Well, I just got in from the corporate reception and it was pretty cool. There was food and drinks, of the non-alcoholic persuasion, as well as desert type items. People mingled and I couldn’t help but step outside and take a look at the field below and dream of the games to come, I’m stoked. All of the usual RSL faces were there. Steve Pastorino, Trey Fitzgerald, Chris Keeney, and many others. As far as the presentation, things got rolling about 6:30 with the arrival of Dave Checketts, Don Garber, and Dean Howes. Steve Pastorino showed a clip of soccer highlights from MLS and a few from USMNT footage of MLS players, the Mohawk made an appearance. After the video ended Steve introduced Brian Kamler and Eddie Pope who had flown in to be there. Eddie had flown in to help his wife move in to their new home and was asked to drop in, he’s training with the USMNT right now and flew in this morning. Brian played 45 minutes today at training in CA and then left at halftime to fly to SLC for the reception and ran to the airport afterwards so he can be back to training tomorrow. They’ll be doing some cool stuff this Saturday while they start selling individual tickets. You can try out to be the P.A. announcer as well as record yourself screaming “GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLL!!!” for later use by the team. There’s supposed to be some celebs there as well. And of course, The Loyalists will have a presence, isn’t that right Glenn?!? They announced that 1280, The Zone will be the English speaking radio broadcaster, and that 1600, I don’t know how to pronounce it, will be the Spanish radio broadcaster. Steve then introduced Dave Checketts who talked about selling season tickets and said “You shouldn’t support us because of allegiance to the community, you should support us because we’re going to put on a great show.” He said that the reason that he, Dean, and Don were a little later was because they were meeting with the Governor and Senator Bramble and that they will be making a “special announcement” tomorrow at 8:30AM. He also talked about the character of the players in MLS and that there has never been an instance of spousal abuse or drug abuse in MLS and added “I’m not sure how I’ll act after all these years with the NBA.” This got some good laughs. Dave then introduced Don Garber. Don said that he will look back at the day he sat in his office with Dave and hearing Dave say that he wanted to bring a team to SLC as a turning point in MLS history. He also said he was proud of the players in MLS and those coming to SLC and he said that he had an experience with Brian Kamler coming to him and thanking him for putting a team in SLC and also gave thanks on behalf of his wife. Don said this was a first for him and that no player had ever done that in his years with the NFL. Don said that he had someone ask why they hadn’t put the expansion team in Houston or San Antonio because Utah seemed like a bad choice and didn’t have the market, his response was “You don’t know enough about Utah, but this team will tell that story.” MLS will continue to expand with two teams in 2007, one will be Toronto, the other has not been decided but will likely be Seattle, Houston, San Antonio, Philadelphia, or Cleveland, everyone SLC beat to get the team. He also added that MLS will soon have national Spanish coverage. One nice thing that Don seemed pretty excited about was that Real Salt Lake is the first team in Major League Soccer to broadcast all games live on Network Television, not just on cable. Yay KSL! The Metrostars/Real game and Real/Rapids game will both be nationally televised. In closing Don added, “We’re very excited about what Steve [Pastorino] has been able to put together in such a short amount of time.” Dave Checketts once again took the stage and told about his sports experience and his experience with sports in Utah. When Dave started at the Jazz…. -15 out of 17 players were renting rather than buying homes because they didn’t know how much longer the team would be around. -Only 1500 Season Ticket holders -6600 seats filled per game, on average. -On the day of the first home game he walked in the doors and an eight year old tried to sell him tickets to that night’s game for $1 a piece. The kid had 150+ tickets in his back pocket that he had gotten from his father, who had traded a life insurance policy for 2000 tickets to one of the Jazz staff. Pretty funny stuff. He said he left the Jazz for N.Y. because Larry miller wanted to be the face for the Jazz and he owned them. There have been 3100 season tickets sold to date. Sweet! Dave then closed by saying that he was going to make this team work and that he loved the community here. At one point he said, “Give us a chance, we will deliver.” He laid down the charm on the crowd pretty thick, you just can’t help but like this guy. They opened the floor for questions and someone asked Don about Women’s Soccer and MLS. Don replied that with the addition of Soccer Specific Stadiums this may be a long-term goal, but not a current one. A guy from Costa Rica was interested in Costa Rican players on the team and Steve Pastorino said they were watching six players for the future. Dave was asked about Real Madrid again. He said that we have a foundation with them and that the relationship will “blossom” over time. Real Madrid gave their blessing on the name when Dave asked them about it. Real Madrid will be coming to the U.S. next year to play a game in N.Y. and L.A. and Dave said when we have a SSS he’s sure they’ll come play here. He said there is room to discuss player exchange in the future. Dave also added that RSL has been approached by several different EPL teams as well as AC Milan and FC Barcelona that wanted to form a sister relationship with us, he said thanks but we’re working with Real Madrid. He talked a bit about a possible soccer academy with Real Madrid in SLC in the future and mentioned how he started the Jr. Jazz and that it has grown to 100,000 kids playing. He wants to do the same for soccer. When asked about the stadium he said that he’d love to have it downtown, but Murray is still the favorite right now, but he added that he’s said that before so there’s nothing new to report. After the presentation I talked to Dean Howes, Dave Checketts, and Don Garber. I said hello from The Loyalists and they were all very excited about how we’ve been supporting the team and when I thanked them for bringing the team to Utah and SLC they thanked us for being so enthusiastic. I told them we loved everyone at the front office and that everyone league wide was looking at us with jealousy. Dean laughed at that and said that they try to be modest but it feels good knowing they really are doing great things. Well, that’s it. If you read this long I salute you.
Senor Dave seems like a cool enough guy. Hopefully this "partnership" with Real Madrid works out the way he wants. If he does for RSL what he did for the Jazz then RSL will be huge.
Great job Neil, you get rep for sure. As a non-Utahn I am also excited that RSL will be using a full-blown reporting team for all games. This means when us out of towners get the game via Direct Kick, there will be excellent biased RSL commentary. Most excellent. Good to hear things are progressing all around. Wish I could have been there!