Check out this quote from Rawlins from an IMS story yesterday... “We thought, let’s take a successful franchise and move it into a market that we believe has got major-league potential.” What a snake he turned out to be.
From today's paper: Asked why season-ticket holders weren't made aware of the team's financial struggles, Rawlins said: "Why would they be? When you're talking about investment on the scale and the range we're talking about, you're talking about investment from business people and executives in the community, not a season-ticket holder. "They've given their all and their help by contributing and buying tickets ... but there's a lot of distance between your season-ticket base and (investors)." ---------- I think that says a lot about his perspective on all this. The people who work for him, paid and unpaid, are a means to an end. And we're welcome to be a part of whatever he's after as long as he's after it. And he'll be nice to us in ways that suit his ends. But there is "a lot of distance" between the big hitters and us. No matter how big your investment in the Aztex was to you, it wasn't very big to Phil because monetarily it was a small piece of the pie. I think that there are some businesses where you can do well with that attitude, and perhaps sports management is one of them. But sometimes that sort of attitude comes back to bite you in the end. Since he put us in his rear view mirror so easily and silently, I'm kind of hoping karma does its thing at some point.
Or maybe the guy was losing a ton of money every year in Austin and couldn't sustain that long term (no SSS, no control over concessions etc) and got an opportunity to move to a bigger market and share the financial burden? Just saying - what would you do in that situation? Say "no, I'd rather keep shelling out hundreds of thousands a year by myself here, who cares about profit/MLS/year round football/a City administration which backs my vision". The successful franchises in the USL (few and far between I grant) are in stadiums where they control concessions, in markets where they get civic support, and going forwards are going to be in geographies where travel costs are kept to a minimum - shitty though losing a team clearly is, I don't think the move was motivated by spite or even lack of caring for the Austin area. Common sense, from the outside, dictated this would happen once the option presented itself
You are trying hard to miss the point. No one is begrudging him the right to do what he wants with his money. It's about how you treat the people you asked to grab a laboring oar. But that point's been made so many times here, if you haven't grasped it by now, you're determined not to grasp it.
So how would you have done it differently is the point? Clearly from all the announcements, not all of the details are finalized on this deal, the press conference was arranged and announced on the day (Friday I think) that the rumor emerged on IMS, so given you accept the guy's right to take in new investors and by doing so move the team, if the rumor mill got wind of this and it came out Friday before things were even carved in stone, what else could he have done? I am seriously interested, because the attacks on the guy seem to be based on the idea that he somehow skipped town or screwed people - as a fan of the soon-to-be Orlando team I am trying to rationalize how an apparently community-focused gentleman who was willing to invest and lose millions of dollars trying to bring pro-sports to a city suddenly has this one out-of-character moment and is a total asshat. Or whether there is some other explanation that is in keeping with the kind of man Rawlings appears to be.
Excellent point. Basically, there are reasons for doing things, and there are ways of doing things. The reasons show your business intelligence and the way shows your moral character. No one is faulting Phil on the first count. In the spirit of the British invasion they should call the 'new' team in Orlando 'The Who'. "Who the F*ck are you! Meet the new boss...same as the old boss...don't get fooled again!!!"
Bears repeating. You can find anything that fits your worldview if you want it to fit, I guess. WSW doesn't like MLS, doesn't like USL, I can't figure out for the life of me what he does like. Today. Clinical and cold, what Rawlins said, but not altogether incorrect. Your money does pale in comparison to the amount of money actually necessary to make this successful. And what would have happened if he had told you "Hey, we're in trouble here?" What should he have expected you to do about it? I know emotion is what clouds the issue for people on one side of this, and there's no question that to continue to deny, deny deny and then say, an hour before the presser, "Oh, yeah, we're moving, bye" was a Lebronesque way to go about leaving. But to think that fans need to be apprised every step of the way as to the financial fortunes of a business -regardless of their emotional investment in that business - strikes me as insane. This isn't warm and fuzzy. This isn't scout camp. This is business. These people operate on a completely different financial and ethical plane than the average person. I'm just surprised when the average person is surprised when they find this out. Pays to be cynical. Trust me.
