Complete hatchet job by the Express-News (re: the Fusion)

[BuffloSoldier]

Wow. Some of this...well, words aren't enough. (http://www.mysanantonio.com/columnists/stories/MYSA050405.3A.krod.23cc5d8ee.html)

Ok, the facts can't be argued (from what I can tell)...but the tone is just so poisonous.

[VioletCrown]

Wow. Some of this...well, words aren't enough. (http://www.mysanantonio.com/columnists/stories/MYSA050405.3A.krod.23cc5d8ee.html)

Ok, the facts can't be argued (from what I can tell)...but the tone is just so poisonous.

Yep. That's got to be the ugliest one yet. Anyone want to track down a Fusion fan that knows the details to rebut? I can't. I have a vague memory that Horowitz forgot one factor in the equation -- that the league was in startup mode. He wasn't willing to deal with the league-wide red ink at the start-up phase.

OK. I guess I can rebut.

And I will shortly.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

All you have to do is point out the cultural differences between Cubans and Mexicans.

[VioletCrown]

All you have to do is point out the cultural differences between Cubans and Mexicans.

Good point. Can't wait to see the Cubans in the World Cup. Oh, what?

[Soccergodlss]

Seriously, saying Cubans are good supporters of soccer is like saying Mexicans are the best baseball players.

[Sempuukyaku]

All you have to do is point out the cultural differences between Cubans and Mexicans.


Well...having used to live down in South Florida it's not all just Cubans.


There are Puerto Ricans, Jamaicans, Trinidadians, a mix of Europeans, whites, american blacks, Argentinans, etc. etc.

It's an incredibly diverse mix of people. Soccer is a part of life down there and the Miami Herald is a VERY soccer friendly newspaper...one of the best in the country.

Bad ownership, bad decisions, and bad marketing doomed the Fusion, not the fanbase.

Put a stadium in Miami and have newer, more dedicated ownership and Miami can easily become the east-coast L.A.

[VioletCrown]

Bad ownership, bad decisions, and bad marketing doomed the Fusion, not the fanbase.

If you have more concrete examples of these, would you write him? I didn't include those because, while that's the impression I was left with, I didn't have any examples to support that argument available off the top of my head.

[Sempuukyaku]

If you have more concrete examples of these, would you write him? I didn't include those because, while that's the impression I was left with, I didn't have any examples to support that argument available off the top of my head.

No problem man:

1.) The decision to have the team play at Lockhart in Ft. Lauderdale...at least 40 minutes away from Miami, was absolutely terrible. The fanbase that MLS was targeting is much further south in Miami itself, not Ft. Lauderdale. That's almost like having the Denver Broncos play in Colorado Springs south of here instead of them playing here in Denver...does that make any sense to do?

2.) Horowitz did little to market the team to the ethnic community down there...actually he did little marketing at all. The Fusion at the time they were contracted were by far the most attractive team in MLS in terms of their style of play and because of a distinct lack of marketing they couldn't really draw in the fans like they would've liked. Furthermore he did little to market to the youth teams down there as well....especially considering a good bulk of the youth teams reside in Dade county, not Broward.

3.) What makes this even worse is the Miami Fusion actually started to turn the corner. The year they were contracted they had their highest attendance numbers ever: 11,177 average. Despite this dramatic increase the club was still folded, which suggests to me that Horowitz did not have the financial means to be able to support a team.



Those are the 3 that I came up with. I'm sure that there are some guys that still live down in South Florida here on bigsoccer that can come up with even more reasons.

[Old Man!]

Yeah, someone else here already said it, "wow". This San Antonio reporter needs to do his homework before he launches into why soccer won't work in South Texas because it failed somewhere else in the country. How can you even draw that conclusion? Baseball is dead. Look at the Expos. Hartford Whalers anyone? If THEY can't draw in Hartford how could they do it in Carolina?!? Goodbye hockey. Kansas City Kings? No way basketball will catch on after failing in KC.

