I read the "investor" comment as describing somebody who pays the league minimum (or a little more) for years while playing a role in the league boardroom that shapes the future of the league. All the while taking advantage of the work done by others to raise the value/profile of the league and by association the value of their own club. This is Kraft's relationship with the Revs and MLS in a nutshell.
Sure, they hired a guy who had actually coached a professional team before, but let's see what he can do with that sorry group. Let's check back this time next year and see where the Quakes are. As for Penilla, why do you think he's gone? Even the Revs aren't so cheap and stupid to let possibly the only bright spot in a terrible season walk... Or are they?
Posted in Thoughts thread: I took a little deeper look at the data provided in this article to see how it aligned with investors vs stewards, if at all. In the end, I'm not sure where this all points, but I dropped some of this into a spreadsheet to try to get some fact-based observations. I'm not sure how conclusive this would end up to be, I haven't gone down that path at this point. But I figured I would share some of the obervations so far... These are the footnotes re: source data per the Forbes article. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's where the Revs fall within the 22 teams (excludes LAFC - no 2017 data for them)- Team Operating Income: Above Average Tied for 6th place with $3.86M above average Op Inc across teams 5 teams above them out of 22; 15 teams below Note: average OpInc across all teams was negative (-$2.9M) Team Revenue: Below Average 81% of average across all teams; 12th place (11 teams above them out of 22; 10 teams below) Implied Expenses (Revenue Less OI): Below Average 72% of average across all teams; 19th place (18 teams above them (i.e., 18 teams spent more); 3 teams below) Team Value: Slightly Below Average Average 95% of average across all teams; 14th place, (13 teams above, 8 teams below) >> All of this is relative to the backdrop of a 2017 14th place finish overall for the Revs, in regular season table. ---------------------------------------------------- Meanwhile, team values are skyhigh for team like TFC and NYCFC, but so are their expenses - as indicated by their respective Operating Incomes being a large negative. I would hazard a guess that most of that expense is due to DP outlays, funded solely by the investor/operator of that specific team - so I do not think their outlay is dragging down other owners, especially since whatever they are doing has translated to some of the highest team valuations. (But, I could be very very offbase on that) Another interesting contrast is LAGalaxy, Seattle, Portland - all have high valuations, high revenues, and expenses that are low (relative to their revenue, or in proportion to their revenue.) So, very different financial approach than TFC and NYCFC ------------------------------------------------- To understand the backstory of how Revenue, Expenses and Operating Income at the team level relates to Revenue, Expenses and OI at the MLS overall level, this is a good (actually, great!) article. It even has pictures! https://medium.com/@isaac_krasny/unpacking-the-major-league-soccer-business-model-827f4b784bcd Also of interest in this article are the authors observations of the ongoing fuzziness of the relationship between coach and player salaries and winning. That relationship seems to vary year to year, and also from team to team within a single year.
Good analysis, @A Casual Fan. I was surprised (perhaps shouldn't be) how many teams were in the red for operating income. Bilello did his job and got the Krafts a net profit for 2017. Would be fascinating to see it broken down by ticketing, merchandise, sponsorship revenue etc though I highly doubt that's publicly available. Thanks for sharing this data.
This quote from Arthur Blank in the SI Story hit the nail on the head I would say....I particularly like the 'hallucinations' reference, as that seems to be what the Revs leadership suffers from and the 'can't fool the fans reference'. “The ambition I would say is really to be the very best that we could be,” Blank says. “And so when you have a vision, unless you can execute against that vision it’s just having hallucinations. I think we understood that to be successful we’re going to have to hire and overinvest in the very best people … and invest with the anticipation that this was going to be a great franchise. "I don’t think you can fool the fans at all, so they interpret everything we’ve done from the outset as being first-class. … You send all those messages and constantly reinforce them with actions, and you set yourself up for the best possible outcome.” Article can be found here: https://www.si.com/soccer/2018/12/07/arthur-blank-owner-atlanta-united-mls-cup NOTE: the article also reinforces what many of us die-hard fans didn't like about early MLS strategy of trying to build and attract the suburban demographic. Blank was smart enough to not want that strategy.
More from the article. 3 takeaways: The Falcons were feeling like second-class citizens to the soccer team. The owner reassured them. Like that would ever happen here We know all about coming this close... So Seattle really did invent Atlanta!
While Blank is more focused on making his MLS team better, BKIASM is not. He's focused on buying another team in another league. And their fans aren't happy about it.
Ha! It's a soccer publication too and they mention Kraft owns the Pats but no mention of the Revs. #IrrRevevant
I just took the bait! I was solicited online from the Revs to do an online survey... I thought I could maybe get some licks in and get some frustrations expressed. Part way through it, it became very obvious to me that the whole survey was modeled after the casual fan. Towards the end, it began to ask me my opinion on supporters groups -without ever asking me if I were in a supporter's group. I can only deduce that they're assuming I'm not in one (I am in one) which further re-enforced my hunch that the survey was aimed at casual fans. It also looks to me like if they receive a lot of responses against supporter's groups, perhaps they may even use the data to try to marginalize them.
I just took that survey too. I'm skeptical, and my hunch too is that they are more interested in "casual" mainsteam sports fans, not people who are serious fans who follow the team enough to be able to name 5 or more players. Of course, we've been saying this since 1996: People who are indifferent at best and who see a game as just a fun thing to do for the sake of entertainment are not going to buy season (or multiple game) tickets and are not going to show up in lousy weather on a weeknight. But supporters groups will. Ignore this at your peril, Revs.
Yeah, and there was no scarf offering, proving their anti-hooligan bias. And since our fans only show up for nice weather games in the summer, what good is a scarf anyway?
My biggest peeve with the survey was the innate bias of some of the questions. One was what would be the most important thing the Revs could do (or something like that) and one of the options was "Sign a name player." My priority would have been to sign several really good players -- not an option on the survey and no way to write in another solution. Apparently that's not what the front office views as an answer to the team's issues. Guess I'll continue to not attend for the foreseeable future.
The survey was really stupid. Would not allow me to choose that I didn’t attend any games last year (required me to select at least one or more). Most importantly, no place to add comments.
I felt it was basically them just "proving" themselves right by going to the big-wigs and saying, see this is what the fans really want. And by not giving any real options, they get the survey results they wanted.
I think they can get some useful data out of it. OTOH, I don't think they are really looking for feedback from this group - I think they probably already know what most of us want (quality/attractive play, a team that can compete against the league's best, an exciting/dynamic/engaging game-day atmosphere and, preferably, at a stadium in the urban core of greater Boston.
I actually do remember a scarf offering mentioned. And to be fair, there are a lot more scarves in the Morgue than there have ever been before, but they tend to only brandish the scarves during the opening march into the stadium.
I don't think I agree. The survey had the feel of something written by someone with pre-conceived notions about why general fans support the team. I think these pre-conceived notions totally missed the mark, not just on us, but also on the "average fan" who they seem to be targeting. Very little of the survey was about quality of team, or about in-game experience. The piece about supporters' groups was kind of weird. I almost got a sense that they are looking for the response about the Fort that I've heard a few times from others in the mid-field section -- "Those guys creep me out." or "oh, no they used the F word." Not my sentiment, but I've heard it three or four times over the years and I'm sure this feedback has gotten back to ticket agents.