chivas america to chicago?

[Fanaddict]

What do you guys think of this. Guy claims his father was told chivas america will play in chicago by chivas owner.

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109515

[Wallydrag]

Nothing like info coming in from a friend of a friend of a father, etc. etc. etc.

[Eric B]

Look out, folks, here come the Oklahoma City Fire!

[worldfootballgenius]

Well, if he's right, atleast the whole thing is done. I never cared where it went, or who was on it, as long as MLS has more teams to play with. Now all we need to do is crush this ********ing single-entity. Single Entity is the big problem on our hands. But, why chciago? a lot of hispanics or something? Why was that appealing? LA would have had more fans.

[worldfootballgenius]

Well, if he's right, atleast the whole thing is done. I never cared where it went, or who was on it, as long as MLS has more teams to play with. Now all we need to do is crush this ********ing single-entity. Single Entity is the big problem on our hands. But, why chciago? a lot of hispanics or something? Why was that appealing? LA would have had more fans.


perhaps club amertica usa could go to la.

[Crewmudgeon]

Wouldn't be ironic if Chivas USA goes to Chicago because Soldier Field gives them a sweatheart deal to make up for the loss of the Fire moving to Bridgeview?

[Wallydrag]

Will the Fire even continue to build a stadium in Bridgeview knowing that the chances of it ever being filled are dramatically decreased once another team comes in.

Chicago is only pulling in about 11,500 this season. I don't know how large a part of that are hispanics, but if they up and ditch for Chivas USA, any part of the 11,500 gone, no matter how small, is significant.

[texgator]

According to the thread, the Fire and Chivas would share Bridgeview. In that scenario Chivas wouldn't begin play until 2006. The guy who started the thread, the one whose father knows someone who knows a friend of a cousin of Vergara, does seem to have some knowledge of the situation. But I'm sure Vergara has feelers out in many different interested cities.

[Wallydrag]

Look out, folks, here come the Oklahoma City Fire!

http://www.mlsinokc.com/images/OKfire.jpg

[worldfootballgenius]

http://www.mlsinokc.com/images/OKfire.jpg


That would be the first minnesota-los angeles lakers thing ahppening in MLS wow, i hope it doesn't happen....

[Wallydrag]

I hope it doesn't either. I'd rather Chivas USA go find their own city sans pre-existing team.

[Przybylinski]

What a waste. This guy wants a team in either Chicago or Los Angeles. There's teams there already. I was struggling with the thought that if the team came to San Diego, would I support them or The Galaxy. I don't have to make that decision since they dropped San Diego.

LA is currently averaging 22K a game. That will go down after the next couple games, but to add another team to LA or Chicago is only going to hurt the MLS as a whole. The MLS should tell Chivas it's either a different city or goodbye.

[Wallydrag]

It's like that old addage, "If you've got the money, honey, I've got the time!"

I'm pretty sure it was a song too.

[worldfootballgenius]

This makes me question "the list of possible expansion investorS", if they have unnamed investors then obviously they have control over their expansion. But with this whole chivas usa thing, obvioulsdy they do not seeing that he is the only real investor. If they had other they could show him the door.

[Mountainia]

I've got to say, It seems to me that this potential new I/O doesn't want to build a market; he wants to take an existing one. In a country as large as ours with only 10 teams, it's silly to double up one of those cities with two teams.

There are huge markets not being served today, and putting two teams in one city risks drawing fans away from the existing team. Why take this risk?

I think MLS would be better off staying with 10 teams a while longer and focus on making them profitable. That will bring in serious investors.

[Calexico77]

I've got to say, It seems to me that this potential new I/O doesn't want to build a market; he wants to take an existing one. In a country as large as ours with only 10 teams, it's silly to double up one of those cities with two teams.


Ah, but you are so mistaken. He is not taking an existing market, he is building a new one! There are around 9 million people within an hour drive of the HDC (let's just say he does LA, because I don't quite know the specs of Chicago). And only 22K or so show up for every game.

Do you think there are any more people we could get to come to a couple of games? Of course!