This logic is more than flawed.

[okcomputer]

This was my email to Ken:

Ken,

As a person who has followed MLS since its inception in 1996, I was disappointed in your article. I felt you cherry picked one instance in Miami where MLS didnt work and exploited that to make your point. There are many reasons MLS in Miami didnt work. Most notably playing in Fort lauderdale being the main reason. Also, how many teams in Miami do well anyway? Heck the dolphins still don't even sellout some games. The Marlins hardly draw at all. It is one of the worst pro sports markets in the country. Ken Horowitz is still actually an investor in MLS so he thinks it still has potential. I thought a more relevant comparison to San Antonio would be Columbus or Salt Lake. These are similar sized markets to San Antonio with little professional sports competition. Combine that with the fact that San Antonio has many more Hispanics then either area and I think they have a real good chance to succeed. MLS has done very well so far in these markets. I just thought your article would have been more balanced if you would have also included success stories along with failures.

[okcomputer]

Here is Ken's response to my email:

Thanks for writing. I appreciate your comments. The faulty assumption here, I'm afraid, is that Hispanics will support soccer. I don't think they will. I think Hispanics here are far more interested in baseball, boxing and football. I could be wrong, and if I am, I'll happily admit as much. Ken assumed the Hispanic population in South Florida would support soccer. lt didn't. The same assumptions are working here, and I'm afraid those assumptions are misguided. All the best to you -- Ken


He totally disregarded my points about South Florida being a bad sports market with lots of competition and the examples of similar cities like Columbus and Salt lake that do well. Oh well, I guess he didnt want facts to get in the way.

[sctrmd59]

Seriously, saying Cubans are good supporters of soccer is like saying Mexicans are the best baseball players.

Well, they did knock the yanks out of the Olympics this year. I see your point, though

[sctrmd59]

This was my email to Ken:

Ken,

As a person who has followed MLS since its inception in 1996, I was disappointed in your article. I felt you cherry picked one instance in Miami where MLS didnt work and exploited that to make your point. There are many reasons MLS in Miami didnt work. Most notably playing in Fort lauderdale being the main reason. Also, how many teams in Miami do well anyway? Heck the dolphins still don't even sellout some games. The Marlins hardly draw at all. It is one of the worst pro sports markets in the country. Ken Horowitz is still actually an investor in MLS so he thinks it still has potential. I thought a more relevant comparison to San Antonio would be Columbus or Salt Lake. These are similar sized markets to San Antonio with little professional sports competition. Combine that with the fact that San Antonio has many more Hispanics then either area and I think they have a real good chance to succeed. MLS has done very well so far in these markets. I just thought your article would have been more balanced if you would have also included success stories along with failures.

rep....well said

[Old Man!]

Nice job Okcomputer. Here's my somewhat longer:) email to Ken. Sorry about the length, once you get going, it's kind of hard to stop until you've said your peace. When I get a response, I'll post it here. To the Express' credit though, I've sent emails to all their writers who have talked about San Antonio expansion and every one of them have replied back, several times even when I've countered, so props to them.

