Are you saying they put that clause in without Garber’s knowledge and he didn’t know it was in there before Precourt bought the Crew?
No, but that's not what you claimed. You claimed Garber worked with Precourt to get that clause put in. That's different than being aware of it.
I didn’t mean to imply that. I meant that Garber had to have approved the clause, thus knew it all along, this is equally culpable
Well of course the truth on all of that is, and will remain, unknowable and very likely forever unknown. All we have to go on is a) Garber's own words, which unfortunately we all know to be unreliable even under the best of circumstances, b) Precourts comments on the subject, which are little more than mindless nonsense and c) our own intuition which, under the circumstances, is just about as reliable as the other two. Garber said at the time of the sale that Precourt came to him and said (I'm paraphrasing but the quotes are easy to find) I'm not entirely convinced that Columbus is a viable market, so what's the deal if I want to move the team? to which Garber claims he replied that any owner has the right to move their team but in your case as a new owner we'll agree that for the first ten years your only option will be to move to Austin, which is the one city where there is no competing bid group in any stage of the process. For his part, Precourt has babbled on about how he has always been "fascinated" by Austin, that he held his bachelor party there and everybody had a super-swell time and that he has always adored Austin because he loves Queso. No, I am not making that up. As to the rest of us, I'm inclined to believe that Garber thought - still thinks - that Austin is exactly the kind of place MLS ought to be, demographically. (I have to believe he is utterly shocked by the lukewarm reception MLS is getting down there. Even at this late date, they're still having to give away tons of free swag just to get a handful of the same people to show up and pretend to be supporters. Compared to Nashville or Philly or Atlanta or anyplace else, genuine, non-astroturf enthusiasm is almost impossible to find. I honestly think the league is stunned) Ironically, if you were trying to find two cities which are more or less carbon copies of each other you could hardly do better than Columbus and Austin. It's almost uncanny, all the way down the line. Still, from his Queens New York perspective and his Manhattan office, Columbus Ohio has nothing like the sex appeal he thinks a big time pro sports league ought to have while Austin has SXSW, which he loves. Furthermore, and this isn't snark, it's just simple observation, Tony Precourt has never had an original thought in his life. He's a terrible, incompetent businessman, a weak party boy who puts no effort into anything, ever, because he's never had to. Inserting the Austin clause would have taken knowledge, research and foresight, none of which Fratboy has ever demonstrated. I genuinely believe that the Austin pill was put into the deal by the league - ie. Garber - with Clark Hunt's tacit cooperation (it could not have been otherwise).(Talk about a man with no soul - Hunt makes Mr. Data seem like Mr. Rogers). The deal was always intended as a slow-motion execution of the Columbus market and Dave Greeley, a guy who had presided over an utterly disastrous two year demolition of the Chicago Fire as a franchise, was immediately hired to oversee it all (why else would he have been hired? and how is it that QuesoBoy hooked up with him? Did Greeley answer a want ad under "team administrators who have failed dismally", or is it more likely that Garber/Abbott put the two of them together? As I said, I doubt whether we'll ever know the whole truth of how this all came down but one thing is unarguable: this entire affair could not have been handled much worse if whoever it was intentionally went looking to create a disaster.
Since the discussion is now the naming of the spoon, for the time being Precourt is a good choice. He represents the worst in the league today. His name combined with the worst performing team would be demonstrate the worst of American soccer. Last year, the Galaxy should have been awarded the Bruce Arena/Jürgen Klinsmann Wooden spoon, again, the worst in American soccer. For the next few years, Anthony Precourt and his "ambition" look to be the force behind the lowest of American soccer lows. He has earned having his name put on the spoon, and there it should remain until something worse comes along.
Below is what I wrote. I never claimed that Garber worked to put that clause in. Maybe you confused my use of the word "cause" with "clause"??? I made a casual remark, and it got blown way out of proportion.
Again, worked with in the sense of two sides working on a sales contract together to work out a deal. That doesn’t mean Garber originated the clause, i meant that he had to approve it. I apologize that I was unclear.
Found!! Spoon Winners and Runners-up through 2014... https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/time-for-a-wooden-spoon.1983374/page-6#post-31788857
Finally, someone who understands Don Garber can't even take a shit without clearing it with the Hunt boys.
If San Jose is given the Wooden Spoon, that'll make the first time a group of supporters has controlled the Supporters Shield and the Wooden Spoon at the same time. Seriously, can one of the adults in San Jose fork over the original Supporters Shield already?
Long time lurker. (Longer than some of you have been alive!!) so please forgive the ridiculousness of the following. Please disregard at will! I second (or third?) the notion of the wooden spoon being named for Precourt and would like to suggest that every year a dark, unknown and unaccountable group (followers of this this thread perhaps...just sayin) would be responsible for selecting that year's MLS' MLC -- MLS's Most Loathsome Character and every year that infamous name would be used to indentify the wooden spoon for the next 12 months and their names would be added (as well as the actual team with the lowest point total of course) to the permanent record for that year on the spoon itself etched in by a drunkard or someone with no writing or spelling skills whatsoever. The spoon then could be given to the wooden spoon receiver's biggest MLS rival giving another unaccountable group the ability to tease the receivers of the WS unmercifully for 365.25 days and by extension use the crowd power to complain fruitlessly about the things they have no direct power to affect...unless sarcasm has become more powerful than I know.... Are you with me! (Cue JB first run out of the room...)
With Orlando's win today (they now have 8 wins this season, twice as many as the Quakes' 4), the San Jose Earthquakes have clinched the 2018 Wooden Spoon. Congratulations to Jesse Fioranelli, Tom Fox, Mikael Stahre, Steve Ralston, etc. on bringing home their first trophy for the Quakes organization... Your service to this club will never be forgotten! With many teams having historically bad seasons (8 teams have given up over 60 goals, including Orlando setting the MLS record with 73), the competition was tough but they managed to outdo everyone else with their incompetence. Other teams were bad for long stretches, but no other team maintained such a steady and consistent level of embarrassing performance over the full MLS season. This award is the culmination of many years of bad decisions, taking what was possibly the most exciting team in MLS history in the 2012 Supporters Shield winning Quakes, and turning them into an unwatchable joke just half a decade later, completely blowing all momentum from the team's move into their new soccer stadium and Wondo's pursuit of the all time MLS goal scoring record.
MLS Wooden Spoons won (teams in bold no longer with us) 4 - San Jose Earthquakes (1997, 2000, 2008, 2018) 3 - Chicago Fire (2004, 2015, 2016) 3 - D.C. United (2002, 2010, 2013) 2 - New York Red Bulls (1999, 2009) 2 - Toronto FC (2007, 2012) 1 - C.D. Chivas USA (2005) 1 - Colorado Rapids (1996) 1 - Columbus Crew SC (2006) 1 - FC Dallas (2003) 1 - Los Angeles Galaxy (2017) 1 - Montreal Impact (2014) 1 - New England Revolution (1998) 1 - Tampa Bay Mutiny (2001) 1 - Vancouver Whitecaps FC (2011) 0 - Atlanta United FC 0 - Houston Dynamo 0 - Los Angeles FC 0 - Miami Fusion F.C. 0 - Minnesota United FC 0 - New York City FC 0 - Orlando City SC 0 - Philadelphia Union 0 - Portland Timbers 0 - Real Salt Lake 0 - Seattle Sounders FC 0 - Sporting Kansas City
Maybe even mail a picture of the trophy and a letter certifying that person's name being attached and why. FUN!