue development and venue control/access.

The questions/possibilities of CUSA "re-branding" or Vergara receiving help to be "exited" from the single-entity league may be the "less-important" questions now for MLS, but the MLS BoG may have to confront those issues at some point (soon?) -- with our without the LA2 team playing in some other/newer/non-HDC venue.

But if Vergara is there as a capable partner in realizing a new LA soccer venue, then I think the MLS BoG seems less likely to try to force his hand into a "re-branding" of his club and/or forcing Vergara somehow out of the single-entity business.

True. They are moving into an arena that wasn't even designed to hold hockey so you're probably right. They suck on and off ice.

I don't see Chivas re-branding. It seems their real goal is to create fans of the Mexican club. MLS only seems secondary to me.

If were so irrelevant, why a thread about it? Wouldn't it make sense to dismiss us altogether?
I mean Don Garber and the MLS are good with this plan. (flawed or not)

That said, no offense to anyone here. Thanks for all your pm's! We will be sharing them on the "What The Flock?!" podcast this week.

You probably don't have to be so sensitive about this. Nobody is laughing at CUSA fans -- the problems people have pointed out here hurt you guys the most.

That's because Deportivo Saprissa is a big player on the domestic scene that is able to scoop up a sizable chunk of the best domestic Costa Rican talent. It's not doing well in Costa Rica because they've signed a bunch of second-rate Mexican players.

LOL! Yeah, I came off as Mr. Sensitive.
Not to fan the flames, but some of the hate seems to sound racial. I know it's not, but at some point it does make me wonder why this team is so reviled considering the efforts its made to reworked its failings. Yes, our name, our "history", our ideology is crap because it's borrowed from a bigger club. We here that a lot.
Vergara, basically wants a second chance to re make this club in his vision. He has the money to spend.
just like everything else, we'll have to wait and see.