I'm optimistic until I have a reason not to be. Hoping that starting from scratch is a different process than buying a team and trying to remake it.
Weren't paying attention to the goings on in Columbus these past few years, huh? Besides the whole #SaveTheCrew deal, he ran off the Hispanic SGs, drastically down sized the front office in every department, even shuttering some of them, got the worst TV deal in the league that made it nearly impossible for folk in Ohio to watch Crew games and so on. He also has no real business that he runs, little money to invest in anything and has a history of shadiness that makes Montreal's seem honest. Should do real well in Austin.
Think any of that mismanagement/cheapness was related to his desire to move the team to Austin? IDK honest question.
They looked pretty good last year. Didn't always win but they were competitive. I welcomed the Earthquakes to Houston with open arms. I'll approach Austin FC the same way. If the team gets to a point that I don't want to watch, I won't watch. Until then I'm optimistic. My views have nothing to do with the owner. They have to do with having MLS in Austin. When it comes right down to it, I don't care who the owner is, who manages the concession stands, or who trains the cheerleaders. I care about entertaining soccer. A place to tailgate would be nice though.
I get in a vague "if things are basically well funded and under control" sense not caring who the owner and front office are. People don't spend a ton of time talking about the corporate side of the other teams in town. But that's because they're funded and competitive. So we just watch the games and such. Our team tends to play hard from whistle to whistle so other than the transfer requests our problems are up the food chain, payroll, priorities, presentation, scouting, coaching. In terms of whether Austin FC is any better, who knows. The things I noticed were stands with airflow and not a bowl, double the stadium expense, and not asking the locals for anything. That sounded like they had learned from us and Dallas. But if they then turn around and constrain payroll because of debt burden then who knows. He does already have a track record, and Austin is like Miami in terms of how little attendance they have pulled to get called up to the bigs. As with COTA at some point economic reality has to intrude, and you're going to be asking people who barely showed up for games before to drive to someplace other than downtown to watch a game. I understand loyalty to the mere concept of pro soccer in town but you can do that bit watching TV. I think in terms of paid attendance and such over time you have to present it well and offer a competitive product. For most of us we have to progress past merely liking having a pro team to do more than watch TV or buy a ticket a year. So at some point whether you like it or not the competence, caring, passion of the people in charge matters. If the Dynamo were in dire straits, being sold, or had a MLS competitor move in town, I don't know how much I'd owe the current regime. It's not quite Oilers-headed-out-of-town, but it's hard to stay motivated for a team not trying real hard. I use the Astros a few years back, that's probably it. It's a pro sport that for many aspects I am being asked to pay. I live here for a reason. I kind of expect the team to match the dynamism of the town. My effort matches theirs.
The one ominous thing I am going to say is that when Austin comes in that plus Dallas is going to put the way our thing is done under pressure. This cannot be sustained as the low effort third best team in the state.
I disagree to some extent. The Dynamo largely rode the team they inherited into the ground but were able to stay competitive from 2006 - 2012 through some good player acquisitions they deserve some credit for. (Cameron/Hainault.. etc..)
Possibly but it doesn't answer his non-Crew related activities, not including how he has run shop in Austin to date.
You are kidding me right? No offense, but do you follow MLS? - Edit. This is too snarky. I’m sorry. I do assume he sabotaged The Crew but that makes him more despicable, not better.
The relationship is different. A new team with a new stadium is reason for optimism. An old team that signs MLS rejects and sells them to the fans as bargains isn't trying for the same fan. There is some concern about ownership but I hope that he learned from the mediocrity in Columbus and what the Dynamo are doing now that there are better ways to run the operation. They get a honeymoon period until/unless they don't live up to their end.
Yes, I saw a game once. Look at the original teams and compare them to the recent additions. The new teams have better structure, better fan bases, and have built better rosters. Not all of them but generally speaking. I think it's possible that a guy that couldn't get 10k in a stadium to watch the Crew can get a new city excited about a new team. Throw in an old guy that's too broke down to play in Europe to open the stadium and you have a recipe for success.
Like we didn’t get the Dynamo from San Jose under similar circumstances. C’mon now, let’s not be hypocrites.
AEG may fall into the category of "Heartless Corporate Entity" but Precourt was a real-life version of the showgirl owner of Indians in Major League. He was not only dishonest, but almost intentionally & secretly tried to sabotage the business side of the club in order to exercise his Austin option. He appointed his buddy the old Crew President as the Austin FC president (business side) touting what a great job he did increase revenue to record levels in Columbus while at the same time using the poor revenue figures as justification to move the team to Austin. Greaseball stuff.
When Precourt runs out of capital and traffic nightmares exist (I mean come on, 1,000 parking spots and claiming all these people will take trolley and Cap Metro and bike to the game, etc.) you'll realize what hand you got dealt.
I get it, the guy is a doosh. Still his team tho and he can do whatever we wants to with it. Hell, I don’t even hold it against Bud Adams anymore. If the county only would’ve given him the deal they gave to Bob McNair a couple years later.
Not to get technical, but Precourt was just an MLS owner/operator and the league was complicit in giving him the Austin option. As a normal MLS operator, they can't just move teams like other leagues. Look, Garber and all of the lefty soccer folk love being fawned on at SXSW and stuff like that (provided they can get around Austin traffic in less than 3 hours) and wanted to be the first Austin pro team. Bud Adams could never have gotten the McNair deal after putting in the Dome outfield seats then turning around and threatening to move 6 years later. He became partially toxic and then ended up doing things like drafting Vince Young just to spite Houston fans. He also ended up having to fly 2 hours to his home games instead of being able to drive 5 miles down Kirby from his River Oaks home. Kind of exiled himself.
