Saved the Crew

Having been an NFL guy too--and for an NFL/MLS dual owner at that--he had to have had serious gravitas with the Don.

 

So Garber needed Jim Smith to convince him that ownership was the problem.


Garber really is a grade-A asshat.

 

Oh no. It went down from AAA to aaa, I am nervous....

Seriously though, is there chance at the BoG meeting Haslam says : “look we have the funding it is just going through the wheels of government and will be approved soon so this is what we are doing” and since we have mapfre MLS moves forward then and there? Or is MLS requiring Haslam to have the funding there and in place before they approve anything?

 

Yeah. That (approx) 01-03 was the transition from MLS 1.0 into the 2.0 days.

I would love to get official clarification on what Jim meant. I've long-suspected his words were taken out of context, and maybe for good reason.

 

I'll ask him. What was the quote?

 

Ditto -- except my VM was from New England after a playoff loss. To this day, I'm not quite sure if it was the right Jim Smith. Regardless, I probably shouldn't have said those things about his mom, his small hands, and Jay Heaps playing in my beer sh!ts.

So yeah, please apologize to Mr. Smith for me as well. I believe GC, so past slights have been forgiven and truly appreciate his efforts.

 

I got the survey call last night. The survey was exhausting! The call lasted 22 minutes. The question about the Crew was "if a new stadium was built downtown with private funds and public funds were needed to improve infrastructure around the stadium, on a scale of 1 to 10 what is the likeliness that you would vote yes or no for it, with 1 being a strong no and 10 being a strong yes." I said 10!

 

I had a survey like that once to get a free muffin at a restaurant--took me over 15 min, and then I dropped my phone near the end and it hung me up. Got nothing. I am not fond of these things. I'm much less inclined to waste my time on an open-ended phone survey for which I get nothing.

 

politicians wanting to move slowly. what a surprise.

 

I believe that's exactly what we all thought the Austin City Council should have done with PSV, right?

 

Did they identify who they were or calling on behalf of?

 

No they didn't, but they did ask me some questions about how I felt about some local politicians and if I didn't know who they were then I was to answer I didn't know them. One of them wasn't a person, it was Yes We Can Columbus.

 

Seriously. Now is not the time to take the high road. Live a little! Enjoy some schadenfreude! You've ********ing earned it! Haslem could personally lead the Crew to the next five straight MLS cups, and it would not diminish one whit the pure, absolute glee I would get from seeing Precourt fail to get a stadium in Austin, get buried under a mountain of lawsuits, have to sell his interest in MLS at a tremendous loss just to pay his debts, and die penniless in a gutter, his rich daddy having disowned him for being such an abysmal failure.

 

Makes sense and that is interesting.

Well if anyone else gets the call let's all try to ask who is calling and why. At the least then we will know if they are friend or foe.

 

Is it possible that *owning* an MLS team is a profitable investment, but actually *operating* one, not so much? Particularly if you're going to be stuck in someone else's stadium where you don't even control all the revenue streams. If Precourt can get his cut of the SUM money and expansion fees over the next few years without having to pay for players or staff or equipment or rent or maintenance or any of the other overhead that goes along with actually producing games, that might not be such a bad deal for him.

 

I have to stay moderately plugged in while on vacay, so I like the end of the year for vacay because it's quieter and I can relax a little more while off.

 

Thus my proposal for electoral overkill. Ginther and O'Grady control the county Democrats. Haslam is a big R donor (his brother is governor of Tennessee) and can surely get DeWine and other Rs to stay neutral or even support it. I bet Carl Lindner would endorse it if it doesn't take money from his team. Doug Preisse (co-chair of Franklin county Republicans) seems likely to be onboard if the CP is. That's the top down side.

On the grass roots side, having something in the deal for the schools, trade unions, community benefits, arts supporters, should be a good start. Haslam can make payments that politicians can't do themselves so if he repairs the roof of an important pastor's church, so it goes. Columbus and Franklin County are much less Republican or conservative now than they were 25 years ago when Rinehart or Lashutka could be elected mayor and the county commission had Republicans on it.

 

I think your right. Support has been bipartisan this far, with the right package I don't see it having a problem passing.

Ironically while supporting Saving the Crew wasn't going to entirely sway my voting...opposing the stadium absolutely would. I might not vote for someone because they supported Saving the Crew but I would absolutely vote against someone based on them trying to kill the stadium.

 

Hi. Longtime listener, first time caller.

Your post raises a couple of questions. The first you probably know but I understand if you don't feel that you can answer. The second is purely speculative, to do with as you will.

1) When, where and under what circumstances did Jim Smith come to meet with DG to discuss the situation in CBus? Since we know the commissioner hasn't set foot here, it's fair to assume, I guess, that either Smith met with him in New York or they held some phone conversations, which would seem less likely.

Was Smith part of the delegation from CP that has been meeting with MLS? If so, was he a regular or an occasional "witness" (if you will) brought in to make a point? Did he have a formal role, an informal role or was he a volunteer?

2) If Jim Smith was able to convince Donny The G that the primary problem in Columbus was in fact the ownership group, how do you suppose he can then justify turning a new market over to the exact same bunch of grifters and clowns who screwed this one up?

I'll hang up and listen to your reply.

 

This is slightly on topic, @GoCrew1996, but has anyone thrown around the idea of an NWSL with the new ownership group or has it ever been discussed with the CP and your connects behind the scenes? I'm sure the focus right now is on sealing the Crew deal but I didn't know if this had ever been discussed. I remember the owner of the Columbus Eagles writing to Austin about trying to work with the Crew when they founded.

 

I can't say for sure but I think he told V-Army that they were nothing but a cheap ticket. Does that sound right?

 

Plus he's a douche. In the Douche Super Draft, he wouldn't even be available as he would surely be considered a returning National Douche and subject to the douche allocation process.

 

Must have taken a whole lot of convincing since the cat was the original actor that put the shit in the box.

 

I’ve never liked cat sh!t very much.

I also have always appreciated the word douche. It’s an underutilized word. I’m thinking of applying for a grant to Ministry of Underutilized Words to bring back its use into prominence.