I've fantasized about our jersey sponsor being Firestone Walker Brewing Co., with "805" blasted on the front of our kits. Would look nice IMHO! Since we're now allowed to have sports betting companies as sponsors, we could have something similar to the "FUN88" which adorns my Newcastle United kit. I'm sure (confident) at some point in the future we'll once again have a jersey sponsor just like every other freakin MLS club... (probably even USL club as well)
Besides the jersey sponsor, do we know anything new about the Avaya stadium sponsor after they filed bankruptcy?
Awesome to see Captain Morgan (British liquor conglomerate Diageo) becoming an official sponsor of MLS through 2022. The Captain has also become a sponsor of 5 teams (Seattle, Chicago, D.C., NYCFC and Phily), with more teams reportedly receiving sponsorships in the near future. If not already, this sponsorship should put MLS in the $1 billion in annual revenue range (Diageo sponsorship reportedly "8 figures through 2022"). Will our "small team" Quakes get in on this gravy train? Or, much like our non existent stadium naming rights deal and lack of a jersey sponsor, will ownership continue to not give a damn about its product?...
I think that is... overdone. I think that the opposite is true but, unlike the old companies and industries, tech workers speak out about the negatives on their own employers. I would be happy to have Google, Apple, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Facebook, Groupon, Twitter, or pretty much any other as our sponsor... now that I have already purchased my new jersey without a sponsor. I am very label-averse. I don't even want swooshes on my shoes.
The employees and the company are not the same thing. I applaud employees that speak out against bad policies that the companies they work for have, but that doesn't mean I want to be associated with that company. YouTube and Facebook are particularly egregious examples, as they have demonstrated a clear lack of interest in doing anything even resembling morality as we know it, And I get that if you look hard enough, you're going to find problems with pretty much every company out there. Capitalism is built on exploitation and couldn't exist without it, to some degree, but if you're looking to get a sponsorship, I think you'd want to steer clear of companies that seem to actively participate in harming people.
we are finally finding the math formula of being a small, more successful team. The boss realizes the most important thing is to grow this thing internally with a strong academy and grow our own talent. We are on the trajectory to the FC Dallas model, and thats a great model to have for a small team.
Honestly, I always thought it was the players and not the coach but Almeyda, since April anyway, has certainly proved me wrong on that notion. It appears he knows his stuff and is getting the most of what were average players at best. We seem to have a lot of depth now or at least many players can come in and make an impact. I can't believe the progress of Tommy Thompson and Jackson Yueill have made. Florian Jungwirth last season was criticizing players for playing youth soccer and he has turned into an exceptional centerback who is anchoring the back line. Salinas , Vako, Wondo and Magnus were all pretty much left for dead in February and March by most of us on this board and now they look like all stars. Wondo traditionally was a goal scorer but he certainly looked done until he broke through his slump. Looking at the same team we had last season with only the additions of maybe Espinoza , Vega and a few part timers, it makes us all wonder what Stahre was doing or thinking?
not just stahre. Its gone on long before that. I was really, really worried about Almeyda with our first results, but it turns out it we needed a massive outpouring of toxic blood to get good again. I agree for all the hell Erikson and Vako, while not playing up to ideal DP standard, they do have plenty of utility, and show signs of even getting better now that they are subscribing to the boss's system. I am so happy Tommy and Jackson broke through. Never in my life did i think Tommy would break through as a right back, but here we are. This is the sort of resourcefulness Almeyda has provided with the human capital that he has. It will be even better when he starts to bring in his own guys, and of course grows the academy. hiring this guy was the best thing to come to this organization in a long, long time. We needed this desperately to turn a corner and hes planting his roots in the ground now. Teams actually not only respect us, but fear us again.
(the above is from the Almeyda thread, but reply went totally off topic so I’m putting here. ) I’m pretty sure Fisher’s primary objective is to grow the value of the league as much as possible. The secondary objective is to sell out Avaya Stadium and sell as much overpriced food, drinks, and parking as possible. All while taking as little financial risk as possible. The Quakes winning a cup would certainly help with the secondary objective but maybe not the primary objective (maybe Zlatan v. Rooney might draw more attention?). Also winning the cup might require too much financial risk. So as odd as it might sound I’m not sure Fisher cares too much about winning a cup. He might even be ok without filling the stadium if the value of the league is growing and he can keep his financial risk low enough. Who knows, maybe that’s the formula he’s most satisfied with. I must love Fisher and Fisher must love me because I watch a lot of MLS and I’ve already renewed my tickets for next year despite being disappointed in the uninspiring signings we’ve been making. I only have a mild interest in seeing Fierro and Rios play - I’m hoping they can make a difference but I’m less than certain they will.
