Nice work if you can get it. Does NuRock even try to justify their cut of fees on the basis that they provide services worth what they charge?
The Carolina Panthers owner files copyrights for eight potential names for a team in Charlotte. https://soccer.nbcsports.com/2019/1...b-files-copyrights-for-eight-potential-names/ Some of these seem pretty generic or Euro-wannabe names. I'd go with Charlotte Monarchs FC. Interesting line and insight from the article about using "Charlotte" and not "Carolina." [The Athletic's Jourdan] Rodrigue speculated that the relative lack of “Carolina” encompassing names is potentially due to the possibility of an expansion bid from Raleigh down the road, and a Carolina team would potentially provide an unnecessary roadblock to that future prospect. Not discussed, but as for colors, royal blue makes sense to me. Montreal and Sad Jose use primarily black and blue stripes or predominantly black; KFC Food Lion is the only team that features predominantly royal blue.
Actually, it wasn’t a typo! I’ve called them that for awhile![emoji23] That, and right now I have a cold... And don’t forget to call them the Smurfquakes!
Of those, I agree. Monarchs is the best. Athletic runner up. Though I'd think the baseball A's might have an issue with that.
It's getting like Oprah...you get a car and you get a car and you get a car. Now we are at 30, do we quickly get to 36 and split into two divisions of 18? You can bet Pro/Rel fanboys will be screaming from mountaintops for it if we get to that point. That would actually make a little bit of sense, which means it won't happen. Only thing stopping expansion will be the expansion checks stop getting written by the billionaires. Then Don retires and the next guy will have to figure how to actually manage a league with teams in markets that probably should't have teams.
NFL has 32 teams. With 3 teams in Canada, MLS could easily expand to 36. A market doesn't need to be as big to support an MLS team as to support an NFL team.
Green Bay is really the only NFL market that is tiny. Places like New Orleans or Pittsburgh are decent sized markets.
MLS is at 30 teams today. They have active interest from Las Vegas and Phoenix. There are some obvious large markets they would like to expand to if everything can be worked out. Detroit and San Diego would qualify there. Then you have Indy which wants to join and lots of midsize cities. I think Albuquerque led USL in attendance this year.
I was addressing your point about a market needing to be large to support the NFL. The evidence is to the contrary.
The NFL's pooling of tv and merchandise revenue guarantees every team a profit. But there are teams which draw poorly such as the Chargers and Jaguars and Bengals. People will drive a couple hours for the Packers or Bills but not for the Jags or Chargers. MLS doesn't have the longevity for tens of thousands of people to drive a long distance for a game and is more dependent on butts in seats than the NFL. But it's usually easier to get 20K for 17 games a year than 65K for 8 games.
For NFL teams, the market is basically "every person who lives closer to your team than the next nearest team". The Jags play in Jacksonville, but their market is all of north Florida. The Bills play in Buffalo, but their market is the entirety of upstate New York. You could put the team in Rochester or Syracuse or Albany and it wouldn't make much difference. Whereas for MLS teams, you get the city they play in and not much else. So it's not really a comparison you can make easily between the two. NFL teams need a larger market, but they also have a much larger footprint for what constitutes that market.
NYCFC possible new stadium??? https://theoutfield.org/2019/12/20/a-first-look-at-nycfcs-bronx-stadium-plan/
Chicago Fire finally named the next coach to knock us out of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup. https://www.chicagofirefc.com/post/2019/12/27/chicago-fire-fc-names-raphael-wicky-head-coach