Your Dynamo Allegiance in 2017

You shouldn't shut up -- but you should also support. That is my view.

I'm reducing my support from premium President's Club to a regular club tickets. I'll reduce from 6 to 4. (Not all premium -- I currently have two in PC and two on each end. I'll drop one end and move the PC to regular club.)

I'm doing it partly because I think Brener is a horrible, egotistical, second rate owner. But I also have personal reasons to reduce my financial commitment. If not for that I'd probably stay at the same level I have now.

I told you guys who were all whining over AEG you didn't know how good we had it. I think I'm being proven right -- but I hope that I'm wrong. I hope Chivas CA works -- but this whole "Hispanic team first" thing didn't work in LA.

I will support this team as long as I'm able to come win or los. What I expect is for the damn GM to held accountable for results rather than just blaming whatever coach is around. The whole structure right now has no accountability -- and that is on Canetti.

I do wish the supporters Alliance in Houston had worked and we had built some real presence and leverage with the team ..... but there ya go.

 

You bring up a valid issue. I won't root for another MLS team. It's a tough one to logically debate because most people break it down to the emotional level of the Orange Kool-Aid drinkers as in "you're a hater if you don't bleed orange".

I myself, like you, did not renew for 2017. This is after being a STH since nearly day one (not the pick a seat day in February in 2006 but a week after that) and giving thousands of dollars to this club in those 11 years and keeping between 2-4 seats for every season. And I've yet to get a follow-up call since not renewing. It's like they don't care they lost a paying customer, there's an endless supply of new ones (which is not realistic). I suspect they aren't trying to win back my business because they know my concerns are accurate and they have no intention of doing anything to resolve them. And for the record, I was not one to complain often at all, probably like once every 2 years.

Something changed when the Dynamo moved into the new stadium which changed the fan-team relationship. It's always been a business and they need to run it financially responsible but it seems goal one is revenue generation and everything else is secondary, including winning and customer service. And they had never contemplated a scenario where they would struggle to fill the new stadium in a tepid economy with a crappy team. They literally (and figuratively) had no plan for the last two years and it shows in the decision-making on the field and off the field.

I think they thought the stadium would sell itself and they got the CSN TV deal and they took their foot off the gas and never got the acceleration back after 2013. And in the process they treated some of the non-corporate ticket holders as less than valued.

The supporters groups at the end of the year were woeful (that's not an insult, just an observation of the stands). The last 3 years have killed interest in the team.

I've always been a "hater" to some on here because the FO excessively tries to sell a load of BS that they know isn't true and they aren't even good at it and I call it out. Those radio interviews with Canetti and Jordan this summer were awful and they came across as delusional. The orchestrated FO group tweets from the in-house Zig Zigler they hired are silly. Claiming they "share the airwaves" with the Texans on 610 when the games are on an AM station (650) that literally shuts their signal off at sunset and makes you listen on an iPhone app? Absurd!!!

Will I root against the Dynamo? No. Will I care as much? Probably not. Oh, I'll still be on here and follow folks on twitter but it will be more of an Astros fandom - watch them, pay attention, go if they are good but not going all in with investing STH dollars in this group. And not buying the black jersey that's never in stock.

There's a new standard coming in MLS as it gets to 24-28 teams - successful teams are going to have to spend over the cap/budget with ownership money at risk or they have to build internally thru academies and scouting and the Dynamo are a) not likely to spend big and b) woefully behind in the academy (still trying to claim Tyler Deric as a product is funny considering he came up thru another local club and a season at UNC). Just look at 2017, its a band-aid year with loans, TAM money on loan guys, free transfers from Central American clubs who have financial problems.

Ultimately, does Brener care about this or is he fine with taking his chances at the 6th seed in the West every year?

 

No season tickets this year for me, but I don't care about the FO. I ignore them as much as possible, and will continue to watch every Dynamo game on MLS Live or TV, and will buy a single ticket for the home opener. The Dynamo despite their set backs are the best soccer team in Houston, and I'm a homer.

 

I'll go to games here and there, but I didn't renew. I think this project is a big wait and see one. The F.O. has consistently admitted to have a "small club" mentality. I remember when we used to believe we could beat the big clubs in the league consistently. I'm waiting for this organization to believe it can be great again. I don't see enough signs of it yet. The lone good thing they are doing this offseason is admitting that they aren't good enough. Its about time.

