Major League Soccer's Original Sin: 1994-1996

I know the Indy bid would have had them play at Butler University's Butler Bowl or IUPUI's track stadium. I know the track stadium can seat 12,000 and the Butler Bowl has gone under so many renovations recently it has been decreased to barely any seats, but I know at one point it sat around 30,000, but that was probably a while ago. I don't know anything about the ownership or season ticket deposits.

 

Atlanta's undoing was when the idea arose to upgrade DeKalb Memorial Stadium in Clarkston, which, while doable, would have been very far away from most of Atlanta's fans. That, and not having an investor/operator willing to fork over the $$$.

 

I know that when the first wave of expansion talk rolled around Oklahoma City tried to put together a bid. This included a plan to fully renovate the Univ of Central Oklahoma stadium in Edmond. MLS had already played two exhibition games there with great results. The stadium DID go through an initial round of renovations, but if MLS OKC had been awarded an expansion there was going to be a complete renovation of the stadium.

 

The problem, I think, was that Tulsa had more fan support, but OKC had a better ownership group in place. They just couldn't get the two together. I didn't care who got the team, I just wish one of us had...

 

ALso, I was at the exhibition in OKC. It was a night game and the temp was in the 30-40's. And they STILL got almost 10,000 people to show up. Kinda blows the theroy being pushed in another thread about FC Dallas attendance being bad because of the weather.

 

Future MLS teams ought to build their franchises up in US-1 before being awarded MLS franchises, ala Toronto, Seattle, Vancouver and Portland.

 

I agree with this. I would like to see St. Louis get a USL-1 team along with other candidates. The thing is that the prospective owners of the MLS team may not want to invest in a short-term USL team.

 

Toronto is an exception to those three in that the MLS franchise had nothing to do with the USL team, in fact the Lynx still exist and have dropped down to PDL.

 

and Adrian Hanauer.


However yes. It is a new entity. I wouldn't expect much different from Vancouver or Portland. Though I doubt Portland will need to take on other owners considering the Paulson family's deep pockets.

 

Bullshit

All they did to join MLS was bring in a big money guy, Roth. Partner up with Vulcan and the Seahawks for the expertise and existing infrastructure already in place. And brought in a celebrity to help promote the team.

Adrian Hanaeur, majority owner of the USL team who basically ran everything there is still running the show in MLS. He ran the team in the USL and he runs it now.

Schmetzer, USL head coach is now the assistant coach, who can argue with getting Sigi? Sigi won't be around forever and I suspect Schmetzer will step right in and not miss a beat.

Those are just the big names. Many FO and staff simply transfered over to the "MLS franchise" from the USL team.

The reality is that MLS is a better league than USL, so you will not keep very many players on from the USL team. As it is they kept 5 players from the USL squad as well as Nyassi who was on loan to the USL team from the MLS team.

You can't just keep doing things at a USL level, if you want to join a bigger league you have to get bigger and better. Make no mistake about it, this is the same organization, just with a ton more firepower than they had in the USL.

Technically MLS's single entity structure makes it imposible to simply move a prexisting organization into the league. But you can do what Seattle did and just hire all those same people into positions on the "new" MLS team.

Regarding Vancouver. They have a great organization up there and you are kidding yourself if they will not be taking advantage of that for their MLS franchise.

 

Always interesting to see a thread about how bad a start MLS got in life (especially the part before kicking a ball) and comparing to where we are now. Good for keeping us thankful.

 

Yup.

More so if you were like me and got the wind knocked outta your sails when the league launch was pushed back from April of '95 to April of '96.

I have to admit that from the OP thread title I was wondering if this thread was going to be another SI or uniforms bitch fest...good to see the links and info provided just rehashes how everything went down in that soccer boom right after USA '94. We really do have the greatest 14 year old pro men's outdoor soccer league the planet has ever known.

