Rumor is: AC St Louis and Baltimore are flat broke!! I saw a little bit on the AC Fanatic about this topic and wanted to bring it over here. WTF??? Can this be true? Please tell me this is all rubbish.
There is no link. This rumor started when a dude on the coast said Us and Baltimore are broke during a radio program. I just don't put any faith into it personally.
Battra, Can you help me outwith this? It is on AC Fanatic under Battra's viewing party report in the comments section.
I have to think that Jeff Cooper was smart enough to secure finances to keep this thing afloat for a few years. If this thing were to die this early and I highly doubt that would be the case, then MLS would have been right all along. No way would Cooper do that to himself. Tim
Couple that with the fact that the Bandits, also owned by Cooper, are in the fifth season in St. Louis....and they draw in the hundreds. Also...couple that with OWNING the soccer park... It just doesn't add up, fellas.
It's still very possible....the $1 ticket deal would lead you to believe that story might have some legs. Hopefully Jeff Cooper is smarter and apparently wealthier then I think he is. Tim
Or would it lead you to think that the 2500 drop off between games might have worried them a bit and want to entice folks into the park?
Could be....but history has shown that when most franchises start giving tickets away...IE Steamers, River Otters, Rage....it's never good. $1 tickets might not be free but it ain't much difference. Regardless...I've got faith in Cooper that he's in this for the long run. Tim
I guess stranger things have happened, but Cooper didn't get into the position he's in by being an idiot. Also, Cooper isn't the only money behind the team. I know Athletica attendance hasn't been great this season, but I can't imagine that SLSU runs on such a razor's edge that a couple of weak gates would sink both teams this quickly, especially since they aren't paying rent for the Soccer Park.
One game? They'll always have deals. It's not like they've got $1 tix everywhere. Just in that one spot, that you really can't see out of..lol. What did the Otters, the Rage, the Steamers, etc in was all the same thing: HAVING A SHITTY LEASE.
I call BS on this whole thing. $1 promotion just for one Section (and probably the crappiest Section) does not raise any flags. $1 promotion for all General Admission tickets, now that would be a whole other story. Maybe it all depends on how Cooper's two teams are financially run. Are they seperate entities book wise or under one umbrella, one book? If that's the case, then seeing that Athletica have some of the best players in the league, which can't be cheap, and that they are drawing the worst attendance in the league then that could be pulling from the profits. But again, that's if both teams are being budgeted as one. If not, I do think there is always the possibility of being under budget, but that doesn't necessarily mean the owners are broke. It could just mean no extra revenue, taking a loss.
Another thought...they know that Section 20 will be full. They know the cheap side of the stadium will be full. What about Section 8 though? Maybe they want a fuller looking park for Saturday's game.
Are Cooper & Co. making barrels of money? Probably not. They may not even be breaking even just yet. But I'd find it hard to believe that they're broke already, the salaries of these players are going to be pretty low aside from Ralston.
Oh there's no way he's coming close to breaking even. I mean that just rarely happens in business, especially an upstart business...from what little I know of it, admittedly. Cooper has multiple investors. If they went in with the business plan of going, "well, we better sell out every game and unload all of our merch in the first week" then that would make them idiots, which they aren't. Don't read into it. If Minnesota's still around, we're golden.
Cooper had the hightest bid to buy the whole USL, certainly he still has the money. Que the Timmermann article.
as I just posted on the ac fanatic blog comments where this was mentioned.. I remember this Devo guy blogging over the whole NASL/TOA stuff and how he was very anti-toa/nasl and reported stuff he had clearly no knowledge of or very distorted facts that even one of the Rhino's higher ups or owner or gm or something was even calling him out over it on this guys blog.
AC St. Louis will thrive because of die hard fans, and it'll only continue to grow. Period. Women's soccer...that's obviously another story. Especially in the states. But, we gotta game Saturday and they'll see how much we'll always be here for our club.
Okay, so we're in a discussion thread about a comment on the fanatic about a comment on Devo's blog which cites "a guy" as the source of the information. We're officially elementary school kids playing "telephone." Devo wasn't even saying it's true, one of his commenters was: http://blogs.democratandchronicle.com/devo/2010/05/18/resume-night-worth-a-shot/#pluckcomments so I'm not worried yet. I would assume that AC is still in the hole at this point, and I can't imagine they'll make much in the way of profit this year, but Cooper knows this is an investment.
And for those worried about the $1 tickets, the Devo article with the comments in question is an article about how Rochester is giving away 500 free tickets to people just for showing up with a résumé.
Oh, don't be sorry. I think we're all ridiculous for worrying, but I'm still totally involved in the discussion. I like hearing about every mention of AC in any article anywhere. We've all got to do something until game night, right? If it wasn't for needless speculation, the board would be dead from midnight on Saturday to 7 the next Saturday.