Lots of talk going around about that. Bill Edwards name comes up a lot when people whisper about potential new owners in FTL.......
Thanks for the laugh my friend. Peterson is a clown. His idea of a strategic direction for the league is "be different from MLS." That's it. The league is pretty desperate at this point. they don't have the ability to simply wait around for "wealthy, committed" owners to show up. They're taking whatever they can get at this point.
The brand is familiar, but many still do not know that the team exists now. This is a fail for both ownership groups and their FOs. There is also a strong element of MLS only in SoFl. Plus, many people here still have an attachment to the teams of their youth in their country of origin. That coupled with the current FOs fixation with becoming an international brand and doing next to nothing to promote the team locally (Broward and Palm Beach counties) explains much about the lack of attendance at games. Lockhart was part of the problem. It was a wreck and uninviting to those that did not know of its history for the sport. Hopefully the team will survive long enough and enough attention will be paid to the local population to get folks to try the Central Broward Cricket Stadium venue. It looks to have all the elements of being a superior 2nd Division stadium. It is said that 10% of prior season ticket sales were to residents of Miami-Dade. Evidently many have switched over to Miami FC. So be it. The Strikers need to market heavily in Broward and, especially, Palm Beach counties. That is their home. M-D isn't. The lack of local marketing while trying to become an international brand is absurd. I have never heard of planeloads of Chinese or Brazilians overloading the local international airports in their quest to get to a Strikers game. Ever. Hopefully the FO now recognizes this and will act accordingly because there are not many carloads of locals coming to the stadium either. Those are the people we need. One of our hopes now is a different ownership. There are a few names mentioned including a local billionaire that has supposed to have offered to buy the team outright. The counter offer he received was said to be wildly overpriced. There are other groups and individuals mentioned, too. We will see what comes of all this in due time. My only hope is that the Strikers survive.
Have heard offers have been made by two different parties - Bill Edwards, and the Austrian who owns Gulfstream racetrack and casino. But Strikers countered both offers with ridiculously high numbers.
Ronaldo and the Fort Lauderdale Strikers: a Florida soccer project turned sour https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...m_term=190329&subid=18117530&CMP=EMCFTBEML853
The Brazilians called the Strikers wrong, he believes, because they arrived “thinking they knew soccer because they are Brazilian but failed to understand American soccer is a whole different beast.” Ain't that the truth.
Well, things seem to have come to a head. Really sad and frustrating to see this.... http://www.wralsportsfan.com/nasl-may-assume-strikers-financial-obligations/16033912/
The kiss of death apparently. I did not expect this from this ownership. Their delusional attempts at make a USA DII team a world wide brand has failed miserably. They seem to have played us for suckers beautifully while proving themselves to be fools. The conversation I had with Tom Mulroy 2 years ago when the rumors of Traffic Sports selling the team were loud and frequent comes to mind. After delighting me by telling me that they were not rumors but were fact and the team could be sold by season's end. He concluded the conversation with "be careful what you wish for". This comment made no sense to me then. It certainly does now. He must have known of their delusions of grandeur and understood that those would lead to failure. He saw the future better than I or anyone else did. Now all I, or any other Striker fan, can hope for is completing the season and getting new ownership ASAP. If not we will see the death of the Strikers yet again. I am not happy and I hope Cesso, Bertani and all the others leave immediately never to return. A pox upon them all....
Sure seems to be a lot of stuff circling the bowl for our Strikers and the NASL right now. As always The Tailgate Show has you covered. Join us tonight at 7 PM for all the news and latest info on what is going on. We'll also have Strikers defender Julius James in the Kudio to talk about the team's current 7 game unbeaten streak on the field. Who are ya?!? www.thetailgateshow.us
The show had Julius James on for nearly the entire 2 hours. The man is a hoot and well worth listning to. They finished strong with Luis Cuccatti , backed up by Paulo Cesso, in house to answer such questions as we may have after JJ left.. 1) The Strikers will finish the season with a LOAN from NASL to be paid later. Expect announcements soon (tomorrow) about player signings. 2) The Strikers will play in NASL next season. Some Brazilian owners are bailing out and the team is looking to get new people on boar 3) Expect an emphasis next year on courting LOCAL fans. Give a listen to what else was said since I had to leave the Kudio before the conversation ended. It is worth the time and effort.
My cousin was Tommy Mulroy's roommate when they played indoor soccer together with the Louisville Thunder. Cool guy with a lot of stories to tell....
http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/mls/article103482792.html "They didn't just burn bridges with the local soccer community, they nuked them. It's disgraceful. They tossed everyone who cared most about the Strikers brand to the curb, lied to people and now they will just go back to Brazil and who knows what will become of this team." -- South Florida soccer promoter Eddie Rodger on the Brazilian owners of the NASL Ft. Lauderdale Strikers, whose financial problems have put the club on the verge of collapse.
I haven't listened to the show yet, but the Strikers were courting non-local fans? Like from places other than SoFla? What would be the point of that?
The article does not mention the possible loss of fan base to the new FC Miami team. Did they lose fans to them?
I would assume so, but that is useless. They might as well have been courting me. I stand a better chance of getting to Fort Lauderdale from Nashville than your average Brazilian from South America.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/09/23/fort-lauderdale-strikers-handed-qatari-lifeline/ Qatari billionaires could buy the ailing NASL club. A difficult week for both the Strikers and the league has ended on something of an uplifting note when PSG Academy Florida, who are ultimately funded by the Qatar Investment Fund which owns parent club Paris St-Germain, expressed an interest in purchasing the team.
Broward County, like Miami-Dade County, is a "minority" county. The Broward population has over 20,000 Brazilians. Miami-Dade probably a bit more. This seems to be the group that the ownership was trying to cater to locally. They also used Brazilian companies as sponsors and had a TV deal in Brazil. They also saw limitless potential in China. That's the reason for the trips there along with a TV deal there, too. All this failed. Not one planeload of Brazilians or Chinese has ever landed here full of fans wanting to go to Lockhart to watch a game. Nor have I ever met any individual that has done that. Along the way they forgot about any other locals that may be interested if they knew about the team. Their desire for international recognition overwhelmed whatever common sense they may have had and they put the cart before the horse in everything they did. That, along with the Brazilian economy tanking has brought on the current mess we are now in. The conversation they had on The Tailgate Show gives me hope that they have extracted their heads from their asses and realize that in the USA this is very much a local sport. Cater to your base and try to grow it locally - Broward and Palm Beach Counties. BTW, folks in the FO tell us that the 2015 list of season ticket holders from Miami-Dade County was about 10%. Some have returned. That means that possibly as many as 100 have started going to Miami FC games.
Latest word from insiders is that the Strikers were approached and offered over $3,000,000 for the club. They were refused (rumor has the asking price over $10,000,000). It seems that there is no interest locally. Luis Cuccatti said they will be back next year with contacts signed for both the Cricket Stadium and Lockhart Stadium. He gave no indication about players signings or retention. I was told that season tickets will be offered soon. I intend to purchase one again. The overall feeling I get from those involved with the club, except Luis, is resignation that the Strikers days are numbered. Most feel the same way about the NASL. I hope not on both counts. We will see.