 

What about the J-League? Of course, its only real competition is baseball, but its doing really well considering how young the league is. Only 3 or 4 years older than MLS from what I remember reading.

 

J-League is not new teams like MLS is. They "promoted" some of their larger JSL teams to make a professional league. But you are correct in that they formed 3-4 years before MLS did (1993). While the JSL teams weren't very well followed prior to the formation of J-League, it would essentially be like promoting some of the larger USL teams to create MLS.

 

Yeah, it hurt in lots of ways:

1 Instead of 3/4ths of a year after the WC, when it was still reasonably fresh and some more momentum might have existed, it was 1-3/4ths of a year, ample time for the sporting public to forget a one-off event.
2 In March of 95, baseball was still on strike (in fairness, it would be resolved by the end of the month, and players took the field in April). Still, the resentment was fresh.
3 It wasn't even the first "push-back" since we'd originally hoped to have a league started by the WC, and that fed the cynicism about whether the league could work (not just by pundits who were likely to be cynical, either, but real decision-makers whose confidence we'd like to have had). That cynicism held us back a lot.

 

Bring back the roughnecks

 

This.
Knowing our U.S. sports culture as an all around sports junkie I was certain that pro outdoor soccer was going to need to ride that massive USA '94 success for all its worth.
We've made it and are here to stay so one can say "what worries?" but that wait from Winter of '95 to Spring of '96 was a grind.

Indeed. Look what has happened in Seattle's sports culture fresh from the Sonics picking up and leaving. The SSFC Front Office could not have paid any ammount of cash for such a ripe field to cultivate in year 1.

Even the optimist Pele was probably shitting himself after putting up so much backing and promises to FIFA just to reel in our nation the Mundial with MLS the bait. From '84 to '94 that cynicism was there even in the soccer ranks so when it came to crunch time there in '95. Who was that Irish winger...O'Shit!

Never say never right...but for MLS probably not anytime soon.
However, if you have never been to Tulsa and or do not recall the fondness that town had for their Roughnecks, the men's outdoor game is very strong in that part of NE Oklahoma.
Soccer fields everywhere, massive youth participation and a true concept of their local sports fans on what it means to actually enjoy going out to watch live pro soccer.
Even in an insane gridiron State, that town "get's it".

 

I've got to disagree that it was a mistake to push back to 1996 from '95. I remember at the time the league's phone number was 1-800-MAJOR-95, but that's about all they had ready to go at that point. Sure, it would have been nice to capitalize on baseball and the WC momentum, but not if you are rushed to put a half-assed product on the field. As it was, the launch wasn't the problem, it was getting all those fans to keep coming back.

As it was, there were mistakes too numerous to mention in 1996, and who knows how many teams would have had to be "League-owned" with a 1995 launch. There were problems with stadium leases and ownership financing, and I don't want to think about what kind of a mess we might have been in with a premature launch.

I remember being disappointed with the delay, like every soccer fan who was chomping at the bit for a team to watch regularly (and to think I envied fans of the New York Centaurs!), but even then I thought it was better to wait and get it right than to rush things and have it fail.

 

IMHO the coolest thing about following MLS is that unlike other leagues and when they began way back when in the 1800's and how they might end up in the future.
Being passionate about MLS is not about our start up or any promise land destination as top 5 in the world, its witnessing the journey that pro men's soccer takes in our nation.
I mean ever since '94, the beautiful game has only gotten stronger and stronger in our culture at an ever increasing rate and indeed there is no stopping it now.

 

I gotta disagree. There's a difference between a cold night game and a roasting day match.

Sitting in 30 degree weather isn't that uncomfortable if you're wearing proper attire. And to make yourself more comfortable there's drinking, standing up, blankets, etc. It's doable.

However, take it from somebody who's been to a million games at the Rose Bowl...day games in hot, sunny weather suck. It's not anywhere near as easy to cool down as it is to warm up...what can you do besides fanning yourself for a few seconds? Not to mention the f'ng glare.