"But wait!!" you say

"What" I reply

"That 22K per game average represents most of the soccer base of LA!" you announce.

"Actually no, there is this giant fecking well of rabid soccer fans in Los Angeles. They're called immigrants, or first-generation american families of Mexican descent. I mean, there are so many goddamn Chivas stickers when you drive through Van Nuys, down Grand, through anywhere in the city, it's amazing," I reply

"But these guys already have a team! Why would they go for a cut-rate version of the real thing!" you so astutely observe.

"Good point, and I agree, this may be the sticking point. However, I doubt that for all of his jackass-ery, Vergara would field anything less than a winning side. Also, if he reaches out in a significant way, he could at least attract a curious and supportive crowd for the first season - people who just want to, if nothing else, show their Mexican-American pride. That first season, if there is a big enough crowd of core supporters (say enough to eclipse the Casbah), they could be seen as legit to the Chivas fan base in the U.S. Then they will continue to receive interest from the Spanish-language press and community as THE AMERICA EN ESPANOL sports entity."

"Why are you still typing as if this was a conversation?"

"I dunno, seemed like a good idea at the time"

[Fanaddict]

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/soccer/fire/cs-040504firenewmexicanteam,1,325773.story?coll=cs-fire-headlines

[United_Caps_Fan]

Watching this all play out is VERY interesting and entertaining to me. Personally, if this team HAS to go to a city where there is an exsisting team, and I do understand why that might be not such a bad idea given it is being "niche" marketed, I would probably pick LA just based on sheer numbers.

I hope for the Fire's sake that LA gets it. LA would probably have a much easier time supporting an other franchise, espeically one that is being geared towards the specific market that Chivas will be.

I dont know too much about CHI's mexican/ latin population, but it must be awfully large for them to serisouly consider that city.

I personally am VERY VERY VERY GLAD that its NOT comeing here to Washington. There are about 4-5 million people in the immediate metro DC area. Factor in Baltimore and surrounds... There are about 7 million people within an hours drive of DC. Furthermore the metro area here has one of the top 3 or so latin markets in the US. Far as I am concered, one team per city is enough. I just feel extremely lucky that this team does not have a large interest in coming here. Even though things are going well for United, and we have avearged 23,000 per game so far this season, I just dont see 2 teams surviving here. The ONLY place I think it could happen would be the LA area.

[Wallydrag]

"Good point, and I agree, this may be the sticking point. However, I doubt that for all of his jackass-ery, Vergara would field anything less than a winning side.

First he seems like he going to narrow the talent pool he can select from by only looking at Hispanics and Hispanic-American. I'm not debating the merits of this, just stating the fact that it is a smaller area to find quality players in.

Second, there's a salary cap and he can't up and buy a team. He's got the same amount of money to work with the same as Columbus does and look how crappy a team can get. Even if Vergara is the greatest soccer fan in the world, he's still going to have to really on the intuition of his coach, whoever that may be. Hopefully he'll pick correctly.

Third, as Chivas USA will be entering as an expansion team, they'll be able to pick off players in the expansion draft. However, if a pre-existing MLS team has a hispanic player of quality (ie LA's Ruiz, Metro's Vaca, etc) they're going to protect those players and Chivas USA won't be able to get them. Well, acutally I bet they'll be able to grab either Jaime Moreno or Cerritos from DCU.

Point is, the chances of him fielding a team the first, or even second year that's really going to contend for the title don't hold the best odds. He could do it, look at the '98 Fire, but very unlikely. Hopefully those Chivas fans that came out won't feel like they've been duped with a second-rate imitation and continue to think MLS is lightyears below MFL.

[uclacarlos]

I hope for the Fire's sake that LA gets it.
Peter Wilt said in one of the Chicago papers today that he would welcome the team b/c it would galvanize the Latino fan-base of Chicago (currently 20% of the teams' fans). Sorry, don't have the link

I dont know too much about CHI's mexican/ latin population, but it must be awfully large for them to serisouly consider that city.
The same article states that Chicago has more Mexicans and Mexican Americans than any other city minus LA...