Yallop Appointed General Manager in Fresno This guy has nine lives... he was crap at both jobs after leaving the Quakes (Chicago Fire and the Phoenix / Arizona USL team) yet keeps getting opportunities. So far the Fresno USL team is getting everything wrong, they should have bought the Fresno Fuego branding (it would be better than half the crests in USL), and they should have hired a GM who wasn't Frank Yallop.
I knew he was going to Fresno but I thought it would be as a coach not as a GM. I hope it finally works out for him.
A quick search revealed 100+ homes over 750K for sale in the Fresno area. Not the bay area by any means, but not that few either...
I leased a car from Beshoff Motors in San Jose, which I guess last year was sold to Auto Nation. The way Beshoff Motors was run, I wouldn't believe anything that guy Beshoff says.
Supposedly Frank now has worked out a gig with the Vancouver Whitecaps. They are saying he will bring 6 or 7 players from their organization to Fresno to be their farm team.
Vancouver III? Leave it to Frank to exploit the natural synergy between Fresno and Vancouver. I mean don't we sometimes refer to Fresno as "the Vancouver of the Central Valley"?
No actually I heard the Vancouver 2 team is losing a lot of money and may be done away with. Fresno may become their new farm team.
Don't say that too much. I said that about Avaya Stadium! It actually makes sense. their team draws poorly. 2015 3 USL 8-6-14 11th, Western Did not qualify 1,682 2016 3 USL 12-9-9 6th, Western Conference Finals 1,779
Montreal already did that, shutting down FC Montreal and replacing it with a partnership with the Ottawa Fury. So I can believe it, although it is disappointing. Not sure how these teams can be upset that they're losing money on their USL teams when they put zero effort into them. Obviously having a "2" team in the same market isn't going to attract fans, if you care about not losing money, maybe try putting your team in another market and with unique branding (who that lives in the LA area is going to be a "Galaxy 2" fan?), see Philly with Bethlehem Steel FC, Houston with RGV Toros, and the Quake with Reno. The Whitecaps should find a decent stadium in Victoria and put their USL team there, that makes more sense than sending your prospects all the way to Fresno.
I don't believe any team MLS 1 or 2 in the end wants to lose money. At first I thought having a B team play at the same grounds is good for everyone involved with the organization. As time goes by and the USL becomes a stronger league, even at a tier 2 level , it's wiser to partner with a club farther away from the same market. Especially since there is no relegation and promotion.
I totally agree with that. I think for a USL team to be successful, it has to have a market to itself. Sharing a market with an MLS team is not going to work. Anybody know how many fans Scum II have? Of course, I'll bet AEG don't care how much they lose on that.
It seems like all of the MLS2 clubs playing in the USL with maybe the exception of Portland (for that league anyway), are all among the worst in the league in attendance.Last years reigning USL champion is still last i the league. I don't see that as a positive for anyone.
The latest attendance numbers... Note ever "2" team is in the bottom half. And the highest of those is the only one in their own market, Bethlehem Steel FC at 22. So the "2" teams in the same markets as their parent MLS teams occupy 9 of the bottom 11 spots in attendance. Meanwhile RGV is 6th and Reno 10th, both big successes that look sustainable long-term.
In one of his podcasts, Bobby Warshaw lamented how much he hated to play against MLS2 teams when he was captaining his hometown USL team. Because the MLS2 teams are about development and not about winning, they have a different attitude on the field. I think he said (but don't quote me), that the MLS2 players are so young and not professional enough, not trying enough. I suppose probably a lot of long ball and relying on speed. So if that is typical, then maybe they don't attract too many fans either, just loyal supporters groups, friends and family.
There could be some truth to it. The MLS2 teams in theory probably have a lot of younger and first or second year players and they are playing against other seasoned pros. On the other hand, Vancouver 2, KC2 ,LA Galaxy II all made the finals and NYRB won it all last year so maybe they are doing something right in terms of tactics and development.
I'm curious about this. On principle, I tend to agree that minor league teams should be in their own markets, but I'm wondering if it is a predictor of success or failure. I have heard anecdotes about the SJ Barracuda cannibalizing the Sharks' fanbase a bit (at least with regard to families going out to games) and this is after the the SF Bulls folded a few years back with a market unto themselves, essentially.
I think you are always going to have this situation when the lowest prices for Sharks tickets is currently > $40 and the most expensive tickets for the Barracuda are ~ $65. I think it's a function of cost, not market.
