Will Detroit Ever See MLS Soccer?

i guess a mini mls announcement. I was at the press conference and had a chance to chat with roger and Steve A and Mr A told me that talks were swiftly and progressively going on with mls YAAAAA BaBy

This guy is a great guy very down to earth and is super nice

Where is this Stateside soccer guy? I would love to hear your thoughts

A couple of things:

I think the announcement and any game that might take place reflects the best intentions of Triple Sports & Entertainment. They can talk the talk, sure, but can they deliver?

I have yet to see any sort of offical confirmation from AC Milan or Panathinaikos on the game. All press materials I can find quote only reps from Triple Sports. Not the best of signs.

It's not enough to just have the game, two teams of this stature should be accompanied by some sort of major TV deal with either Fox Sports of Comcast Sports. Where's the announcement for that? Also not the best of signs.

Of course Mr. Apostolopoulos told you talks were "swiftly and progressively going on with MLS." Doesn't mean a thing until he shows he can deliver on his promises. And let's be honest, if this falls through just like the Green Soccer Bowl did, it will forever brand (or at least for the foreseeable future, Apostolopoulos and Triple Sports as eager but inexperienced and ultimately unprofessional investors.

In other words, from my inside knowledge of the organizational debacle that was (or more acurately wasn't) the Green Soccer Bowl, my assessment of the situation is pretty simple: I'll believe it when I see it.

And I would love for my worst doubts to be proven completely wrong.

A few more things:
First off the Green soccer bowl wasn't a Triple Sports promoted event it was a building rental deal as they stated before.

#2 http://www.pao.gr/en/news/?itemid=f45b621a-acd2-4717-aadf-f9c8ba0e45a3


#3 if you were at the press conference they also stated that this game would be internationally televised.

#4 the owners also told me that the have owned clubs in greece. Do you really think that there first sporting event would have been the green soccer bowl? now Ac milan and Panathinaikos seems more like them they are greek.

#5 I really think that this will be a test of the area for an MLS team.
#6"Apostolopoulos and Triple Sports as eager but inexperienced and ultimately unprofessional investors." How do you know this ? I had also asked them about who is the other investors involved and they told me just the family. I really doubt they are inexperienced.

But the only thing I do agree with you is time will tell.

I'm not going to go 10 more rounds with you on this Spec.

Just keep in mind that the Triple Sports is feeding you the usual info you expect from a company trying to position themselves as a viable MLS franchise investor and their marketing is amateur at best.

Internationally televised? By whom? In what countries?

Also, it doesn't matter if the Green Soccer Bowl was an official project of Triple Sports or not. All people are going to remember about it is that it was a soccer event, it was going to happen at the Silverdome and it was canceled.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

You seem to have a pretty harsh standing for these guys trying to bring soccer and mls here. But whateves you can have your reservations and so will I but I do believe the duggans tried and failed horribly back when franchises were only $1 million. these guys say they have no issues getting one for 50 million or whatever Garbers asking these days. I am not an marketing major but I know that hardly any other sports facility have press conferences to announce these types of games.
Not going to round ten with you but I sure would love to have a beer with ya and talk footy. BTW why not contact the ownership and set up an interview?These guys are our best chances to get a team here anytime soon so I support them 1000% I hope you plan to join us.

It does to people who care about having their judgment of Triple Sports taken seriously by intelligent adults.

You seem pretty certain that all "people" are going to have just one perspective, and that nobody will care to make the slightest effort to make sure that their conclusions are sound.

Some will be happy to make overly harsh snap judgments, sure. After all, we live in a world where the worst imaginable circumstance is often the default setting in any discussion, especially online. However, a bunch of people being wrong doesn't turn it into right.

I understand your skepticism, and even have about the same stance that you do: I'll believe it when I see it. In particular, I need to be convinced that Triple Sports has the enormous amount of money at their disposal to both remodel the Silverdome to make it a suitable MLS venue and actually buy and operate the team; my guesstimate is in the neighborhood of $100 million, and not much less. What they say on the subject is not enough to convince me, not that it's all that important for me to be convinced, but I'd probably have to hear it from Don Garber himself. This was the dealbreaker in St. Louis, if you recall. If they are undercapitalized, I'd rather have no team than one that fails or has to half-ass their way through MLS (cf. Revolution, New England).

But, there is no good reason to be any more skeptical now than before the Green Soccer Bowl failed, nor should that failure raise any more doubt that they are legitimately following the correct procedure for obtaining an MLS team. It's just as easy for you to throw stones as it is for them to say that everything is hunky-dory, and neither one is any more reliable than the other.

Every MLS expansion team began with vague, preliminary talks. I seriously doubt that any owner or ownership group walked into MLS HQ, shook hands with Don Garber, hammered out some details and wrote a check. Every, single expansion team started out just like this one has and has endured a long, slow process, so there is no reason to think, based on what we know now, that MLS Detroit isn't legitimately in the pipeline.

Of course, every failed expansion attempt (St. Louis, San Antonio, Miami II, Rochester, Hartford, Philadelphia I, and probably others that never became public) started the same way, only they each came up against some roadblock or another that halted the process. There is also no good reason to just assume that such a roadblock doesn't exist here.

Sorry, neither you nor Spec1 has any better of a handle on the situation than the other, although both of you are convinced otherwise. You're both jumping to conclusions, and are too invested in your own jumps. All we can do is wait and see.

Repped

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Noob

FYI Match has been confirmed

http://www.acmilan.com/NewsDetail.aspx?idNews=122044

This is pretty big. If we can continute to get these kind of friendlies and we can get 35-40k people for them, it will really help us.

Where has this Stateside guy gone? Great game laastnight what are your thoughts now?

I live and work in the Detroit area and I was proud to be in attendance with 28,000 people last night at Ford Field. Although the ownership issue is still unknown, I am convinced that the market exists here for a MLS club to succeed.

Just like Seattle, Portland, Philadelphia, and Toronto, there are a large number of young single people in their twenties and thirties who love the combination of the sport they grew up with and the ability to party downtown.

A PPL-type park on the site of the old Tiger Stadium would competely revitalize the Corktown area and create jobs and excitement. Detroiters are extremely loyal to their sports teams and in this metropolitan area of 4.5 million, there are plenty of fans who would support a MLS club.

If I lived in Detroit I wouldn't be. The stadium was less than half empty. Minneapolis pulled around 23k IIRC for a Thunder LA Galaxy game 3 or so years ago. Thats only 5k more for a US national game. Plus there were a decent (not a ton but decent) number of Canadians there. So in reality the amount of US fans were probably closer to 27 or maybe even 26k.

Whereas in comparison Boston pulled a full crowd against Spain, granted a more enticing match up, but against a rival such as Canada I would have expected a bigger crowd.

there was no local promotion for the game at all. literally, none. and it was still more people than had ever shown up for a USA match in the Gold Cup

Just interested to know....which of these is true?

Tiger Stadium?

That would be a great site for a new stadium, if someone other than the owner of the Silverdome wants to bring MLS to Detroit.

First off, Minneapolis pulled in 20k (not 23k), for the Thunder-Galaxy game in 2007. Plus, you neglected to mention that David Beckham was in attendance, at the height of his fame. So, you got maybe 16k female admirers at that Minneapolis game, and 4k in real attendance. So the numbers are not as glowing when the real story is revealed. Had David Beckham played in Detroit the other night, I'm sure the crowd would've topped 40,000-50,000.

So now that Tampa had almost the exact same attendance as Detroit, can we stop with the "Detroit doesn't deserve a team because they don't support soccer, based on 1 game in a GC group game against Canada" nonsense?