 

It'd be nice to give them credit for admitting that the team isn't good enough (AKA "the status quo is unacceptable") but that's after 1.5 season of telling the fans that they weren't rebuilding but just "reloading" - implying they were lying to the fans or such poor talent evaluators they didn't realize what they had on the roster needed to be greatly improved upon.

 

DonJuego has me on ignore so he won't see this but I did have the thought cross my mind that beyond just the soccer field ability that somehow someone got the idea to try and build a team focused on a Central American fanbase (which is a losing proposition all around considering how strongly some countries hate each other) to appeal to the Spanish language TV channels since there seems to be a decent chance the Dynamo will struggle to get much English-language TV coverage this year.

Look at the roster - pretty good chance that this team will have a small number of American players on the roster.

 

I actually believe it's more the latter. They hired the wrong manager was the biggest mistake in my mind.

 

It's all about the product on the field. The last few years have gone from bad to worse. Players that don't put in an honest 90 minutes and coaches that can't put together a team that can compete. The games are not fun. The team can't win. I can invest the time required to watch on tv but the idea of driving, parking, watching paint dry, and going home isn't there.

Two years ago I was in town for a game. As I was driving towards the stadium I realized that I didn't want to go to the game. I went anyway and we beat LA. I gave the rest of my tickets to Brad's Brigade after that.

Wake me up when we're going to be serious about putting a winning team on the field. I don't care if they are cheap young players or over the hill Euro wannabes. I want a team that makes winning every game a priority. Until then I'll stand by a cheer or yell at the tv.

 

You know that I did not renew after being a STH every year since I returned to Houston from overseas. Part of it was financially motivated, but the big part is discontent with the direction of the team (I can see no clear direction). Instead of being something I looked forward to doing, heading out to games last year became a chore. I began looking for excuses not to go.

Also found myself actively rooting against the team in the hopes of a big shakeup. I don't wish ill on anyone and on a personal level I like all the people I know involved in the organization, but sometimes you need massive change to breathe a little life into an org. I send my message of what I want by not buying tickets. I'll still go to some games, but only buying existing tickets from other ticketholders, not by giving new dollars to the team.

 

I will continue to attend every Dynamo game that I can. And I will watch every game that I do not attend. I will continue to support the Dynamo and hope, even against all reason, for wins.

That is not a statement for or against the FO. Or anyone else. Others may obviously do as they wish. I have chosen my path.

 

This is almost exactly my story too. I didn't buy season tickets until about 2009 as my job at the time had me constantly traveling until then.

One exception, I live within walking distance of BBVA, well until yesterday anyway, so driving and parking was never an issue for me. I think we just stopped going altogether in July. I couldn't give my tickets away.

 

Of the last 7-8 home games I think I went to 3. Interest for me waned and the product wasn't very good on the field or off. That San Jose home game was awful and the atmosphere at the stadium was dead (not to mention 40% of tickets sold no-showed). By the NYCFC game it was clear the team was understaffing the stadium as well.

What I found unseemly was members of the FO and ticket staff implying that if you don't keep renewing and buying tickets as a customer you are part of the problem. Sorry, but I thought the way it worked was to put out a quality product and attract customers by incentive not extortion.

 

I'm apparently an anomaly here. Part of it is the fact that I was locked into renewing this year. The other part is that in the land of my birth you blindly support, suffering through the bad times and rejoicing through the good. That's old school (50's and 60's).

All of that being said, I will be seriously reconsidering my financial support if things do not improve this season and I'm not really optimistic. One of the buzzwords last year was reclaiming an identity, but it seems to me that the identity of this team may very well be turning into a ChivasUSA version II.

I'm not convinced that what is destined to be a predominantly Spanish speaking locker room is the way to go with this team, but if it is intended to be the Houston version of F.C. Dallas then they'd better can the ra ra video they show during warm ups that depict the team that moved here from San Jose.

I really had hoped that with a majority ownership there would be an infusion of owner $$$, but it seems that we are now doing the equivalent of that derivative thingie by using TAM, AM or other versions of the innovative financing this league seems to come up with. Anything but spend the owners money. Perhaps this is just a loss leader for our ownerships other endeavors.

