Fall Eberly's Army meeting Sept. 25

I had almost stopped checking BigSoccer for news about Austin soccer... thank you TwoMeters for updating a long dormant thread.

Go Eb's!

 

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again and sharing some news about soccer in Austin. I would encourage everyone to attend, as this is one meeting you do not want to miss.

 

Unfortunately, I will miss it. I'll try and stop by on my way to class for a quick 'hello'. Glad to hear there's some good news on the way.

 

Yeah you should pop by and get a quick picture taken with Don Garber.

 

I can't believe that [the name that will not be mentioned] would ever imagine that they could come back here after the way they left.

Maybe [the name that will not be mentioned] couldn't find a buyer for his house in Lakeway and now he wants to "grace" us with an OCSC reserve team? LOL.

Who won the Aztex naming rights on eBay? Anyone remember? I think they came with a giant pepper costume....

 

Oh. Well. That's GOOD news.

I'm sure all will be explained at the meeting. Hopefully including the unanswered question of what's become of that ridiculous pepper outfit.

 

Since I'm not from the area - what do the locals know about the former minority owner, David Markley?

He's mentioned in the meeting invite and now owns the domain for AustinAztex.com.

Is he worth enough $$ money to fund a team in any of the leagues - NPSL, USL's PDL or Pro, or even the NASL?

Just curious...

 

I can't speak to David's financial pull, but most of us who were involved with the Aztex know him as a really nice guy who is loyal to the city and especially to his players.

In addition to being a minority owner David was also the GM for the PDL Aztex for the two years they existed (before -- and for one year while -- the Aztex also had a team in USL-1). He's well connected in the local business community. If he can't swing a team $$ by himself he would know the right people to bring in. He was already assembling a USL ownership group and team before the former majority owners of the Aztex arrived and offered to take the Aztex ownership on for the very short time until Austin no longer suited them. But I digress...

Looking forward to hearing his vision on Sunday -- fingers crossed that we won't be without a team for much longer and that it can happen as early as 2012.

 

SoccerPrime, what you just said is exactly why I was asking about the league. I am curious if the USL leagues have an appeal due to past relationships or if he is turned off by the experience with the former owners & the league.

As a result, I am very interested to see what he has to say. I thought Austin was proving itself to be a very good lower division market for soccer before the moving vans came.

 

That's a start, but without more than one USLPro rival nearby the travel costs (or bus rides) are still huge for a new pro team in Austin.

I think we averaged about 3,800 in USL-1 in 2010. I have to think that's probably enough to make some sort of a go of it -- but not if your travel costs eat you up.

 

Would it be sort of suicide to be this guy and try to get into USL Pro, assuming he isn't down on them thanks to the Aztex move even? I'm guessing fans in Austin are still smarting over how things played out, and Orlando dominating the league and winning the championship probably poured salt on the wound to boot.

I can certainly see the idea of starting small and always having the option to move up. There's something to be said for this thinking, particularly making sure the fanbase is still enthusiastic enough to get back on board with a new team. That said though, would those same fans be happy with say, and NPSL team to start with? Would that be high enough level soccer?

I think everyone was a little shocked about the abrupt departure. Austin did actually increase their attendance in the second year. It seems Rawlins had his reasons for moving, but I don't think one could say it was because there's no chance of pro soccer working in Austin.

If this Markley wants to get something up and running on his own, PDL or NPSL seems like the place to start if he isn't capable of financially backing a team in D3 or D2 himself. If that's the route, and he can get a big enough fanbase back in place, maybe he can entice an investor to join him in order to move up. You gotta love the potential for a San Antonio/Austin rivalry. If he could not only re-gather the fan support that was there, but also learn from the experiences of 2009 & 2010 to come up with ideas and situations to build on that further, you could really have a shot at making a D2 team work. That all assumes the fans aren't feeling too snakebit to come out of course.

Thanks for the info, and definitely keep us all updated if you could. Would LOVE to see Austin back at D2 and in the NASL in the future!

 

I'd just like to throw this out there: what if Austin could get a Women's Professional Soccer expansion team? I think that league wants to expand (http://www.womensprosoccer.com/Home/teams/expansion.aspx). I wonder how the investment requirements for WPS compare to NASL/USL/NPSL/PDL.

A lot of people really enjoyed the Women's World Cup this past summer, and while I understand that very little of that enthusiasm would transfer to a local professional team, I'd personally be more interested in a WPS team than in a men's NPSL or PDL team.

Poking around on BigSoccer, it looks like the typical path to the WPS starts in the women's second division, which, like the men's second division, has two separate leagues. But still, if the financial situation for a women's team makes more sense for Austin-based soccer investors, I'd welcome it.

 

I just noticed that the email address is markley442. I guess we already know what formation they'll play!

 

I'd love to hear from any team that has managed to do this. As far as I can tell, the only way teams have succeeded in any way is to just keep surviving long enough that the youth teams have eventually gotten over the fact that the pro teams exist and their own particular little fiefdom doesn't have any special relationship with said pro team. Or the pro teams have just said 'to hell with the youth system' and just created their own youth teams, and, again, just kept plugging along.

In other words, I think it's a mistake to do anything one way or another with regards to the youth clubs in town. The problem is, if you're a pro team, you need to figure out how to get your players a little extra money. Which means youth clinics. Which means competing with all the other youth clubs. Or farming out your players to the youth clubs for their clinics. Which means the youth clubs get all bent out of shape if you send your best player/coach to someone else's clinic.

Which brings me back to just saying 'to hell with the youth clubs'.

I clearly don't know what the answer is. I don't know if anyone does. Other than time.

Agree completely. There will probably be a few whiny fans that will complain about the Aztex not being the team they were when they were pro, but I'd rather take slow and steady over boom and bust. Maybe that approach will actually work this time.

And, MAN, it's nice to have something to talk about again!

 

Youth leagues are always going to be a challenge, as long as there's competition between Academies and Youth/School Leagues. For Austin, I think we have some benefits in that our Youth League options are different than they were just 12 months ago. However, the old saying, "You can please some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time" should be tattooed on everyones forehead.

I believe that the future of any organization's relationship with other youth leagues will depend on A) What level is that organization playing at B) Who is running the league and C) Where the youth leagues are at that time. I've been hearing for a while that one of the youth leagues is undergoing some re-organization, but don't know that for certain.

 

So no one is willing to speculate on what Markley will be discussing? All the noises seem to indicate a new team, but at what level? Where would they play? What kind of investors has he lined up?

 

I would say that the general opinion is in line with your thoughts, that there will be discussion on what comes next in Austin for a team. David's experience in local soccer is as an owner (he's owned USL PDL rights in the past in 2007), and someone who is intimately tied to the soccer scene in Austin. Unfortunately, beyond that, it's conjecture.