It's September, Where's the News?

[prk166]

I haven't seen anything on the MLS web site so far in regards to Utah announcing some of the people they've brought on board nor any official decisions on team name / colors and such. I did see that blurb in the desert news. But I haven't seen anything more official or detailed beyond that. What's the scoop?

[sounderfan]

Hopefully EVERYTHING ELSE is on track:

1. Infrastructure.
2. Marketing.
3. Coach.
4. Possible roster.

Many of us in Seattle will be adopting SLC as "our team" until/if we get one of our own, so we certainly hope the dragging-the-feet-on-naming-the-team thing is not a preview of a franchise trait in general.

As long as SLC has stuff for people to BUY by October/November for Holiday 2004 then they should be OK.

It will be quite a warning sign indeed if Christmas rolls around without some kind of all-out marketing reach in Utah.

Checketts has had to take this thing from ZERO (May) to 60 (July) so a few slow-downs for speedbumps are to be expected.

[Eric Bekins]

Even if they announce the team name and colors this week, I highly doubt there will be any merchandise for sale until at least April 2005 or beyond. Almost no MLS team has been very good at getting their gear out there for mass consumption. I remember Fire fans complaining long and loud in 1998 that they didn't have team stuff to buy well into their first season.

And every soccer shop I go into here in Southern California never has more than a few MLS things. Whenever I ask someone about it, they always tell me that Nike and Adidas make the retailers buy a whole lot of stuff at a minimum, and the retailers don't want to spend that much for just a few sales.

The best bet will be internet sales, but again, I don't think there will be stuff available until after the holidays. There has to be lead time and stuff to produce new team gear, and if they only announce things now in September, it's not going to be enough time to get production rolling.

[Rockey J Squirrel]

MLS marketing has been driven by League based sponsorships not work/performance by a local team's staff.
SCORE of SLC makes great team wear (as in this years Blitzz gear) but are the likes of Swooshes and 3 stripes etc. going the let them compete? They want control and their marketing plan pushed even to the damage of the Team/Golfer and the effect of pricing out/contracting out retailers of the very reason the club merchadises: Sales and Loyaly/Indentification by the fans.
Remember, one of the reasons Checketts left the Jazz was that Miller thought that his merchadise shop scheme was unsustainable.