CBA Thread III: The sneakers don't seem that much cheaper

Good

Is it really? If the league were raking in 10 million of profit from every team, they'd be paying for better talent, working on developing talent at the sub-professional level and expanding their stadia for the long waiting list for their tickets.

Sadly there aren't enough of us to care, otherwise, the league would probably be doing as well as you think it is.

Alex, what is "neither".

Again, get back to me when there are enough people to care about "sad" treatment of said athletes by the mean old billionaires.

 

Why does getting a degree make somebody worthier of consideration? A lot of the people who precipitated the financial crisis have BAs and MBAs.

And as for all the people who got degrees and endured those low-paying internships only to find that they can't get jobs, shouldn't we just assume that it's because they can't displace the better-paid people with jobs? When it comes to setting a level of compensation, what's the categorical difference between learning one's trade for four years and spending four years getting a degree?

Well, if you're Alan Gordon in 2008, it's a lot of running around while taking shots for the pain because you don't have a guaranteed contract and could be cut at any moment and you can't take time off to let the pain go down naturally. And because you've got to schlep across town to coach a girls' soccer team. And to live with two other roommates because you can't afford your own apartment. And to borrow money from your girlfriend until the end of the season.

So, it could be worse, but it's not exactly like playing for the Lakers.

 

That's fine. However, if the players are taking his advice, they're not very bright.

I hardly think they are. Some players appear to be with claims of poverty, slavery and attempting to enlist FIFA in changing the operating structure of the league.

 

My point is if nobody cares, then who cares? You seem to think that the union should do this when the public is more disposed to be sympathetic but since the public isn't inclined to care, and if it is inclined to care, it's probably going to lean toward the players, why wait? There might be reasons to wait, but public perception isn't one of them.

An American soccer union that'll wait to strike until the general public cares about soccer is a union that has taken the threat of striking off the table.

 

It doesn't. However, MLS has been operating from the get go as a long term investment for the owners and basically a charity for the rest of us.

Some days it is. Some days it's a merit contract that keeps you from moving up and sometimes it's just not the best choice in careers.

Nothing. Would you like me to use a different analogy? How about welders? There are a lot of welders and steel erectors that are unemployed at this point. The majority of the best of them are still working because it's a highly skilled trade and there is always a certain amount of demand. The people that just exited school or entered their apprenticeship are going to find it hard to break in in markets where heavy construction has ground to a halt.

People that want to go to a different salary model see a demand for soccer that just isn't there.

I'm sorry. How's that supposed to make the laid off welder who can't find work feel sorry for Alan Gordon?

And right now, that's about as good as it gets until we have fans on ST waiting lists at every team and TV ratings are able to suck more revenue out of advertisers.

 

Actually, my point is that given the interest level in soccer, there probably isn't a good time to strike in either of our lifetimes, from a public perception standpoint, but it's going to go over a lot better when teams are actually selling out their stadiums every week and more MLS is on cable/broadcast TV every weekend.

 

I can spend other people's money better than you can!

 

Bullshit. I (tangentially) work for the government. I can add 40% to the cost of a building by simply specifying that it use largely untested products to achieve a "energy design standard" has as of yet not show the payoffs in most places to justify it's use (LEED) and since it's prevailing wage - the unions set the scale, even for non-union labor/tradesmen.

 

i thought i was pretty clear that i haven't picked any MLS team to be a fan of as of yet because, not living near one and thus feeling obligated to be a fan of a home town team, none has particularly struck my fancy. now, i did pick SSFC to use as an example for the "what players on an MLS roster would be able to play elsewhere if there were no MLS to speak of" because A. they intrigue me by having been able to do something i did not think was possible in the MLS, fill a stadium with 32K fans every game for 18 games B. they were neither the "best" nor "worst" team last season but somwhere in the middle C. their overall roster player value (according to transfermrkt.co.uk, a handy website for player info/database) was neither the highest nor the lowest in the MLS and D. it is one of the teams i know the players on the roster fairly well. the experiment could be done with any team, and has been done by other fans of other teams (do not mis-interpret this as me being a fan of SSFC, i am not as of yet, just admire what they are doing) in this thread. and it turns out somewhere around 50% could play elsewhere (whether the elsewhere is desirable is another story)

uh. ngyuen is an mls calibre player (mls teams were interested), he is also an american (fwiw) and he is being paid to play soccer somewhere other than MLS. same goes for white. whether you like them or not or whether or not you think the league they play in sucks is not the point. the whole point was to, with examples, show that some goodly number of MLS players (more than 25% and probably less than 75%) would still find jobs playing soccer (of some sort or another) if there were no MLS. i never argued that every MLS player could find a new job playing soccer that was as good or better than MLS. i specifically indicated that sometimes the new job outside MLS would be worse. but

actually the US has 12 players at EPL clubs ALONE. 1 at Serie A club. somewhere between 5-15 with Bundesliga clubs (depending on how you would like to count dual citizens). 2 at Ligue 1 clubs. 6 at English Championship clubs. 1 at a Portuguese Superliga Club. and 2 at a Greek Super League club. That would be 30ish americans at clubs in leagues clearly better than MLS.

