Sela Sports should stop with the bullshit and pay for the franchise fee, get up and running in CitiField and start the ball rolling. Once the franchise is up and running, there will be no saying no to the stadium. Once the Cosmos get into the skin of the people, there will be no turning back! STOP WASTING TIME!
LOL - sorry dude - your just over valuating the whole thing. I think the Cosmos could be big - but no one is that big to the point where there is no saying NO to a stadium.
Playing indefinitely in a stadium that isn't made for soccer and where they don't control the revenue is the last thing the Cosmos should do. That should be the #1 lesson of the MetroStars (RIP).
I think you're wrong. A brand in the business world has financial meaning only to the extent that it represents a good or service to be bought or sold. I haven't personally seen Red Bull's financial sheets but I'm pretty confident that their energy drink is by far their number one revenue producer. In that sense, its far more accurate to say that Red Bull runs the soccer franchises in order to promote their energy drink rather than to say that Red Bulls sells energy drinks in order to promote their soccer franchises. But you may have a point in indicating that a smart business has to think dynamically and doesn't necessarily have to be tied in to any one product. If a new different product starts to make a much bigger profit for the company then the company could or should switch their emphasis to the new product. But I think its safe to say that Red Bull's stunts and soccer teams and race car teams have not even come close to exceeding their energy drink in profits or importance to the company.
It took decades for the Yankees, I repeat, the YANKEES, to get a new stadium approved. So no, I don't think it's going to be like "oh it's the Cosmos, sure, build it in my backyard". Honestly, I just don't think this is anywhere close. I do not have trust in the competence or the knowledge of the MLS front office to make me think this is anywhere close.
Brands have just as much meaning for sports teams as they do for a drink. A team like the Yankees sells lots of merchandise simply because the Yankees brand is immensely popular, and a large portion of those sales go people who aren't Yankees fans, or aren't even baseball fans. Red Bull won't be getting their New York team that popular any time soon, but eventually they want the brand in a position where some merchandise sales start happening even to casual fans who don't follow the team that much. I never said that the drink wasn't their number one priority at the moment. What I was referring to was their long term goals. It is not correct to say their other properties are there solely to market their drink, because the drink never needed that kind of extra marketing in the first place. The kind of substantial investment they have placed into their sports properties only make sense as a long term strategy. It would be a complete waste of money otherwise. If they wanted some short to mid-term advertising strategy for their sports drink, they would have simply bought jersey and commercial advertising like most other companies do, which would require far less money, far less commitment, and would accomplish just about the same amount of quick marketing for their drink. By investing so much money into their non-drink properties, they are making it very clear that their ultimate goal is to grow their other properties so that they can stand on their own, and hopefully become as valuable as the drink itself. Those properties would all be under the Red Bull brand, so ideally at some point this would all be a web of entities working to promote all Red Bull products, and the company would be diversified enough that it can maintain itself regardless of how economic conditions may look like at any given point. That's not where the company stand right now, as I said in the beginning. But when a company makes huge investments outside of their own market, it's to diversify. They just started this approach over the last decade. It will much longer than that to see where this ends up. The only problem as far as RBNY goes is that since this is a long term strategy, Red Bull will only make extra efforts for the team when they feel the time is right. That's why they didn't try very hard to get the team to a better level when they were at Giants Stadium. And they probably won't advertise the team more heavily than they are now until the projects around the stadium are complete and Harrison feels like more of a traveler's destination. This approach really stinks for the fans, of course.
Getting a MLS franchise isn't in Sela's control. Even if they offered up the full $100 million expansion fee I doubt MLS would take the money unless Sela came in with a stadium plan of their own. And that stadium plan does not include them playing in CitiField and indefinite period of time.
I know we have discussed this at full length but i never really got what you think no where close is in terms of years? LIke a decade? Like me, I say if MLS can pinpoint land this year and get the designs going, we could be looking at like a 2015-2016 stadium with 2014 start in Citi. I think that could be realistic but curious to your time line
Yea - but your taking a huge gamble. HUGE gamble. Your spending your money on furniture to fit your new house before you have the house - its a big big gamble.
Risks are agressive marketing campaigns - Risks are what PK and company took (which didnt work out) Risks are not a 100 million expansion fee, roster, DP contracts, operating costs etc LOL - trust me man - i want this shit badly too but they need to get the stadium sorted first.
There are two possible risks to this. 1. Playing in a baseball field could be detrimental to the Cosmos in that it will be a pretty crappy game day experience since everything about Citi is built around a baseball game day experience and not a soccer one. This is especially true if there isn't an end date for playing in Citi set. If there is an end date set, then people can just put up with the inferior game day experience knowing that in a year or two they'll be in their own stadium. If there isn't an end date, people are just going to drift away from the team and a certain percentage of those fans will never come back. 2. Playing in CitiField and having high attendances there could actually delay the building of a SSS for the Cosmos. If the Cosmos are packing them into CitiField, the argument becomes "Why do you need a SSS? You are already doing so well in CitiField." It wouldn't be until a drop in attendance due to the first answer that that argument would go away, but then the argument becomes "Why would we fund a SSS for a failing team?"
It doesn't really matter in this case whether Red Bulls' main objective is to promote the Red Bull drink or to promote the Red Bull brand. Either way, the thing Red Bull is trying to promote is not spelled c-o-s-m-o-s. and it makes no sense in terms of Red Bull's marketing objectives for it to own a soccer team whose name is spelled c-o-s-m-o-s.
Any word on how the meetings between Garber and the city went? I thought they were supposed to meet on possible stadium talks last week?
I was under the impression that the $100 million expansion fee comes with an MLS-assisted stadium plan (or at least logistic paperwork) completed. That's why they have the NYC group in MLS...and that's why the $100 million fee is so high. With that, I can't imagine Sela Sports paying $100 million without the stadium plan to then play in Citi.
No - we posed the question to him on social media and in private for an update but we dont expect much in terms of a response - he will give us the update as he sees fit - maybe tomorrows All Star game announcement will give u some news. Agreed - Sela would not play without a stadium - playing long term in another stadium is not good even if your team is successful.
The game day experience at CitiField for a soccer game is actually very good. I went in thinking that it was going to be HORRIBLE, concering sight lines and such but it turned out to be MUCH better than expected. There are many areas to congregate that allow you to see the game with a drink in hand with out being at your seat. This is something that probably wouldn't even exist at a SSS. Regardless, I agree with everyone, about having a future date of departure for a new stadium. I just want to see my team playing ASAP!
I did go off on a tangential point. I fully agree with the main argument you were bringing up. Anyway, I'm very certain that there will be no team until a stadium deal is made, and the only exception is if a current stadium's owner jumps aboard the ownership group (Wilpon is the only one on the list right now). There have been quite a large amount of rumors for different stadium locations, yet the only one that still seems like it could happen is in the CitiField area. Quite frankly, all these other locations have seemed like they're only ideas with little to no concrete planning (and even no discussions).
Which sites are you speaking of? West Side Railyards? I dont take that seriously. I see that to be a smoke screen. With Garber in control dont rule out Flushing. Lately it seems the locations mentioned were Belmont, Randals Island, West Side and Greenpoint but all of a sudden after years and years of Garber talking about the Wilpon land, that all of a sudden it is off the market like that. Not saying the Wilpons will be an owners - saying they could still be involved in terms of land. Lord knows the Mets wont need that many parking spaces for a while lol But seriously - the most recent locations mentioned - i feel were a smoke screen to get people away from the real spot.
Do we know if the Cosmos paid the amount due to the youth soccer club that I can't spell or pronounce?