Ok, fair enough. I'll try. Sorry for the rambling response, but I'm sort of spent on this issue already. Many of us who signed on to help at the start were led to believe that this would be more than a 2-3 year effort. We were unaware that certain milestones had to be hit in order for this thing to remain on track. So when we saw incremental progress (in attendance, on the field, in the media, small as that progress was), we all felt we were moving toward some goal. That's what leaders do: they inspire people to work toward a goal. We thought we had a 5 year plan, and we were making progress toward it. We had no idea that we were falling far short of other shorter-term goals -- for attendance, for a stadium deal, etc. Had we known, then our expectations might have been more realistic. Indeed, it is only now that we are learning that they weren't realistic. So when someone asks to you go to bat for an organization, and you do that with what you have (which, admittedly, is monetarily far less than Phil and Kay had at stake), then you sort of expect to be kept apprised of how things are doing. In fact, the Alliance was billed that way, in part -- as a sort of way to participate in governance, albeit minimally. I received calls within the last few weeks trying to sell me season tickets for next year. The ads for kids camp slots were still running. When apparently we now learn that things were far worse than we thought, and this Orlando deal was in the works for some time. I don't expect anyone to deplete their savings or pour money down a drain for me. I was very proud of being able to back this organization because they were so professional and, well, friendly. But if you can't see how a person like me could feel completely blindsided by this (and Phil's -- not Kay's, Phil's -- silence), then I just can't explain myself well enough. Either that, or my sense of how people ought to be treated is different from yours.
This is incorrect—he signed the deal early last week (according to IMS). The press advisory on Friday was pointless.
Look, the last thing I need is to respond to someone who doesn't know me but feels competent to denigrate my point of view as clouded by emotion. So this will be my last post on this subject for a while. But it is not about us solving the problem. It is about keeping the people who have gone to bat for you apprised of the situation, not because they can fix it, but because they deserve to know. I'm well aware that there are people out there who elevate cold logic above ethical issues, or whose ethical sense is different from mine. If you are one of those people, fine. But I reject your characterization of what happened here, and I think plenty of good leaders (business and otherwise) would as well, and would recognize that this was a poor choice on Phil's part -- not for what he did but for how he did it.
I can pretty much assure you that this (three posts up, re, the timing) is not accurate - indeed the arrangements with the other investors are still not sealed according to GENUINELY in the know people here in Orlando, the press conference was held because the cat was out of the bag. The deal may have been agreed in principal (with the other investors) but it is (as far as I know) not signed even as of today. As Rawlings said, he has known these people for a long time, but the deal is not done, and had the IMS and other rumors not emerged, this would have been announced at the USL meetings in November, not before.
Well, when you take someone's team away from them--especially in a year that sees a 25% attendance growth--you're going to get called a money grubbing asshat. I'm sure the Aztex fans understand the difficulties related to staying in Austin, but those are difficulties Rawlins was aware of when USL roped him into a franchise in the first place? And why, if these were very real concerns, didn't Rawlins reach out to the fanbase? It seems as if the rug has been yanked out from under the community that made the team successful. And if you can't understand why people would be steaming mad at anyone who took away their team--a team they came out to see week in and week out, a team they supported with their dollars and their time, and a team they came to love--I don't know how you can even call yourself a fan. Before you declare yourself a fan of Orlando City SC, you should do some real reflecting on who you'll be cheering for.
OK. If the deal has not been officially signed and done, what's holding it up? I mean, this is a pretty big deal to announce without everything being done and complete. What would happen if there's some little sticking point that all parties are trying to iron out, but eventually on which they can't come to an agreement? "Verbal" is one thing, "in writing" is another.
I am not privy to all of the ins and outs of the deal here in Orlando (though will admit I am closer to it than most) but I don't think things are as cold and calculating as you might think. Brendan Flood of Burnley is a long-time friend of Rawlings' and up until about a month ago, there was zero mention of Austin coming in to Orlando as part of the deal, it was simply a case of Brendan investing in a totally new Orlando team. Phil Rawlings was in Austin, losing massive (seriously, it's millions over the life of the team) amounts and deciding whether to go USL or NASL. Then when Brendan asked him for advice, and with the SSS negotiations stalled, it somehow changed to the current deal, which you have to admit makes more sense business-wise. I don't think this was a plot hatched over the summer though, it came up relatively quickly and indeed until the start of last week it was still unclear it was even going to happen. The financial realities of not playing in a dedicated stadium and without control of the two major income streams of concessions and advertising were obviously going to impact the team, anyone could see that, and it was not like the need for a SSS wasn't obvious. I really feel for the fans in Austin, but I also would hate there to be bitterness because I - and all Orlando fans - hope to god you guys find a new owner and revive the Aztex (and SOON). We'd expect an edge to the games, but more than anything we want them to happen and in 2011 if at all possible. But I just don't buy Phil Rawlings as the anti-Christ or even as a man who would deliberately go out of his way to act badly. Indeed from all I know and have heard, it was a real wrench for him to make the decision.