are we back to this. i will remind you for the final time. i don't give a flying ******** what the specific nature of the problems are that Chicago Fire fans have with the FO. because i am not a Chicago Fire fan. i was simply pointing out that between your rubbish attendance and the lengthy and prominent anti-FO screed thread right here at BS Chicago Fire forum it is safe to say that the Chicago Fire do not have the best run FO in the league by the estimation of even their own fans (not every fan in lock-step thinking this mind you, perhaps you love the Fire FO and think they are fantastic, but enough so that it is apparent to even a casual neutral observer).

i am sorry? what was that? i couldn't hear you thru all of that obvious tooth clenching envy and playa hatin'. blah blah blah excuse ... blah blah blah rationalization ... blah blah blah poor old long suffering MLS franchises ... blah blah blah get over it life isn't fair.

yes. i am sure the likelihood is that Portland and Vancouver will fall flat on their ass and not have similar (if slightly smaller due to smaller stadiums) fan exuberance and attendance. and i am sure that Montreal, which already gets 12K a game for a fraking USL team will also fail to match what is going on in Toronto. and Philadelphia with their SOB group that, even without a team, was strong and fervent and had a big part to play in getting the team to Philly in the first place will also surely fail. they are all doomed to struggle to keep their average attendance at their similarly sized 20Kish seat stadiums above 75% capacity just like the poor hard done long suffering Chicago Fire.

yes. because clearly the only possible way spending more money on MLS rosters would work is by paying players like Justin Mapp more money. no team would be smart enough to use the freedom to increase player spending to do things like, buy better players than justin mapp. nor would the league do something smart like also have teams use the increased salary cap to expand rosters to include more young developmental players and even a reserve roster, allowing for a reserve league, allowing a place for Youth Academy players to transition to first team rosters, thus increasing the quality and amount of young talent the league is able to produce and keep.

are there other mls teams that sold 32K season tickets this year? or that have a season ticket waiting list 10K deep? no? then i will have to use these two teams as an example of the high end of the MLS potential scale (in terms of fan participation and excitement and as a result profit).

well how about you chose your teams your way and i'll chose my teams my way. up until now, i have found no MLS team worthy of my fandom in particular. if i lived in the same city as a team, i would be a fan of that team. since i don't i have yet to find any one MLS team so compelling that i wished to become a "fan".

it must be nice to be psychic and know how, why and the circumstances that led to me being a Man Utd fan. couldn't possibly be that when i was a high school soccer player, way back in the 90s, there were almost no other teams with any level of media exposure in the soccer-free US. or that my love of the Manchester music scene from the age of 12 made me predisposed to a team from that city.

it must be nice being so special. your disdain and petulant ********tardedness is truly a sign of your preeminence amongst all soccer forum intelligentsia. is there a shrine at which i might worship your holy superawesomeness? or perhaps pay tithe so you might continue your dickheaded and impotent contrariness in comfort and style? or maybe you teach a course where one so lowly as myself might learn to be more like you in all of your divine glory?

 

well. he WAS. who knows what he is now.

 

That's really nice, especially when you have a ready made stadium in place with the owner of said stadium being a partial owner of the team. It makes it worth his while to push tickets to increase his profits and pay off the stadium faster, to further increase his profits.

We'll see if and when the Sounders have a deep playoff run who really controls the schedule in that stadium.

You left out Toronto.

I'm well aware of his nationality and he may have the talent to play in MLS, I don't think he has the attitude, especially since HAGL terminated is contract over his lackadaisical attitude and performance. So he's not getting paid to play soccer anywhere now.

Last time I saw Jerry White, DMB skinned him for a goal. If the strike were protracted, I think you'd see a 1/4 of the league retire before a deal was reached with almost all of the foreign players packing up and heading out leaving the rest of the US citizens with either the USL/NASL or lower divisions of leagues where they don't speak the language.

