News: 2018 Other Teams Discussion Thread (spoilers)

Imagine the money they could make after having a parade.

 

Aron Johannsson hasn't been healthy for half a decade. Remember Chris Pontius and how every year he was supposed to "over" his injury problems? No thanks.

 

@griffin1108 Lucchese hasn't made it. Together with Albissola, Arzachena, Siracisa and Foggia, they are out of serie C. Likely more teams to follow.

 

The point is Kasper is sitting in his office with $80K to spend on getting us a striker, instead of get us a game changer.

 

Thanks for the update. It's a shame. I'm not sure what can be done to find some way to stabilize the teams operating below Serie B. I think these things are the "canary in the coal mine" for teams operating below the top flight, or in the case of England, France, Spain, Italy and Germany -- maybe the top two flights -- of soccer. The recent attempt to turn the Champions League into an established multinational league will only make things worse all around.

I'll keep my nose to the ground in Lucca this July and August and see what is in the works, if anything. The Stadio Porta Elisa is a dump, but it would be a shame if it was empty during the season.

 

It won't. Lucchese will restart with a new ownership maybe from serie D or Eccellenza (the category below) - I don't see them get any lower than that. The problem is also serie B, 3 clubs are having a very hard time in this moment, rumors are about Chievo, but honestly I don't see how as they will have problems as they are getting a 25 mln Euro "parachute" from the league for their continous number of years in serie A. Plus they have a young talent that either Milan or Bayern will get for at least 10 mln Euro. But Palermo and neopromoted Trapani have a lot of issues and may not be able to start, and teams like Venice (just relegated to C) are smelling blood and putting pressure on the league.

 

Doesn't Venezia have American ownership with pretty deep pockets? I know they had ambitions to get to Serie A quickly and relegation to Serie C is a real setback. I guess they are reverting to the tried and true approach -- if you can't succeed on merit, buy your way forward by squeezing the "better" teams that are undercapitalized.

 

By the midpoint of each season we find ourselves asking the same question of our front office...

 

Joe Tacopina, former business partner of Joe Saputo at Bologna (Saputo is still Bologna's owner). Venezia has been relegated but they will play again in serie B next year, Palermo (which fought to go to serie A this last season) did not pay the last part of the salaries to players, coach etc. and did not provide the mandatory fee for serie B registration, so they are basically out of serie B and will likely have to restart from serie D, two levels down. July 4th is the "decision day", Palermo will be officially cancelled from Italian soccer and Venezia's will be brought back to serie B. Palermo is folding for the second time in their history (Lucchese folded 3 times in the last 11 years).

 

I just read an article on Gazzetta dello Sport about the cost of season tickets in Bundesliga, for the cheapest category (goalstands, 17 home matches) prices range between 145 Euro (Bayern, the cheapest in the league) and 225 Euro (Paderborn, neopromoted from Zweite Bundesliga, the most expensive). In Italy, to have goalstand Juve season tickets costs between 600 and 700 Euro. And just to stay around here, DC United just raised its season tickets in the supporters section from $360 of the last years to $540 of this season.

 

Cord cutting may slow down if streaming continues to get more expensive.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-...-expensive-heres-why?utm_source=pocket-newtab

 

I'd say I am already at that point, where its too expensive to get everything I want on TV. The Flo subscription was absurd in that it ever came to exist, but there is a ton of content that I don't have any more.

With a top end FIOS package, 2 years ago, I had all the EPL games on TV or a stream that was includes with my FIOS. Same thing for Champions/Europa League, I got all the marquee Serie A games. Now ESPN+ wants $60/yr for Serie A, Turner wants $80 for the UEFA competitions which I don't think include many Europa League games, NBCSports Gold is $50. Flo is $72. And my cable bill has only gone up. This doesn't even include the Disney+ subscription I am likely to "need" later this year. I'm sure a number of Disney/ABC channels will pull some content to support their streaming service. And yet the cable company doesn't seem to think that the value of the service they're providing is decreased in anyway, because Red Bull cliff diving & Worlds Strongest Man reruns are just as compelling as EPL or Champions League.

And the other problem with cord cutting is that you still don't have an easy to use interface for navigating between the different shows and content providers. Its fine for me, but the less than tech savvy wife might struggle and the kids will certainly struggle.

Right now, today, the content streaming providers need to do more to make their value proposition. As it stands, NBCSports doesn't give me much to make a purchase there, Turner sure as hell doesn't, Flo doesn't come close. Really only the ESPN+ subscription is well priced and offers value beyond what would initially draw me in.

 

I cut the chord years ago. I use YouTubeTV, Netflix, Amazon Prime. I watch EPL, Champions League, US national team games, Caps and Redskins. You can't even watch all of DCU's game with the Flo subscription. So I don't watch unless it's a nationally televised game.

 

I have FUBO, which offers an excellent product, which honestly does not cost much for what it offers. There is NBC, TNT, FS1 and 2, NBCSN, CBS, a bunch of BeIn channels, the useless Fox Soccer Plus (which elsewhere costs $15/mo. though), Eleven Sports, all the Spanish language sport channels such as Univision Deportes, Fox Deportes, Univision, Galavision, Unimas, Universo, and please note that these Spanish channels allowed me to bypass the CL and EL issue not giving a dime to greedy TNT, in addition I also added Rai Italia (which I had lost on Dish) for an extra $7.99/mo. (two dollars less than on Dish), which for me is the most vital channel. Fubo does not support ESPN etc, so I have downloaded the ESPN app, subscribed to ESPN+, and I can watch all the ESPN+ programs ($5/mo) and the ESPN3 programs if there is anything interesting. If something goes on ESPN or ESPN2 I am not able to watch it live, but chances are it will re-air on ESPN3 a few hours later. And if not too bad. I spend about half of what I was spending before and I really get a lot more.

 

I forgot that I can watch FUBO and ESPN+ on the computer, cellphone, tablet, and of course also regular TV with an Amazon Fire stick or similar.

 

I entertained a ticket rep this past off season because i had some money I was thinking of sinking into season tickets... he told me an updated 2019 price and our convo ended in about 3 seconds.

Not trying to be that guy, but I can get season tickets to kickers games for 120 or something. The kickers suck, but for 500 cheaper it's a no brainer. I just want to watch soccer.

 

VAR sucks.

 

But the ARs suck more

 

One of the many advantages to an extended stay in Italy is watching the Women's World Cup on RAI -- no Alexi Lalas.

Fun fact: the literal translation of "pitted olives" in Italian is "denutted olives."

A presto.

 

I hope one day we can be saying the same thing about the US Men's national team

 

Getting twitchy watching all these teams wrap up signings while watching DC's form flounder.

 

Back to back World Cup Champions.

 

Followed closely by the US Men’s National Embarrassment

 

Losing to El Tri isn’t an embarrassment at this point.

 

Even Berhalter being outcoached after a stoppage or halftime isn't an embarrassment at this point. That is to be expected.