Please help us Save The Crew

Done!

 

Done

 

I'm in.

 

I'm in as well. Caught some games at Mapfre over the years on account of relatives that had moved into the area. _I_ may hate the team when they play the Revs, but my family has grown a soft spot (dare I say 'fondness'?) for the Crew that we value.

 

I'm in.

 

Done!

While the Crew are one of my least-favorite teams, a good rivalry will do that. It is a travesty for this to happen in a vibrant market with great fans. Ther ebut for the Grace of God go us, as the saying goes, but we all know the Krafts are too lazy and have so little long-term vision that they could not have possibly come up with a scheme to buy a team with the sole purpose of moving it to Austin and nowhere else--not a glamorous market like New York, LA, or Miami, or even one of the other dozen or so expansion candidate cities that would be perfectly suitable for a team.

Good luck to you guys, we're all standing with you!

 

As an Old Daytonian, I had to represent.

And as you say, New England is one of the clubs for whom this feels like an especially pertinent issue.

 

Good luck with that. Although if there is any truth to Bill Archer's latest and greatest, one might be better off praying to St. Jude, the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes.

Alas, I'm not religious.

 

Signed it symbolically mainly because Precourt (and Garber by allowing it) is a douche and the revs could be next. It's essentially a done deal but regardless, good luck.

Sell the stadium out, get that place rocking and win it all as the ultimate sendoff to remind the powers-that-be on why leaving is a mistake.

 

This seems like one of those things that had a pre-determined outcome:

Crew SC ownership statement on meeting with Columbus mayor, MLS
November 15, 2017, 7:50PM EST
MLSsoccer staff

 

Signed - by another former Daytonian.

 

I was thinking about this over the weekend, and all this talk of Garber and the other owners (who are the ones who really call the shots. Suppose it was up to the other owners to decide if Precourt could move (thereby making the rest of the league less valuable). Would they vote in favor or not?

Well, I know one owner who is certainly not going to stand in the way of Precout's Big Move. Hint. He wears blue shirts with white collars.

Y'see, if owners can get together and nix someone's money-making scheme to scam one city over another, who's to say that next time they get together, they may decide to make other owners (namely him) do things he doesn't want to do (like spend more than the bare minimum amount of money to put a genuinely competitive team on the field)?

It's been the common consensus that there are different categories of owners--teams like Atlanta, Toronto, NYCFC, LA, (presumably LAFC), Seattle, etc. who are willing to spend big money to bring in high profile stars. Then there's another tier who are not as star-struck, but will still spend money on long-range club infrastructure like a stadium, their academy, yute teams, training grounds, etc., and then there are teams like the Revs who will spend the bare minimum, and as long as the team doesn't lose TOO much money and as long as they aren't Chivas or 1999 Metros bad, they are OK with it.

For those guys, stopping Precourt is a dangerous precedent. That even assumes they even care about fans in some other city.

 

I kind of feel the opposite. For the uh..smaller spenders.. category, they don't want to disrupt the status quo and go against the other owners. If everyone is leaning pro-Precourt, they will too. Same with anti-Precourt. They def don't want the spotlight on their own club because that would potentially require a change in behavior. Krafty One is going to be very much status quo on this one.

 

Andrew Erickson‏ @AEricksonCD 17h17 hours ago
Ohio AG Mike DeWine statement: "Should ownership of the Columbus Crew initiate a move of the team without complying with Ohio law, I am prepared to take the necessary legal action under this law to protect the interests of the State of Ohio..." #CrewSCpic.twitter.com/noQhKZRG3Q

 

Good on the Ohio AG. Via the Columbus Navigator, the relevant law in question:

No owner of a professional sports team that uses a tax-supported facility for most of its home games and receives financial assistance from the state or a political subdivision thereof shall cease playing most of its home games at the facility and begin playing most of its home games elsewhere unless the owner either:


(A) Enters into an agreement with the political subdivision permitting the team to play most of its home games elsewhere;

(B) Gives the political subdivision in which the facility is located not less than six months’ advance notice of the owner’s intention to cease playing most of its home games at the facility and, during the six months after such notice, gives the political subdivision or any individual or group of individuals who reside in the area the opportunity to purchase the team.

 

Send lawyers, guns and money!

I hope this works, but I'm not optimistic. everything is tilted toward rich guys being able to do whatever they want with little or no consequences. It doesn't matter that the average fan in central Ohio is getting their team ripped out from under them, even though they are certainly not a failing franchise.

The thing that gets me the most is the conflict of interest. There were a bunch of cities being considered for expansion by the committee. One of them was San Antonio, and Austin was not on the list. The league publicly stated that it would be either SA or Austin, but not both. San Antonio put up a good-faith $5 million fee to be in the running, and even included the possibility of drawing at least some fans from the secondary market Austin, 80 miles away. Well, guess who is on the Expansion Committee... None other than Anthony Precourt...

So Precourt (and the others on the committee) knew that he had this "out clause" to move to Austin (and only Austin), and Austin was not in the mix of expansion cities. San Antonio thought they had a fair chance to get a team, but it was all a ruse. Not to say that SA would have won one of the slots, but they at least deserved a fair chance to make a proposal that would win or lose on its own merits. Like Blanket Jackson, they never even had a chance.

 

Columbus must stay, according to my youngest daughter. She cites this:

 

But the use of "the" in front of "MLS" negates all that.

Unless you're Steve Nicol and then you're allowed to say things like "Whu, noo we haafta pley anooother game doon enn Trennn-uh-daaad? We need tae concentrrrrate on wennen thu AimEllEss thess year"

 

Unfortunately, two of the teams mentioned in the clip no longer exist and 3 have been renamed.

 

People who say "the MLS" should be flogged with grammar texts.