I highly doubt the actual soccer fans in S. Florida will miss you. They certainly don't need you. what a sad, sad post.
The fact that I agree with a tampon is really sad but you have a valid and very good point. Maybe you're not all incompetent hillbillies after all
Well alright then peace... keep supporting your team, I tried all I could and so what if I dont go to all the games? get over it. fan or not there are other things that go on in my life, family, school, girlfriend, etc. etc... I love soccer, and my team Miami FC, but yall swear its going to change if they become the strikers, I believe it woud be the same... What miami needs is MLS, not second division... Sorry guys, Ill keep up online and maybe catch a game or two at the stadium, but im out good luck with the strikers, I honeslty do hope it is more succesful like in the yesteryears, but I cant go for a Ft. Laudy team, it aint in me, you guys say why not? maybe because most of you in this BS are from broward, yall are looking from a different perspective... Well good luck to you guys, yall dont need me, so thats great im out man... blah blah blah..ranting....blah blah blah
Wasn't there also a minor league baseball proposal for the baseball stadium, or has that gone away? Why? Surely it would be a worse setup for soccer viewing than Lockhart. I was under the impression that Traffic wanted the baseball stadium for soccer training and the soccer academy. You could fit one or maybe two soccer training fields in the baseball field, and use the baseball stadium facilities under the stands for locker rooms, offices, etc., and it wouldn't matter that the stands aren't set up properly for soccer viewing. Whereas Lockhart is set up properly for soccer viewing; yes average 5,000 crowds would look small in such a facility, but you then have the opportunity to push up your average attendance for big games that might attract 20,000 (fourth of July games with fireworks, for instance). Assuming Traffic actually intends to attract more than a handful of fans, that is. Leaving for where? I would think keeping the HS football games at Lockhart would help keep out the waterpark people. And if Traffic does get control they would need to rent out Lockhart to someone; HS football is as good a source for extra revenue as anyone. Well, we'll see I guess. Traffic really needs to spend money, not just on players but on marketing, ticket sales personel, and stadium fixup. It wouldn't hurt if they got in additional investors, like Marcelo Claure. They really need to spend money, for the long term success they need to plan for. Traffic's past record on that hasn't been good, obviously.
I have to ask the question that is at the heart of the discussion. When has Miami shown it can support a club team at any level? Teams in Fort Lauderdale have outdrawn teams in Miami every time. Sure Miami-Dade has a larger population and people always go on about the immigrant population, but that has never translated to butts in seats. I'm sorry, but the idea of the Miami soccer fan is a myth.
If I remember well, the first Miami FC season, Traffic signed some haitian and jamaican players to go after the ethnic crowds. Unfortunately, this did not translate to lots of butts in the seats
It usually doesn't. The Nashville Metros tried the same thing here signing some local Mexican players. A handful of Mexican fans showed up for a match or two but that was about it. Putting a lot of resources into trying to appeal to immigrant communities is a mistake in my opinion. It just doesn't lead to much. They are usually more interested in following club and national teams from their home countries and their own local leagues. If they show up, they show up. But it will be because the club represents their new home. The "Look, we have people who come from the same place you do!" strategy almost always fails.
When I said all this during the Great FCB Miami Debate I was decried as some kind of madman. I hope Traffic steps up and puts some kind of effort into this (finally). I have family in South Florida and it'd be nice to see pro soccer when I visit...but with Traffic's big talk/no action past I'm not going to hold my breath.
I really hope that if Traffic goes with the Strikers, they choose to also use Ft Lauderdale. That's the team I followed as a kid growing up in Delray and would love to see them back. Of course I would still follow the local team here in Austin, but it's not the same thing as cheering for that hometown team that you grew up with. Miami had the Gatos, the Fusion and the Blues. None of them worked. It's time to put Ft Lauderdale back on the soccer map.
You left out the Toros, which were just a warmed-over version of the Gatos. Come to think of it, so were the Strikers (all the same team, just a new location (Washington Darts>Miami Gatos>Miami Toros>Ft. Lauderdale Strikers)).
The Strikers will even be back this year, during the road game in Rochester (somewhere in august) both team will wear throwback jerseys
Which was probably one of the reasons why they failed. People in Miami weren't driving to Ft. Lauderdale in big numbers, and people in Ft. Lauderdale didn't back it 100% because it wasn't the Strikers.
