Huh?! Living in perhaps the richest region on Earth, with many a millionaire and folks making gobs of money...how is that debatable? Not everyone here is being gentrified, working 2 jobs or being forced to flee to the Central Valley (as the media sometimes likes to portray).
The coming of WC 26 will also prove to be very profitable for the club, the stadium and the area. The SF Bay area (or Stanford) got the 1994 WC and San Jose was named to be a fledgling MLS franchise right before the tournament started. There wasn't much certainty that SJ would get a team for the inaugural season in 1996 but they did. Having a successful team will put the area and club at the forefront of the world during the WC and they should be a top club. Although I doubt SJ won't be names, there could even be a risk we won't get the games for whatever reason. If FIFA sees we are a small time outfit, maybe they go to Nashville or somewhere else. We all keep talking about 2012 as the pinnacle and that was 6 years ago. Between now and 2024-2026, there isn't much time to waste for the owners to get their act together and put a respectable team and/or venue together.
You are assuming there is enough demand for a co-operative league between those two groups, and I don't think the evidence is there for that. Plus, the logistics of managing a league that spans almost the entirety of North America, it's numerous climates, travel distance, etc, makes this a fool's errand. MLS is plagued with enough of its own problems that will only be compounded by trying to create a new league with Liga MX, and I don't think there's near enough money in it to justify.
I don't subscribe to the idea that the team needs a player like Rooney, personally. I'd love it if they could get someone like him, but I'm comfortable taking an alternative path. But none of us know who the players will be yet. It isn't our job to know, and the club certainly isn't going to announce a player that hasn't yet signed on the change they can't work out a deal. So we'll know when they actually sign. Best we can do is speculate. Good news is, the roster can't really get worse between now and March, so the odds are they do improve. Even if the roster stayed exactly the same, I'm confident they'll have a better year in 2019 since they won't have possibly the worst soccer coach in the history of ever coaching them anymore. I guess I would say that if you're waiting for the Quakes to sign a big superstar, you're setting yourself up for disappointment, especially if you think it's the only way to build a successful team.
I haven't seen a superstar in San Jose in over 35 years. Unless you count 40 year old Paul Mariner playing sweeper for the Blackhawks.
I meant foreign star but also LAndy wasn't a superstar when he initially signed. He was when he was stolen from us though....
I actually got this idea from recent news reports stating MLS, Liga MX could merge post 2026. Liga MX commissioner Enrique Bonilla stated such himself. My thinking is that it wouldn't be a complete merger, i.e. 28-30 MLS teams combining with 20 Liga MX teams. Rather a "Super League" of the top MLS, Liga MX teams, say (as an example) the top 12 sides each from MLS, Liga MX. Regardless of merger/no merger, Super League or not, (as Falvo alluded to above) we'll need to get our act together and stop acting like a small team way before 2026..
Interesting idea, but, I think the details would be too daunting to overcome. Any "Super League" as you suggest would totally marginalize the other teams in both leagues that are not in it. If you are spending 200 million to enter MLS would you be ok with not being one of the chosen ones? I wouldn't hold my breath on this one.
Agreed. Similar "pan European" talks have been going on since the 90's, but nothing has come out of it. Obviously the success of the UEFA Champion's League has something to do with it, and I think we'd be better off making sure the CONCACAF Champion's League prospers (e.g. better calendar, bigger prize money, etc.).
Drive 45 minutes south of SJ and show me all these "millionaires and folks making gobs of money" Edit: As usual all of "you people" who live in the "Silicon Valley" assume your wages are the same as everyone else in the surrounding vicinity, when the are actually above the norm.
I understand your frustration, but don't appreciate you attributing the post of one person to all of "us" who live in Silicon Valley. Not all of us are blind or choose to ignore what conditions are like around the state.
That is why I put the quotes around those parts. I know not everyone has those type of blinders on, but quite a few do. Edit: I'm not frustrated this just shows that people in general will think that the conditions in which they spend the majority of their time in is what they assume is the same everywhere else.
The Bay Area WC committee isn't going to depend on 500,000 people in Salinas/Monterey area to make their case to FIFA. There are 8 million people in Bay Area proper already, and the wealth held by a good chunk of those 8 million people is indeed immeasurable, right up there in the top echelon of the country, if not the world.
You are right. It is going to depend on how much money they can convince FIFA that they can make, regardless of where the people come from.
How many is a "good chunk"? 10% of the 8 mil? 5%, what is the cutoff point to be considered to be in the "good chunk"? Does making 100k but having to commute 4 hours round trip because you can't afford to live where you work qualify to be in the "good chunk"?
For the record, I was merely stating the high disposable income of our Silicon Valley populace can go a long way towards making the Quakes a BIG TEAM; i.e. premium seating, suite sales, local sponsorships, etc (see what the Warriors are going to do at Chase Center, 49ers at Levi's, Sharks at SAP and what the A's could have done at Cisco Field). How this became some sort of argument re class warfare, folks sleeping in RV's and income levels in Salinas is beyond me..
Levi's and the Shark Tank are pretty good examples of soulless, elitist sports palaces. I'm sure the Warriors' new SF digs will one-up them while forsaking the unwashed in Oakland. The Quakes do quite well in premium seating with their luxury moat and sky box, as well. But at least the Quakes have a good entry level ticket for supporters, and Avaya enables you to get close to the action at the minimum price point. In San Jose, the A-league Giants, playing lowest level minor league ball in a tiny depression-era field, are more popular than Major League Baseball. Polls showed that if the bringing the A's to town meant doing away with the baby Giants, people would have voted overwhelming against the idea. There's a lesson there. And it helps explains why San Jose still is a better place to live than, say, Los Angeles. Buck Shaw was the best stadium in MLS, and it still would be -- notwithstanding the swimming pools and light shows in the new monstrosities. When people come around to realizing that fact, and appreciating why it is true, the world will be a better place. I'm not holding my breath, though.
Points taken DG. So then why does this thread exist, "small team"? And if we are in fact a "small team," moving forward, how will we compete in a future MLS? Shouldn't we be talked about with the Atlanta's, LA's, and New York's of the world? This region currently supports the best basketball team on the planet. Shouldn't it support FULLY (financially) its MLS team as well? I believe the answer to the latter is yes; so how do we get there?..
The Quakes' ownership has enough money to compete, if they are so inclined. They don't need Google to sponsor the stadium. They simply need to decide that winning is worthwhile. This has been hashed, and re-hashed endlessly. The Red Bulls are not among the biggest spenders. Atlanta and Seattle piggyback on the NFL investments in infrastructure. Meanwhile, the Quakes have been parsimonious and stupid simultaneously.
I loved Buck Shaw too, the intimacy of the place, the field itself, the surrounding campus, plus we played '12 there which was thrilling. "best stadium in MLS" might be a stretch, but it was a sweet spot to enjoy an MLS game for sure. I'm surprised the Ultras bleachers survived, that end would be rocking! But it was a 10k stadium. Even an 18k stadium, sold out every game, puts us at a huge revenue disadvantage compared with the teams to the north, south and east of us...Atlanta, pulling in 50k/per game, gives them soo much more money to invest in players and player development. So the size of the stadium formerly know as Avaya, even if it was packed to the rafters every game, severely limits the growth & compete potential for this club.
Imagine how much more money Atlanta United would bring in if they charged the going rate for a stadium Coke.