I don't think anyone Is saying that the world Is ending. But a lot of people have fond memories of the crew and understand what they represent. The people in Columbus have invested time and Money in the team and Even when nothing says that they should have to, their effort Made MLS what is today. We all understand that MLS Will keep growing Even after the crew's relocation , but that doesn't make it right. Remember the Chivas days and when they announced it would finish operations, VERY different feelings and comments. At the end it Is just a game.. we don't have to support it, Even watch it, we all can move on, and we can spend our time on anything else and grow the F up as you said. But a lot of people love the game, the experience and the relationships the game create in their lives. Again, I agree with you, it Is not the end of the world by any means, and sometimes our time can be better used doing more worthwhile things like watching porn and masturbating (or helping charities , your choice ) . But it's Is still sad, ir Is not right, the timing of the announcement, the early renewals and all of the details in this story just smell very very bad. It Is sad to me because the crew was one of the first teams I followed (the others where the ones where Colombians played) ... Maybe this feelings are just memories, and in life , all things come to an end , but giving an outrageous example... how do you want your relatives to end? Old age or car crash?
I have fond memories of the Crew! It sucks. It’s sad, but I could see it was possible. Precourt wasn’t local or a soccer guy....just not shocked, that’s all. Still sad about it. We have such an uneducated soccer public it kills me. When you listen to folks who only followed for the last several years how can they have the slightest clue where we came from? We don’ have an educated, critical media and a young naive, inexperiened base. Just allows all of the manipulators to take ad of situations and allows the kids to weave fantasies. It’s a brutal situation and is a big problem. Have pointed this out for years now. When kids know more about the game than most adults, and kids have so little breadth of understanding, it makes for some real stupid dialogue. The stupidity here is astounding. I know this isn’t the place to come to when real answers are needed, but I couldn’t help but look, and it is as bad as I thought it would be. The Crew story is what really made me check, but the idiocy in general about the game here is just hard to swallow. I’m glad Claudio said what he did, then again I have had many conversations with him echoing those sentiments over the last two decades. I just might be expecting to much, but even I am appalled when I come here and see the lack of comprehension of what the game is here, and where it is historically and socially. It’s the net....I should know better, but it’s not like we have educated adults or an actual media that brings some kind of snity to it all. This is what happens when there is nio leadership or guidance. More painfull than anythng IMO. The Crew situation......sigh.
Character, of fans and owners, is revealed in the bad times and the every-days, not in the honeymoon nor the good times.
Relegation, whether on the field in most of the rest of the world, or in the financial markets like MLS is pretty brutal for the fans of the relegated club. Unless the club was punching way above its weight, the cause is almost invariably poor ownership. Per the OP, the sky is not falling and great success rarely comes without problems. If I were a Crew fan - I'd enjoy the playoff run for as long as it goes and hope something magical happens and the team wins a championship, then prepare to build a better community team in the USL. Once the season ends, I'd tell MLS sell to a local group or get out of town. I'd get some local lawyers to file some motions in a local court,s to allow all season ticket holder and sponsors to cancel any and all of their deals with the club based on fraud/breach of contract/whatever would work and encourage all those people to put that money aside for a new USL team. The competition level won't be MLS level but then again MLS is not champions league yet is still fun to go out and support your local teams and league. Similarly I'd demand MLS cede all intellectual property rights of the team as compensation for bad faith negotiating. Precourt and the league would lose all negotiating leverage in Austin and a Chivas like empty stadium would be a big downer in all the leagues happy expansion talks. While its not likely MLS and Precourt might suddenly want to sell to a local investor group after all, it would allow fans to go out their terms and potentially build a better and more vibrant soccer community behind local leaders who are driven by more of a sense of community than a quick buck. It would also give MLS and any ownership group a lot of second thoughts about trying to do the same. Some pie in the sky stuff for sure, but IMO it is more productive spending time considering ways of making the best of the situation than the often nonsensical hand wringing I've been reading. BTW - Reyna is dead on about youth coaching. I've been arguing for some time, The leadership in our youth programs, especially the YNT are really poor. I tried for close to a decade to make a difference but found it to be largely intractable. Now maybe this simply represents a lack of ambition and capability on my part, but once what I saw was a lot people with of limited ability primarily focused on keeping their place at the table and getting a little bigger slice of the pie.
Because of the barrage of negative USMNT/MLS/USSF-related headlines over the past week, I've been feeling a lot of disillusionment toward American soccer, wondering if the sport has stagnated or been set back 20 years, to the point where it bums me out to even scroll through the newsfeed for USMNT/MLS stories. I needed this post to lift my morale out of the gutter a little bit.
Congrats on your epiphany. I guess you can redirect your time and emotional energy by now moving on from things like fanhood message boards. Good luck to you.