But don't the economics create the market, to some degree? I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. For the sake of the argument, let's define "success" as the minor league team generating enough revenue to operate indefinitely. If the Barracuda could reach that goal by catering to the market of hockey fans that can afford, say 25$ a ticket versus 50$ a ticket despite residing in the same city as the more expensive major league team, wouldn't that contradict the idea that a minor league team would need its own market? Remember that minor league games are going to cost less to attend, on average, than major league regardless of proximity between then. Essentially you are catering to two different economic markets moreso than you are geographic one. I attended Quakes games over Burlingame Dragons games mostly because I could afford to, despite living ten times the distance to the Quakes as I did to the Dragons. There are definitely limits to this. If I was living in Fresno, I would be going to minor league baseball a heck of a lot more often than major league simply because the traveling distance is so far. There are economic factors at work there, as well, but I think you could argue well enough that the geography of it limits your possible fanbase already, or at least the fanbase that regularly attends games. Minor league teams rely more heavily on attendance to revenue than major league teams, I would think. So I think having a market to yourself, as a minor league team, is generally good. It certainly means you won't automatically be limiting your audience by competing head on with a major league product. Of course, you also have to make sure your market is big enough to support a professional club of any kind. However, if you have a city as large as LA or San Jose, even, then presumably there are enough fans of the sport to support both major and minor league. Heck, if MLS believes it can have two teams in LA with no issue, I find it hard to justify thinking a minor league team located in the same city or one nearby, couldn't also exist and be financially stable.
San Jose is likely not representative of other markets. Both the minor league San Jose Barracuda (hockey) and the San Jose Giants (baseball) have a good proportion of their following that prefers the authenticity of the minor league experience to that of the big league Sharks (hockey) and San Francisco Giants (baseball), even though they can likely also afford the latter and attend both during the course of a season. The phenomenon seems less pronounced with the Barracuda because they play in the same sterile SAP Center as the Sharks, but it's there. The Ultras prefer offseason outings to the Barracuda over the Sharks, by the way. Raucous fandom is better appreciated in the minor leagues. The Barracuda even handed out free scarves to us during an intermission as a thank you for enlivening the action. And I've alluded to this previously, but polling eventually confirmed what I understood intuitively (i.e., from living here and being close to the grassroots) that San Joseans on balance did not want the major league A's to relocate here if it meant they would lose their A-level Giants.
Yeah, I'm really not convinced that San Jose is somehow drastically different than other markets just because you say it is. There are plenty of reasons to want to keep a minor league team over a major league one that go beyond some nebulous "authentic" experience argument. Not that there is even such a thing as an "authentic" or "not authentic" experience when it comes to attending live sporting events. If you can physically go to them, then they exist. How they operate and who they cater to can be different, but let's not complicate matters by loading things up with such connotations. I will accept that certain fans prefer the type of atmosphere that minor league games can accommodate. That's perfectly valid, though I don't think that is unique to San Jose in any way. People like to cut loose and behave in ways that are not necessarily appropriate outside of that setting in every city. San Jose may have more of them since its population skews heavily male, but again, it isn't unique to San Jose. Attachment would be a good reason for a city to just want to keep things the way they are. I would imagine Sacramento would think more than twice about accepting a major league MLB team if it meant the River Cats would move, for instance. Also, the South Bay is already overcrowded and congested. Adding another major league team would immensely complicate the logistics of travel in an area where it is already nightmarish. I was a heavy opponent of Levi's Stadium being built in Santa Clara, in part, for that reason (not to mention the possibility of taxpayers needing to foot part or all of the bill in order to house another major league team). There are a lot of questions about this, obviously, and as I said before, I think having a city to oneself can be a great way for a minor league team to gain a consistent and recurring fanbase, but I don't think it's the ultimate deciding factor on whether or not a minor league team is successful. If there is demand for that product, then it can exist. Heck, look at England as an example. They have a ridiculous number of pro and semi pro soccer teams because demand for the sport at all levels is high. That may be changing now, but at the very least, they could support multiple top level clubs and lower level clubs in the same city, in a country that is significantly smaller than the United States. I think the biggest barrier to minor league success for soccer is simply demand. The demand for soccer entertainment is either not high enough in America to support a great deal of minor league soccer, or the demand is being met through other avenues (TV being able to provide soccer from other parts of the world). More likely a combination of those two things.