Had to have that third Wondo bobblehead, huh? What's uninspiring about winning? Yes, Fisher's a cheap bastard, but Matias Almeyda's a genius.
Yes. I do want that bobble head. I wouldn’t have renewed for this year if it wasn’t for Almeyda. It’s amazing what he’s been able to do. I do expect that we’ll make the playoffs this year, but I’m not so confident we’ll get a home game. I am inspired by winning but I wanna win a lot. I want an open cup, an mls cup, and a CCL cup. Basically I want the Quakes to be one of the teams that helps grow the league. To be fair, I think this year we did grow the league. We gave a very good evidence that a good coach is important. I think we’ve raised the bar on coaching and I suspect other teams will follow our lead. The problem is we only have a hundred something games left with Almeyda as our coach (in the best case). I hope the ambition didn’t stop with him.
I get where you're coming from, but I do think Fisher wants the team to win an MLS Cup. It's extremely helpful in growing your team's value to do so, even if you don't care about the competitive nature of the game. Plus, Fisher isn't going to sell the team any time soon, so if he has no desire to have the team win, then he would be the most cynical owner in the league. I don't think he actually is that cynical. But I do think there is a pretty hard limit on how much financial effort he's going to put in, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. We've seen drastic improvement over the last year in staff hiring, which is really the critical thing with regard to running the team. The increased investment in the academy is also nice to see, and I expect the Quakes are going to be working very hard to figure out how to gain advantages in player development, which is really the bold new frontier with regard to putting together competitive teams. PD also has the benefit of costing owners less because they can improve players who already don't cost a whole lot and be kept under tighter team control. So I'm not sure I disagree with you about the primary objective versus secondary objective, but I definitely get the impression now that the people actually running the team, at least, want to win.
I certainly can't say for sure whether or not Fisher wants to win an MLS Cup. You'd have to go by what he says and what he's done. I think the trend of the team with regard to staff, player development, jettisoning people who don't deliver gives some evidence that he cares to some degree. I think he wants to win, certainly. But it's Fisher, so there's a limit to the amount of financial power he's going to put in. I think in terms of increasing value, winning an MLS Cup is one of the fastest ways to do so. You can generally bet on more fans showing up to games post championship, a slightly easier time gaining corporate sponsorship, etc. So if you have more revenue, your evaluation would logically go up some. Granted, MLS teams are growing in value pretty much regardless of performance, but I think you become a bit more valuable than the average team if you manage to win games a lot, and especially if you win a championship. Those wins won't keep the value high permanently, certainly. San Jose's early 21st century championships don't mean a whole lot now in that regard. My point wasn't that they need to win an MLS Cup to become more valuable, only that it's a good way to give it a boost if you can manage it. It's certainly helped teams in other leagues, like the Astros, Giants, and Warriors (though the city that sustained the Warrior through years of futility got screwed over pretty hard due to that success).
I'm sure he's not opposed to winning the cup. What I said was that trying to win the cup might involve too much financial risk. That's why I think he doesn't care about it that much. I know that they are more focused than ever on developing home growns but I'm not aware of any significant increase in financial investment in this area.
I've never really bought into that argument, and Fisher has made that argument less believable to me based on how he has been spending his money recently: in ops folks. There's been increased investment there, and it's now starting to look as though its paying off. You can spend less than other teams but be trying equally as hard to win a championship. Remember that Fisher has tons of experience owning two pro teams now. He has managed to keep one competitive with some frequency despite spending quite a bit less than many of the other teams his team regularly faces. He has and will keep running the Quakes the same way. This is why you hear Fioranelli talk about their quest to develop profiles of successful MLS players and figure out to identify affordable players that fit those profiles. This is why you hear Almeyda talk about the desire to field a team made up of tons of academy players. So much of the work that's required to build a competitive team is never made publicly available for fear of potential competitive advantages being practiced by other teams. If we do see the Quakes increase their spending, I think it's more likely to take place on the analytics/PD side of things since returns on investments there tend to be much, much bigger than anywhere else.
I think you're both right. Fisher is a cheapskate who would like to win an MLS Cup -- but only if it doesn't cost too much.
I don't recall seeing anything significant in this area. I've never accused the Quakes of not being competitive (except for last year). The point was that we want to see the Quakes not just be competitive but actually win a cup.
You don't consider the hiring of Almeyda significant? You can't guarantee an MLS Cup win. Being competitive means vying for the opportunity to win one. The Quakes have not been competitive for most of the last decade, and organizationally they haven't really been competitive at all until (maybe) now. We'll have to see how they perform over the next few years to see whether or not this sudden jump is a fluke (like 2012) or if there are systems in place to produce a competitive team with regularity.
I wasn't sure what you were referring to. MA was certainly a great hire - I'm not questioning that. But is that enough? Did the ambition end there? That's my whole point.