I guess we will know next year if this will continue to be a small team when we find out who will be coaching it...
This somewhat lengthy but entertaining SBNation article talks about how NFL owners have uniformly gotten away from putting quality on the pointy football field. It rang a lot of bells for me regarding the Quakes ownership. NFL owners are living high off their broadcast cash machine, and this article says the 32 teams split $7.2B in 2017. But still, some owners are just plain "slum landlords". And many have no real passion for the game. The $$$ numbers helped me better understand why so many people are gold-rushing into soccer team ownership around the world and here. E.g., Jerry Jones bought the cowboys for $140M in 1989 and now the team is worth $4.2 Billion. And because broadcast is the main revenue source versus ticket sales, no one cares that stadiums are empty. This may explain why the Quakes ownership doesn't seem to care much about the mostly vacant Avaya and its fans (or the A's either). It makes me think that "small market" is no longer relevant to the investment equation. "The NFL is being devoured by its own economic model" I came across this article accidentally while following up on the NFLPA 's stirring video statement supporting Colin Kaepernick and other similarly protesting NFL players.
Lack of quality in the NFL was a problem all during the explosion of interest in the league, so it can hardly explain the recent reported precipitous decline in attendance and TV viewership. Lack of quality is also true of the entire history of MLS, which has produced relatively mediocre soccer from the outset, punctuated by the likes of the expansion Chivas USA and the John Spencer-coached Portland Timbers, not to mention our own Buckshaw-point-oh Quakes, right around the time of the dramatic upswing in attendance in the last decade or so. If lack of quality was a determining factor, the Browns and Bills would not still be two of the most passionately-supported NFL franchises, and MLS would have died in infacy.
Well, without the quality, you lose a good fan experience and then fan attendance falls accordingly. Plus high ticket prices are a factor.And the article points out that people are watching compressed NFL games. What % of MLS owners are NFL owners? Because it seems like, other than Atlanta and SEA, MLS is trying to follow the NFL playbook for revenue generation and skipping the part about building a lot of ticket attendance.
The question is whether broadcast rights ever reach levels that make those investments reach the crazy returns that NFL investments did. I would guess they don't as MLS has significant international competition in terms of viewers that simply don't exist for the NFL. The only real threat to the NFL's supremacy is a death on the field, which will happen eventually. Meanwhile, MLS seems content to mostly expand into new revenue streams rather than reinvesting in the infrastructure they have already created. By that I mean increase the salary caps and simplify the budget rules to allow better players into the league. There has been considerable reinvestment in teams getting stadiums completed, even for old timer teams like DC. But of course, the shiny new teams like NYFC don't need to have a stadium plan at all to exist because more NY market, you guys! I view MLS like a town that keeps building outwards, the older parts becoming dilapidated, with only enough care put into the by their owners so that the lights still work. The truth is also that teams can milk those fans that do show up (there are almost a guaranteed minimum of fans that will come out just because they love the sport or team enough), and the Quakes can probably subsist off of that indefinitely. Still, it's a pretty bleak look into how uninspiring pro sports ownership really is.
Never. The ownership of the 3/4 MLS team that plays in a 3/4 stadium is now focused on squeezing money from Oakland for its 3/4 MLB team.
Wow. But hc97 was probably referring to death by traumatic injury on the field, rather than an underlying condition. Altho hell, why would fans care about that?
Maybe football could increase viewership by changing the rules so that MORE crippling injuries and deaths occur on the field. You could draw the NASCAR viewership by ensuring that a "wreck" occurs every few games...
That's a great point. The blood lust in this country seems to be growing fast under the example of our leadership. Maybe fans could hit golf balls onto the field and try to hit players. Instead having a swimming pool in the stadium, you could have a driving range next to the press box.
I'm tired of the Quakes slumlord ownership. I'm beginning to think I should migrate from small team fan to very very small team, like amateur or college. Maybe I should start going to Stanford games instead...
Yes, I was referring specifically to a death as a result of an injury incurred during a game, although that doesn't make Hughes' death any less tragic. There have been several deaths in the college game as a result of injuries, including one this year, and that hasn't stopped college football from exploiting athletes. The public nature of a death in the NFL might be enough to cause considerable change, but that's probably me being hopeful. I do know that there are people who are no longer watching NFL games due to how poor the treatment of the players has been, so it makes a difference for some. I keep a positive view that MLS will be more proactive in player protection, but given how awful the referees are, and now seeing as how they won't even pay one guy's salary just to make good on a contract, I have a feeling I'll stop watching professional sports eventually.
The Quakes had said for years that they were looking into adding a NWSL team. Three seasons into the move to Avaya Stadium, we haven't heard much about it. There have been rumors of FC Barcelona putting a women's team in California, likely in the bay area, but as of now there's still no NWSL team in all of California, which is pretty mind-blowing. Now it looks like there was an existing NWSL team available, but they'll be moving from Kansas City to Salt Lake City: Real Salt Lake team to replace FC Kansas City
Interesting tidbit on the Columbus board within the thread about the Crew moving to Austin (maybe). Don't know source of the data (necessarily for the 2017 season, since it includes the expansion teams), but damning if true: "The total english language national tv games for ESPN/Fox by team: "13 Portland Timbers 12 Seattle Sounders 12 New York City FC 12 LA Galaxy 11 New York Red Bulls 11 Atlanta United FC 10 Orlando City SC 8 Sporting Kansas City 8 Minnesota United FC 5 Philadelphia Union 4 Toronto FC 2 New England Revolution 2 FC Dallas 2 Colorado Rapids 1 Vancouver Whitecaps 1 San Jose Earthquakes 1 Real Salt Lake 1 Montreal Impact 1 Houston Dynamo 1 D.C. United 1 Columbus Crew SC 1 Chicago Fire" (Emphasis added).
Not American. They're obviously much much higher on Canadian TV broadcasts (TSN I think?)... I'm sure the people making these decisions at the TV networks have all sorts of data to support it, but it sure seems dumb to not put the best teams on TV. Toronto is must-watch television, arguably the best team in league history this year. Surely MLS fans would tune in even though it's not Cascadia, New York, or LA. I remember back around 2013 when RSL was pretty much the best and most entertaining team in the league , they would still only get like 1-2 nationally televised games. On the other end of the spectrum, even as they were in their death spiral Chivas USA would get a decent number just because of the LA market, even though almost no one in that market cared.
TFC... Is there a different deal for Canadian teams / telecasts? Maybe they got a better deal from TSN?
Slight change of topic.... did anyone listen to Friedel interview on Extra Time Radio? He kept saying there's no point going out and getting new players if they're not a real upgrade to your current players. Ahem.
All Toronto and Vancouver games are on TSN. Montreal's full-season package is on a French-language channel, with some games also in English on TSN. None of this has anything to do with them being on US TV national games or not. The US networks don't pick games with Canadian teams because they get no ratings boost from the local audience of Canadian teams.
OTOH, it occurred to me that maybe Fox kept all but 4 of the TFC games for itself, like maybe they bid more for TFC games than ESPN was willing? Plus TFC had Jozy and Bradley, i mean, TFC purposefully got those 2 just to attract the US audience, right? And with Giovinco, 2016 TFC was the most exciting team in MLS, and in 2017 it was TFC and ATL.
Hey at least we didn't vote against increasing TAM... I'm told that the vote on the new $2.8 million in team-funded TAM was unanimous in favor of it, so no small-spending teams objected to it, which surprised me.— Ives Galarcep (@SoccerByIves) December 8, 2017
It will be telling if we spend it all. Not sure we will since we won't spend on legit DPs, as oppossed to Cheap DPs