I look beyond the similarity in the circumstances to the quality of the owner. In Precourt Austin is gettting an out-of-town owner who’se whole interest in Austin is to be a BSD in Austin, because frankly, he is a not-so-important VC in Silicon Valley. He has made poor decisions in both the Austin deal and in handling Columbus and has shown no real savvy for all this. BTW ... in the end .. Austin didn’t wind up stealing the Crew. Columbus came out game busters here. THey get better owners and rid themselves of Precourt. We here in Austin are getting royally screwed.
Legally your completely right. And I know Liga MX follows this philosophy 1000%. But I like the European model where teams are assets of the community and the owner is a caretaker on the communities behalf. (I know, there are exceptions to this.). I would like to see that in the United States and I think it would distinguish soccer from the other American sports that are so owner centric.
I hope not and that's really all I can do a this point. Show me a team that's close to home and makes an effort at winning, I'm easy to please. I wonder how many people thought we were getting screwed when the Clash/Quakes showed up because ownership moved them. Or how many people thought Tennessee was going to get screwed because the team was owned by a guy that couldn't get his team to the Superbowl.
But you're not getting a new owner to the league, you're getting someone who comes with known baggage, spent at a certain known payroll, etc. Even if you have optimism it's a new team, or a theory he tanked on purpose, you should have your guard up. I mean, this is my theory on this Dynamo offseason. I know how this has been run lately. I know what the CVs of the people coming in say to me. For example, on loan from a team already in Serie B. And then rumors of stars headed out of town, and no rumors going back the other way. I rationally know where this is pointing me, and it's wrong side of the red line. You can't take a non playoff team, ship out a leading attacker, regress the lineup, maybe put some effort into the bench, and end up improving. I want each offseason to bear fruit but this is filler. I always have some optimism in the sense I tune in or show up hoping they win. But I have to be realistic about what I already know and see. Even if someone surprises, to me, the default/bell curve from where they emerge is going to be set roughly at the quality I think they went after. IMO the teams aiming high, if they screw up, the player is average or slightly above. If the guy turns out to form, he is excellent. If he turns out special, you get what Ibra did game 1 here. Level we operate at, if he turns out to form, he's a plodder. If he turns out rubbish we are talking real Rocha level rubbish. I mean useless. We only compete if they turn out well and the odds are playing the middling game that will be few. We might get better odds with a different GM but reasonable expectations begin with the default level of quality being brought in, and we're chasing people I have never heard of, second division players, draft pick stretches, trading for people who start half a MLS season worth of games. Even if that went well that should produce an average MLS starter type. The idea it'll bring in competitive stars? Elis and Quioto were an accident. I liked the idea of how much Austin will spend on the stadium and that they seemed to learn from the other Texas teams. But $200m on a stadium may mean debt and you're talking an owner who has historically been cheap. And then I mean what I say in feeling Austin is a site stretch. San Antonio is the one people show up for. Austin hasn't pulled more people for a game than probably RGV. And that's not just numbers to say numbers, it's like Miami in the sense of this may be the attendance and economic realities. NASL talked big about no caps and challenging MLS but how was that going to happen at their attendance and revenue. So I would be ambivalent or guarded. I am interested to see what happens, and if AFC came in guns ablazing in terms of stadium and spending I think that will bode ominous for the Dynamo. This is already faltering at this spending level. Imagine if the other 2 teams in the state are better run, more competitive, etc., and that includes Austin. Air would start rushing out of this balloon. I am not too deeply concerned because my hope is if anything happens to the Dynamo, we are either sold to a new regime or rebooted with new pro sports owners, who spend like they care. Or that this regime hits an Astros rock bottom and opens the checkbook if but out of economic self defense. Fans in town are not going to put up with trash or being gaslighted like this is a small market.
This guy Precourt has no clue what kind of market he is diving into in Austin. Well, he thinks the corporate dollars will be had, and he most likely is correct on that front. Yet Austin, as us Texans know, is not nor has ever been a city with a culture for following a pro sports team for season after season, decade after decades in love and support. They go to the park, the river, the live music bars and the 6 Longhorn home games each Fall. I will say this, the two are a match made in heaven with how uppity Austinites can be. Correct. MLS HQ saw in an Austin a Portland Lite and let Precourt dive right in. I let my burning hatred for Bud Adams go when he passed. You beat me to it WC. All of us living here that loved the Oilers and Astros, the Rodeo folks, big U of H games versus UCLA and into the 70's and 80's our old Hurricane and Gamblers, all that played in our Dome, we all recall how the Dome was just fine for everyone cept for in 1988 when Bud Adams threatened all of us in that he was going to move the Oilers to Jacksonville Florida. So it was our Astros that stepped up and asked Bud what it would take to keep him in town? He wanted more seats in the Dome, so the Astros took out the big JumboTron and scoreboard, a first for the World in sports do recall, and put in 10,000 more seats to appease Bud. Then like you mentioned Westie, Bud STILL moves the Oilers six years later.
People like Precourt (or however you spell his name) don't learn from anything. They do what they want, when they want, and chop off heads when their business plan doesn't work. There really are no more Anschutz or Lamar Hunt's around anymore (although that Atlanta bloke seems to be close)