OK, you've changed my mind. I remain optimistic about the long-term trend with US Soccer and MLS for all the reasons I stated in my original post, but I understand the resentment of the Columbus Crew move. MLS is allowing an owner to give up too easily on a club that helped build the league. If a re-boot can be accomplished in KC, why not Columbus? A big part of my affection for MLS is the connection between a club and its fans. It's more like a college sports relationship than pro sports and I really would like to see MLS strive to be the exception rather than just another US pro league. Although the financial realities cannot be ignored, it shouldn't become the only decision-making criteria either. So, no more 'this is just how business works' arguments from me. Meanwhile, let me reiterate that the vast majority of newbie Atlanta United fans, like me, are VERY aware of how fleeting this can be. We've already lost two NHL teams and we've seen the profound difference that ownership can make. When a deep-pocketed and highly-committed local owner buys your team, like Ted Turner or Arthur Blank, you're blessed. When some out-of-town business man, corporate entity, or ownership group buys the team, you're generally screwed. We've seen both sides of that and don't take it for granted AT ALL. In our town, the Ted Turner and Arthur Blank eras have unfortunately been the rare exception, not the rule. I wish the success and stability of a franchise wasn't so dependent upon its ownership, but it is and MLS should therefore be more careful and selective about sanctioning purchases like the one Anthony Precourt made in 2013 or the move he's trying to make now.
The lack of education is mostly limited to the non-soccer fans though. Yes, there is a general lack of appreciation for the game among the general public or mainstream sports media. But the people that follow soccer have a level of passion and knowledge that is hard to find anywhere else. The soccer sports articles and blogs I read, the radio shows on Sirrius FC, the level of discourse on a message board like this one, or even just the casual conversations I have with other soccer fans are light years beyond the level of intelligence you will encounter with almost any other sport. Because the game is growing, there will inevitably be a lot of new fans that haven't been following it for decades. But the ones that embrace it for more than just a couple USMNT watch parties every 4 years tend to come with a thirst for knowledge, an appreciation of the game itself, and an affection for the culture that sets it apart from other sports. Isn't that exactly what we want? And I'll close with this. Many "newbies" like myself aren't really newbies. We played the game, we have kids, friends and neighbors that play the game, we serve as officers for youth soccer clubs, we've been watching and following MLS, the USMNT, EPL or other European leagues, UCL, World Cup, our college teams, and/or lower-division teams in USL, NASL, NPSL for years. We just didn't happen to have our own MLS team until now. Can we express ourselves upon officially joining the MLS family, or is there some kind of 10-year waiting period and competency exam we need to pass first? (joking, not trying to be overly sarcastic)
Nobody ever seems to want to give Lockhart Stadium any respect. It was every bit the ideal MLS type of SSS during the Fusion's brief existence.
Cincinnati is just the "new hotness". They're not the first. Most haven't kept up the pace. Cincy to Columbus is an oranges to tangelos comparison.
Zoidberg can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he was talking less about soccer knowledge but rather the lack of knowledge about what it took and takes to have soccer be successful in this country. For that matter, he is also talking about the fact that the strides that soccer has taken in this country are taken for granted by people who don't understand soccer's difficult history in this country. Furthermore, he laments that because there are so few people out there, relatively speaking, that understand this based on a lifetime of experience with it, that the younger generation will listen to anybody who claims that they know better.
That's a romanticized straw man argument. American pro sports teams generally don't have to make large profits - or profits of any kind. They're toys that feed the ego of very rich men for the most part. Income in both "European teams" and American sports teams is basically just plowed back into player payroll. It's a difference without a distinction. If the balance becomes out of whack or the financial fortunes of the team owner take an unexpected reversal, then there is usually a huge negative impact on the team - regardless of location in the world.
You keep picking one bad example after another. OnGoal and SKC have yet to break even. If they had built Sporting Park for $100 million instead of $200 million in 2010/11 dollars, they would probably be breaking even without a seven season long string of sellouts, but they're servicing a lot of debt - because the owners fell in love with the team and wanted the best stadium.
Regurgitating talking points isn't particularly novel or insightful. Or helpful. You say this like it's true. You're going to have to show your work. And "not losing your shirt" is not the same thing as "profit"
One thing we should all start with is to stop calling these people "Owners." We have to get that out of our heads, and theirs. They are Stewards.
Wishing and hoping isn't reality. They're owners whether we want them to be, or they choose to be, stewards or not.
Would have also accepted patron. Or proprietor. Overlord? You can always tell how important something is by how many synonyms it has.
I'm glad that you have come around on this one point. In MLS and most American professional sports you are at the mercy of the generosity or the desire to have a winner of your local billionaire. Most of them not even local. I will also concede that soccer in the USA as grown quite a bit in the last two decades. I'd be a fool not to.
NASL Redux. It’s the 1980s y’all https://t.co/pdgYabJS16— Michael Gemballa (@MichaelGemballa) October 18, 2017 It's the 1980s all over again. The death of club soccer :-(