New this morning from @ReporterBush: Obetz will kick out the Crew at the end of the year if it doesn’t get a substantial Cleveland Browns event at the village #Crew96 https://t.co/VCRQxuXLim— Jacob Myers (@_jcmyers) July 22, 2019
Is it ok to start giggling now or should I wait until Dee tells what-his-name where he can shove his extorsion efforts?
The Village of Obetz also tried to open its own Wings and Rings franchise. They did this because "The village in southern Franklin County has tried to recruit sit-down dining options to no avail". They agreed to purchase a franchise through its community investment corporation back in 2015. The thing still hasn't opened. The last update about it was May of last year: https://www.bizjournals.com/columbu...is-what-has-held-up-obetzs-buffalo-wings.html As you can see, Obetz moves quickly and I'm sure they are just having many folks beating down the door to use their space.
This is so perfectly small town: "No one is opening a restaurant here, let's just open our own rather than try to make the town more attractive to actual business development."
Wings and Rings were desperate to get more franchises out in the market, so they lowered their franchise fee to $5k. And then Obetz was desperate to find something, they paid it. It's like a match made in heaven.
The company I work for has done a lot of work for Obetz. For whatever reason those guys hate the Crew and have wanted them out for years.
Why is the online headline about evicting the crew while the paper headline is about Obetz playing hardball? I'm part of the millennial generation that is killing the print industry so I'm not familiar if online and print always get different headlines. The page space for the print is small so maybe the headline needed trimmed?
The print industry is dying because they suck. It's their own fault. Why would I pay money to receive a newspaper filled with articles telling me half-truths or straight up lies. They've dug their own grave and are in the process of committing suicide. Cable news is following closely behind. Back to the topic at hand though. I've also heard for a while that Obetz isn't happy with the Crew but I've never heard why. Their distaste originated before the new ownership though. I really don't know what Obetz think is thinking here. I don't see how they have any leverage in this situation. If they think Jimmy Haslam is going to appease their demands so he can keep his soccer team training in a sub-par training facility in a part of town that is nowhere near where any of the players or coaches live, they are insane.
I don’t really think it has to do with the previous ownership. They want to use the land the training facility it’s on. Since they built the “Fortress” I think they think it’s more valuable than it is. There is also a bit of a divide between the city council and the administration department. I’ve dealt with the administrative department and not the council so I’m not sure where they stand. It seemed to me that the council were the ones wanting to keep the Crew there but that that administrator Rod Davisson wants the space. I’m not going to try and pretend I understand the politics of that hick town but what I do know is that Rod holds a tremendous amount of power there and a lot of what he wants, he gets. The other guys in his department act like he’s The Godfather.
1) Newspapers- and journalism in general - died when the business started hiring only people who had graduated from J school. Previously they hired people with backgrounds in what they were supposed to write about. Now they hire empty headed idiots who don't know anything about anything but have a Masters in journalism, which is quickly becoming as useful a credential as sociology or womyns studies. 2) I think that trying to strong arm Jimmy Haslam is a really bad idea. A bunch of small time petty politicians in a shit stain little town thinking they can bully the Browns and the Haslams - as @LaMacchia says above, it's textbook extortion - would be hilarious if it wasnt so stupid. And as @MFRONE notes, it's almost certainly illegal. A bunch of clowns who can't manage to open a $5,000 wing joint in over four years shouldn't try playing with the big kids cause it doesn't end well.
The Crew Facebook page had pictures from training at mapfre. I wonder if this was a shot at the whole Obetz thing.
Thanks for the tip. They did indeed post a series of practice photos. Yesterday. What a coincidence. And just to be sure no one missed the point, they tossed in this one: If nothing else, you gotta love how this management plays the game. Agile, smart and very savvy about how to use media, social and otherwise. This is a quite clear "eff you". What fun.
Not to rain on everyone's shit on Obetz parade but the practice was a yearly practice done at the stadium for Mapfre staff that get to come and watch the team practice. Here's a tweet about the 2018 practice at Mapfre. Thanks for coming out to #CrewSC training today, @MAPFREIns! 😄👍 pic.twitter.com/BRNQlWbMtn— Historic Crew Stadium (@CrewStadium) July 19, 2018
I live in a small city and often lament the unprofessional nature of many businesses I frequent. It’s an attitude of “where else you going to go? We’re the only (blank) in town”. It’s an attitude that comes from a lack of competition and laziness. As a Crew fan, I often felt we were run in the exact same way and with the exact same attitude. I may be wrong about all of this. I do, however, think it has all changed. The team is being run professionally and with a true expectation that they are the best at what they do. It’s taken some time to get used to this new level of professionalism. I like it. I smile about the little things like the social media posts Bill references above. This truly is fun.
I want the Cleveland Browns to have their training events at Lakeshore East Park here in Chicago. If they don't, I'm not coming to another Crew game this year.
This feels like 2008 when I protested HSG's apathy and incompetence by not renewing my season tickets. (I attended every game buying an extra from my friend's group of 8x at possibly below what STs would have cost me anyway, and I traveled to the final. Shhhh, don't tell.)