Still in 2001 over 11,000 people showed up for games. The team was getting better and the support increasing. They should have never pulled the plug.
Yeah obviously. It was a shame the way things ended. It took 4 years and the best team in MLS to turn that many people on to the Fusion. If they had been the called Strikers, the team that people grew up with and cheered for since the 70s, they might have had a stronger start. Cool! I had read they were thinking about that back in the fall when they announced they would use the name NASL, but never heard anything definite. Strikers vs. Lancers.... awesome!
Same argument applies to the Rowdies in Tampa. Of course they also needed an actual owner. An owner who revived the Rowdies in MLS back then would have gotten a better response from the fans. Too many people in the Tampa Bay area circa 1996-2001 remembered what the old NASL Rowdies were like, and the Mutiny were a major letdown in comparison. Rochester is going to wear copies of the old Lancers uniforms, blue shirts complete with the big yellow jousting lance across the front? Awesome.
There is nothing in the news item on the Rhinos website that indicates they will be wearing the old Lancers kits, but that would be cool. I see that one Lancer alum who will be returning for the reunion night is former Fort Lauderdale Striker Branko Segota.
gonna get into a bit of trouble here perhaps......... First of all: If this is true, it is a GREAT THING to hear! So many great memories @ Lockhart in the old NASL days. Would love to catch some games there again if it happens. S.Florida or Ft. Lauderdale is fine for me but........ would it be too great an inconvenience to the masses to hope that if they bring the colors back they change the striping to vertical? Don't kill me, but while I never had a problem with the road kits the home ones always left me leaving with a bit of eye strain........
Come on! The Strikers jerseys are one of the most recognizable club jerseys of all time! They can't mess with anything. If they are going to do this rebrand, they need to do it 100%. Classic jerseys, and FORT LAUDERDALE Strikers. Then, with a very modest amount of money sunk into advertising in the local media running up to the beginning of the 2011 season, I'd bet a whole lot of money that we would see this team average 2 - 3 times the number of fans at Lockhart as they are this year. And then, if they can get a more successful product on the field as well, we could be one of the higher attendance teams in the league for the whole season. If Traffic does this right, I just have to believe it will be a success. They need to get a lot of action shots of the team in Rochester on 8/21 wearing the Strikers jerseys that they can use in some advertising. BTW, anyone here who hasn't already, go to the Strikers 2011 website www.strikers2011.com and send an e-mail to the club telling them you want to see the FORT LAUDERDALE Strikers back in Lockhart Stadium. That means you Rowdies fans too! Strikers/Rowdies is the greatest intrastate rivalry in all of Florida professional sports history, and needs to be again! Its return would benefit not only both of these organizations, but the NASL as well.
Blasphemy! lol seriously though it's gotta be the horizontal hoops. That's a HUGE part of the Strikers identity. It's like Celtic's green and white hoops or Argentina's stripes. The look, as well as just the Strikers name will be enough I think, but to really do things right they gotta use the name Fort Lauderdale too.
It's an identity, yes.....but it's also a different time. Change is inevitable. Keep the colors, lose the garishness. Shrink the crest, but keep it and move it above the breastplate like class teams do. A uniform rebrand alone doesn't bring fans back. Tell me something here: What is their goal? Sponsor? $ on hand to spend? * If it's simply to do a better job in (today's) NASL it will fail in the market because it's hard enough to get folks to care there with a first-rate product. Me, myself and I would just love to get back out to Lockhart and catch a few Striker games in the near future no matter what the level of "real" commitment would be. Doesn't mean I'm getting any sense that Gerd, Jan, Ray Clive, Mo, Eduardo et al are ever coming back........ What I consider (slight) modifications give proper tribute to the past while attempting to set a course for what we'd all like to be a long-term, prosperous future. Won't mean I'll stay home if the uni's look the same. Just means I've gotta remember to bring shades-even at night games.............
They should hold talks with Ray Hudson and Thomas Rongen, also collect email addresses of all Fort Lauderdale and Miami soccer fans, promote the team during youth and adult soccer tournaments etc... IMHO the Rowdies did a good job relaunching the brand