Will Farrell is in LAFC ownership group http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...om&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=editorial
I'm just impressed that they have an ownership group. I think it's harder for a group to be indifferent to winning and to the fans. Can we trade a Kroenke (or two) for a group????
wonder how much their fans will be interested when their team isnt good cause they wont spend the money to try and improve the team and then the new stadium they had that was great suddenly doenst look so shiny anymore and they need to pay for patriotic festivities to draw attention and the donut guy still wont return and aramark is still so tuhhrible that chuck says "you cant say tuhhrible about them cause they so awful".....
So I saw that Dzenan Catic, the rookie Union striker from last season had his option declined by PHI. I'm wondering if there would be any value in trying to get him to sign. He was very good in college and has had professional experience in Germany.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/cityscape/article54256285.html the rebranded SKC continues to show more ambition, innovation and daring-do in its brief history than Colorado Rapids have in their entire history.
Didn't want to create a new thread but Stan got OK to move the Rams back to LA. Guess we can't complain at all now.
He has to pay a 550 Mil relocation fee so we can probably forget about any extra $$ for soccer players. (Although he is worth 11 Bil). He is from Mo. and just screwed St Louis. How much loyalty can we expect as STH's or the casual fans I wonder? Not too much.
Conversely he is in sports purely as a business, fandom or regional attraction to something only make sense if they do so through that lens. If they project they can fairly quickly make an 'extra' $550M by relocating - and I can't see doing it otherwise (negative ROIs are frowned on) - then it is a lucrative business deal and not a parochial snub to his home state. The greater concern may be that with the number of cities that really want MLS franchises, and the white elephant the Rapids organization seems to be, all it might take is a 'fee' to MLS slightly north of the current new franchise fee to move a gently used (seldom plays late in the year) team to somewhere else. Anyone else think of the irony of the Saint Louis Rapids when the Rams news broke? As above they would have to pencil out that in MO they could make back that 'fee' fairly quickly in higher revenues than they now have in Commerce City but I've seen prospectuses that made farther fetched claims than that one.
Given what LA Dodgers just sold for, Rams took a huge increase in worth with this move. Most interesting to me, is how they won based on Proposal (mostly Location) and creating an NFL center if you will in LA (they are talking about west wing of Hall of Fame, Museum, All future Combines, Drafts, etc). But where was this KSE sports vision when deciding between Downtown(ish) Denver or Commerce City for our SSS?
We've had this discussion before. This isn't going to happen anytime soon (I'm not saying that it won't happen in 20 years). There's no way MLS is going to approve moving a team out of a purpose-built SSS to another city while they're still selling expansion cities and places like DC and NE on building their own SSS. It completely undermines their arguments of stability for those franchises to those cities if they can look at Denver and say "They built you a SSS and you still moved them". The only way the Rapids "move" is if a new local owner buys them and builds a new stadium int he metro area for them because KSE doesn't want to sell the Dick along with the team. And that's even more unlikely than MLS letting the team leave Denver IMO.
I think Commerce City owns the stadium, right? KSE is just an contracted overseer or manager I thought. The only way I see KSE possibly being allowed to move the Rapids is if he does just what he did in St Louis: 1) let the team molder and stagnate for so many years that its a joke around the league and then 2) find a hot and new location that is not just good for his own wallet but more importantly for the MLS brand and single entity owners bank accounts as well & then 3) pay a huge chunk of change in relocation fees, in this case add in a large fee to Commerce City to break their stadium lease. Even though it seems plan of action #1 is in full swing, I just don't see #2 happening. All major markets (except St Louis maybe!) are already tapped and the high cost associated with moving, combined with #3 above probably make relocating a lesser asset such as a MLS franchise a non-starter. This is not a billion dollar NFL team we are talking about.
Lets not forget KSE was rumored to have tried to get in on buying the LA "Chivas" replacement. So he was looking for an MLS side for his new gem of a stadium in LA.
Well, if you consider a made up story by a English tabloid a rumor then yeah. AFAIK there was no actual source from KSE that suggested they were interested in buying out Chivas.
But look, we are important, I think that is a reference to us: Doing so, however, would fail to address the three-teams-in-LA issue all the while pissing off an important base of MLS supporters. A definitively less likely possibility
Kroenke won't sell or move the Rapids . . . for a while. He doesn't care about the MLS, the Rapids, or the fans. He cares about money. Right now, the Rapids make money for him and shelter a lot of the profits. He bought a ton of brownfield development land in a run down city adjacent to a toxic waste dump. He bought it on the cheap. Commerce City taxpayers built him a decent, though modest, stadium. That's all he needed. The active stadium enhanced the value of his surrounding real estate, which is his big play. Kroenke is Henry Potter, and this is Pottersville. He gets to depreciate the Rapids and his surrounding commercial development. That depreciation is worth more than any increased profits that would come from a winning team. Attendance is capped by a non-expandable stadium. [Yes, that statement is accurate. I posted the links twice before.] Revenues are capped by a small market and zero interest in Rapids gear. He doesn't care. It's all about the real estate and depreciation. Once he has bled the real estate money dry and depreciated the assets, he will cut and run and do it all over again in another location . . . Oklahoma City . . . Nashville . . . Charlotte . . . Yes, the MLS will let the Rapids abandon a SSS and the Denver market. An SSS can be built anywhere, if taxpayers are dumb enough to approve bonds. Denver is a small market, and never has developed the fan base of the more recent expansion teams. (Yes, I am well aware of the impact of long histories of existing fans and much larger markets.) Denver isn't San Jose or Los Angeles or Miami, where the MLS has returned. Denver is Tampa. It will take an exceptional ownership group and a bold proposal (domed SSS? downtown 40,000 seat SSS?) to woo back the MLS, but it could be done. The key is to start developing that group of investors now, because we have about 5 to 7 more years before Kroenke reaches the tipping point with his real estate gambit, absent an economic downturn.
Disagree here. Denver is different than Tampa. I would say it is closer to Seattle. Bigger than SLC, Portland, KC, etc. There is no reason that soccer couldn't be successful in the state if the other items were taken care of. Also, if you look at where Kroenke has made his money, it is in the land around something. He will make far more from the stuff around the new LA arena than the actual team. Originally they were going to put shops and stuff around the Dick, it just fell apart when the economy took a dump. I am betting as those houses across the street get build that the land will become more valuable. KSE needs to keep the Rapids relevant enough to keep the stadium so uncle stan can get his development built and make the money. I haven't seen him dump a lot of his teams, so I actually don't think he would sell.... rod.
I actually saw a quote I can't find now where Stan said how excited he is to develop the new stadium area in LA.
Exactly. As others have already said Kroenke is a real estate developer first and foremost. His plan for LA blew away the other NFL owners 30-2 in the relocation vote.