Now go back and tell me how many of those guys started this weekend?

If you really read the thread, and you didn't, you'd realize the steps that ownership had gone to to address the fans concerns with the FO and especially the coaching situation. But of course, that's not the forum that most Fire fans use anyway.

Yes. Life isn't fair. Kevin Hartman isn't a slave either.

I hope they do succeed at the level or better than SSFC/TFC. I simply don't count things as a success until they happen, nor do I assume they will always be successful. DC used to be the undisputed class of the league and now they're possibly on the move. Oh how times change.

Players like whom?

Salary cap and Roster size are two different things. MLS players don't seem to be asking for that, do they?

Well you're going to have to chat with the NCAA about that because most players aren't going to jeopardize their shot at a partially paid for college to be tackle fodder at any MLS club until the compensation outweighs the benefit of an education.

are there other MLS teams that have access to a 64K stadium where they have revenue control and at least a modicum of schedule control? Are there MLS clubs that have had prime downtown land given to their for development? Certainly not since the fallout of Kelo.

Why don't you just list both Toronto & Seattle. There's no possible way I could think less of you at this point.

Jesus, where did you live then? Montana?

ghey

Buy a premium membership to BigSoccer and put me on ignorelist - I get half of the membership fee.

I'm sure his grandfather is dead. As for Kevin, well, he's pretty much where he was at before negotiations brokw down.

 

i am sorry, i again seem to be having trouble understanding you over all of that latent hostility towards more successful MLS teams than yours?

how could i have left out a team from a one team example?

is being so dense an active effort on your part or have you mastered the art so now it is just a subconscious and persistent state of being?

wow. i am glad to see we agree on something. this is pretty much what i have been saying. glad to see you have come around to my point of view.

again. nice irrelevant non-sequitur. how many started has no bearing on whether they are employed. i would be willing to bet that they all are getting paid for this past weekend whether they started or not.

i am sorry. you are right. your team is super duper fantastic. best FO in the league. everyone agrees. your own fans, each and every one of them, loves them more than free blowjobs and Klondike bars. and 14K fans a game proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

you must have me confused with somebody who said he was. i know reading comprehension is hard but do try to keep up.

you want me to list all of the players that the Fire could, instead of paying justin mapp more, use that money to instead sign that would be better? i mean that is a pretty long list because justin mapp kind of sucks. i am not a professional scout but i assume, having the superawesomeduperorgasmic FO that you do there in Chicago, they would be able to find somebody, somewhere in the world that would be an improvement over Justin Mapp should they have more money to do so.

it is like having a discussion with a child. a very retarded child. salary cap and player rosters are not the SAME but they are pretty clearly go hand in hand. interdependent if you will. and i have no idea what the players are asking for aside from what is in the press. i was simply pointing out that a higher salary cap, especially one decently higher, might be used in various ways including allowing for the possibility of increased roster size.

from what i have read on here the NCAA already has changes in the works that would allow for a player to play alongside and against pros and still retain their eligibility. not to mention the way a reserve team works is that young PROFESSIONALS that have graduated from your youth academy and that you have SIGNED TO A PROFESSIONAL CONTRACT play along side near first team older players and maybe recovering injured first teamers. in other words players that have already bypassed college (if this system were to be set up and work properly in the MLS eventually) thus making your above statement both pointless and ********ing stupid. it works like this. youth players move up a teams youth academy from U-16 to U-18 and once they are 18 (or before if they are really good) they either choose to sign with their club and become a reserve (or if they are good enough 1st team) or they chose to go to college and if they develop later may enter the MLS thru the draft. if done correctly the reserve league would have no bearing on NCAA eligibility whatsoever.

yep. their success is all down to luck and good fortune. nothing to do with good management.

because as of yet i have not chosen to be a fan of either SSFC or TFC. i have no doubt you could not possibly think less than you appear to from your postings, i believe they call any less brain activity than you exhibit here brain death.

no. north carolina. and in 1990 foreign soccer was virtually non existent in the media aside from a bare handful of enormous clubs and even they were virtual non-existent. there was no FSC or internet with scores and websites and streaming highlights. just the occasional score in the back of usa today for the most part.

really? you are going to denigrate the Manchester music scene (with such banality i might add)? you really are an utter philistine aren't you?

does this premium membership and 'ignore-list' allow for me to beat you to death with a baseball bat gleefully to the dulcet sounds of The Stone Roses and rid the planet of your wretched blight? because if not frankly i cannot say that i am particularly interested or inclined.