As more teams come into MLS with ownership groups willing to spend what it takes, we are destined to be at the bottom of the heap and I don't have too much hope that things will change. A goal of making the playoffs is not good enough - the goal should be to field a team that can entertain and win the MLS Cup, and this hasn't happened since 2012. The days when you could be down 1 at the 90th minutes and the team scrapped and fought to the final whistle have been replaced in recent years by being up 1 or even at the 90th and sitting there with your sphincter so tight that you could turn a lump of coal into a diamond because you were positive someone in the team would F it up.

 

We weren't locked, but there is a deadline you must adhere to if you want to discontinue. We chose to continue. From one perspective, we have great seats that the family enjoys and we hate to give them up. 2) if these guys can turn it around, we want to be part of it, 3) my son is motivated to try to become a Dynamo player not because he's impressed by what he see's, but he wants to help them win (take this with a grain of salt, he's 5 yr) 4) it's still the most affordable way to participate in Houston pro sports.

I could list the negatives, but it's too depressing and I try not to dwell on that once I've already spent my money. Doesn't mean we won't change our minds next year.

 

We don't have the near the academy and homegrown pipeline they have. That's a big lost story in all of this about the Dynamo 1st team is that the academy isn't producing contributors at all.

FCD is getting real contributions from homegrown players while Matt Jordan is on Glenn Davis' radio show talking about our U-12s competing well over in Barcelona like I give a crap about what's going to happen in 2023

 

I felt this way going into 2016. Intellectually I knew better but felt some loyalty to renew. After sitting thru another poor and bland season and only being successful on 25% of my attempts to buy Menchies frozen yogurt due to the machine being broken I decided not to renew .

Your position is fine and reasonable

 

It doesn't appear as if this ownership group is willing to spend anything over what the League gives us. Cubo Torres they are paying over his cap hit. We have 3 non-capped salary slots being used - Cubo, Manotas, and Elis. On the last two they could probably be bought down to add a fourth DP but that might require real cash

 

No season tickets for me. I was not impressed at all with my STH contact in the FO. After the TFC game was canceled due to rain and I sat there at the stadium for all those hours waiting for them to make the call, he gave an option to have those tickets rolled over to another game. After calls and emails, this never happened.

But aside from that, I agree the games have been super boring to watch. I hope the new players and coach change that but I am not optimistic if we are still looking at playing one striker up top. I will go to a couple games but that is all. I was semi optimistic when AEG left and Brenner took over. But it looks like he is all talk when it comes to spending money on players. It is frustrating to watch teams like Atlanta come in and make serious moves in hopes of succeeding. The Dynamo are stuck in MLS 2.0 maybe 1.0. The FO got very lucky when they got a super talented San Jose team and never had to build from the ground up. They assumed they were doing everything right and no changes were needed. Now they watch as the league evolves around them and they stick to the same old ideas.

I love the new stadium but it gave them tons of new business partnerships so now they don't care at all about the fans because they are too busy keeping corporations happy since that is the big buck. And as much as I love the stadium, I haven't had nearly as much fun at games as I did at Robertson.

 

I'd rep the whole post 100 times but the last point is accurate. Team has to share ticket revenues with the league but local sponsorship revenue they keep 100% so ticket sales to individuals are like second-class revenues to them.

 

I bet this team can't get through a fair card game of Uno this season. All of the green cards will be missing.

 

I have a lot of similar feelings to everyone else.

I am a soccer fanatic so that explains still having interest despite a poor organization and product on the field, I would have dropped tickets but went on vacation and missed the deadline. I will certainly drop the tickets next summer if I don't see improvement.

The organizational decline started when we lost Oliver Luck. The team decline began with Dom Kinnear. Things accelerated downward quickly with the decision to hire Owen Coyle and spend significant money on an extremely overvalued Mexican national team fringe player. I feel the purchase by the Brener group has placed us in a death spiral unless they somehow start to become willing to accept a riskier / bolder vision for the furture of the club and change the strategic long term plan and the management of the organization.

I still will support the team and complain when I see problems but I will only go to half the games until watching the team becomes enjoyable and hopeful again.

I still wear Dynamo gear but not as frequently because a lot of fans look at you as a homer now.

 

Brener by himself, not convinced he would spend much money. However, he brought in two new owners along with him that definitely don't have the pocketbook to spend money beyond their initial investment. They are guys who want to own a sports franchise for the novelty aspect and "prestige" but not to invest back in it. De La Hoya, similarly, is unlikely to invest money in the team. Puts the team in a position of having to self fund, which isn't a bad thing except that so many other teams are investing beyond what the team can earn in the near-term.