The landscape of lower-divison soccer in the US is littered with listless franchises and moribund fanbases which have either died or are inexorably sleepwalking towards the cliff. Austin sure seemed like one of the exceptions. It's a damn shame to lose the momentum that has been building there. My condolences.
I can understand the upset, I just don't understand the vilification of a man who poured large amounts of money in to a venture that ultimately was not adequately supported by the community or the authorities. As for me, as a FAN, I'll be cheering for the 11 players on the field when the whistle blows. As a Bucs fan, I don't cheer for the Glazers, as a Sheffield Wednesday fan, I don't cheer for our faceless board. Maybe you're a better soccer fan than me, but that's just how I see it.
Doesn't have to die. If it's as good a market as represented, finding new ownership should be a breeze. The Aztex name is available, seriously it would be GREAT for the lower leagues if there was a team in Texas. Austin has a booming Venture Capital and Biotech industry, surely someone (or a group) can step up and fill the void. I know that one game at least would be a good rivalry!
I think he f'd up, ethically, on this decision. He should have kept those he asked to go to bat for the franchise in the loop. If milestones weren't being met, he should have told us rather than left us in the dark. Maybe in the UK it's the norm to do things in secret. We were misled about time frames, about how things were going, etc., and so now we're po'd about it. If you want to keep creating straw men to knock down ("he's not the anti-Christ") fine. But I think he f'd up ethically in how he treated the Austin supporters over the last year. If things were this bad, we should have been told, or at least our impressions to the contrary (the origins of which I tried to explain above but which you ignored) ought to have been dispelled. We can all deal with a slow death that we see coming. This wasn't handled right. And no amount of rationalizing on your part is going to convince me otherwise. I'm probably one of the few here who won't root against the Orlando franchise. My kids read the piece in the paper today (btw, crappy quote attributed to Phil), and we decided that we are mad at Phil, but still like the players -- a lot -- and Adrian. You are getting a great group of guys. Here's hoping you act as if it could disappear without notice at any point, and make decisions on what you're willing to do for Phil accordingly.
I just can't help but think if Phil had explored investment options earlier this season here locally, then the team could have stayed here. He says he did, but to what degree? This is what I want to know. Who did he approach previously? How serious did talks ever get? What about announcing it publicly that the team is up for sale? Maybe that would have attracted a fair amount of local bidders and then you can raise your sales price.
His remarks give the impression that he believes there is a world of potential investors that exists and is connected to one another, apart from the rest of us. I take him at his word that he pursued all these negotiations and preferred to remain in Austin, but it is odd (to me, at least) that it was all done in such secrecy. We are used to these negotiations becoming public, and communities trying to rally around an ailing franchise, etc. If we could have witnessed the death throes, perhaps this would be easier.
I honestly don't care who owns the teams I root for (within reason of course), I am psyched we are getting a pro-soccer team in Orlando, it's a shame that it comes at the expense of another city (I really mean that, hard to convey what is and isn't sarcasm on here) and I guess ironically we are now in a situation where we are cheering for the same team. I also think - given the Citrus Bowl is so SO freaking huge here - that someone from the Aztex should contact Rawlings about the idea of playing 3 or 4 games back in Austin against teams that might be a lower draw, or maybe the USOC games or something - the Austin fans deserve to see their team at some point. Failing that, organize a trip out here to cheer for the TEAM (not the franchise) and I guarantee you'll be warmly welcomed by Orlando fans. We're not cheering at your misery (as some agitators would try to portray) indeed quite the opposite - in an ideal world the Aztex AND City would have existed, but since that's not happening, maybe we can find a way to stay united. At the end of the day, we all love the same sport and your players will become the ones we root for. Yours in footie Bill
Not to be facetious (again, hard to tell on here) but here's your notice. You just got served notice that Rawlings couldn't make the numbers make sense vs the opportunity that presented itself in Florida. But notice has been served and You (the Austin football community) have 5 months to find new owners/investors for the Aztex. The business was carrying some serious debt (7 figures) to PR himself, that is now eliminated, franchise fees for USL-Pro are minimal, the Aztex name is available, there are no burdensome contracts - seriously, GO FOR IT!