Ken,

Whoa! Hang on there buddy! Comparing South Florida to South Texas is apples to oranges. Let me explain something that your research on Miami Fusion F.C. may have missed. When the Fusion joined MLS in 1998, MLS was entering its 3rd year and was going through the growing pains that any pro sport in the US goes through. Also, like ALL professional teams in South Florida, attendance is a huge problem! Even the Miami Dolphins can’t sell-out their home games anymore. South Florida is one of the toughest sports markets in the country! Couple that with trying to play games outside during the monsoon season where it rains most days during the regular season and the fact that Lockhart stadium is located in a poor section of Ft. Lauderdale, some 40 minutes north of Miami and you can begin to see why Fusion matches were a hard sell by themselves. This wouldn’t necessarily doom the team though. What doomed the team was a lack of committed ownership. Pro soccer in the US is not a venture that will turn a profit for a savvy businessman overnight. Rather, it is an emotional investment that only has upside potential for the future; short term losses are inevitable as the whole league must grow and become profitable before any one club can become too unwieldy (lessons learned wisely from the NASL). Where NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL teams have largely reached their value potential, soccer is the virgin territory. Ken Horowitz was not one of these visionary men. He saw the dynamic “Fusion” of cultures in South Florida and thought that Anglos and Latinos alike would flock to his glorified high school football stadium to watch a very sub par team compete, while totally alienating the local soccer community and refusing help from soccer people who have been entrenched in the region since the days of the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers. Running the team on the cheap was what Horowitz did best, because he was not investing in the future, but rather trying to lose as little money as possible while doing nothing to increase the value of the club in the marketplace. There were reports at the time that injured players didn’t even have ice to put on their bruises because Horowitz wouldn’t pay for it. From a marketing perspective they were non-existent, if not ridiculous. For example, when the MetroStars and their German World Cup winner Lothar Mattehaus came to town, the Fusion braintrust came up with the idea of “Lothar Night”, where if you were named Lothar, you’d gain free admittance. How many guys are named Lothar in South Florida do you think? Was this just another terrible front office marketing decision or if I’m a cynic, a calculated move by Horowitz to have a promotion and really not have to give anything away for free? The Fusion were an okay expansion team, but poor personnel moves and a total lack of respect for the heritage of the game in South Florida turned off many first time participants from those heady first days in April, 1998.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that soccer could succeed in South Florida. The Fusion, in their final year, assembled what remains the benchmark for the beautiful game in MLS. A wonderful squad that began to undo the wrongs of the past and play a game that appealed to soccer fans across the country. Hiring Ray Hudson, was a masterstroke as it touched the local soccer community that had been all but shunned by Horowitz. Slowly, the Fusion began to win fans back and the attendance reflected this. A run to the 2001 MLS Cup Semi-finals was to be but a sign of surely greater things to come. Then, all too suddenly, Horowitz saw his buddies who had gotten him involved in MLS, Stuart Subotnick and MetroMedia, sell their stakes in the MetroStars to Phillip Anshutz. Horowitz, knowing he hadn’t turned a profit in 4 years decided to cut his losses and run. Miami Fusion F.C. was folded and just when it looked like this club would start to turn the corner, they were dead. Their growing number of fans were devastated and MLS was left wondering what had gone so wrong in a market that had seemed so right. What this proves is that it doesn’t matter if your team is good or terrible, if you play in an NFL stadium or a Soccer Specific Stadium, if your attendance is huge or abysmal. If you don’t have a committed ownership group, the team will fail as it did in South Florida. But by saying that since soccer “failed” in South Florida it would hence fail in San Antonio is simply flawed logic. Since the Expos failed in Montreal, is baseball dead? Will they fail in Washington as well? Apples are to oranges as San Antonio is to South Florida.

Thanks for your time,

[okcomputer]

good email. Kill him with specifics.

[Autogolazo]

Look, there's a simple fix on this guy.

He said Hispanics in South Texas don't like soccer? Huh?

Get the Nielsens for Liga Mexicana for San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley and shove them up the guy's butt.

Now, if he had shown an educated, nuanced opinion, like "they don't like MLS soccer", that's one thing, but this guy knows zip and the cold, hard facts can be made to prove the point.

[Goldenstick]

MLS in SA will fail if the media does not embrace it!! If the city does sell 5k season tickets, there will need to be local media coverage of the team

[Soccergodlss]

agreed, that's what I'm nervous about.

[Sempuukyaku]

agreed, that's what I'm nervous about.


Hey! You live in San Antonio.


Do your friends play/watch soccer too? If so, get all of them to register on this site to start conversing with other people in the San Antonio/Austin/South Texas area so you guys can meet up and start to group.

[VioletCrown]

agreed, that's what I'm nervous about.

Welcome to BS!

edit: I mean BigSoccer:)