Low ticket sales hurt the team directly in most leagues. The bigger the gate revenue, the better the players can be acquired.
The NFL is successful because of the large number of tickets sold. The packed stadiums create a fantastic game day atmosphere that became a huge TV hit. I don't think owners should depend upon massive tv deals in the future because the number of viewers is shrinking dramatically. They should do everything they can to maintain an exciting game day experience.
You can skim this as well............but basic math skills say 323,361 paid attendance x no less than $25 a ticket = no less than $8 million revenue from tickets alone (plus merch, concessions, sponsors, tv....) That's revenue nearly double payroll. Taxes come out, of course. The issues are (a) we seem to be run as a self-contained business, the owners don't seem to throw in money to win (like say Cuban) and (b) we are presumably paying down some mix of stadium debt and/or debt related to the ownership transactions (buying out AEG, buying in Brener, etc.). I also keep asking how much rent we are paying for an 80% capital contribution to the stadium. I remember it being a little obnoxious. I think the Chargers are playing for $1 as tenants in LA (once stadium finished) so meh to that theoretical. I am sure that they make plenty of money off jerseys and tv and such, fair enough. But they went from haggling over who pays what % in SD to someone else builds the stadium private cost and they slide right in.
I think I remember reading 2 seasons ago that the Houston Dynamo and Houston Dynamo Stadium were no longer two separate entities, so I'm not sure there is rent any longer. Of course I'm subject to being wrong. It could be that CC took over control of both.
I thought Harris county got the title and we pay them rent. I know someone posted a lease at the time. And I thought it was a lot relative to capital. We put a lot in relative to other teams. In exchange I thought HD became operator and can do stadium sponsorship/ naming rights, vendor deals, schedule other things when we're not playing.
Wikipedia says sports authority owns stadium. Hcad has city as land owner at the address. In either event we're tenant.
MLS teams keep 2/3 of local ticket revenue (1/3 goes into a shared pot) and 100% of all local sponsorship and jersey sponsorship revenue. On local tv money, I think the teams keep all but only maybe 6-7 teams actually get a rights fee paid to them. Ticket sales are important but I've felt since the BBVA was built that the FO finds it easier to try and sell 1 or 2 $500k sponsorships a year than actually provide a quality product or stadium experience to attract more fans since they have to share 1/3 of that revenue AND there is an incremental cost to running the stadium and staffing it adequately
The rent is very minimal to the county - think the biggest thing is putting money in a fund every year for capital repairs and improvements maybe $125,000 a year it's not a bad deal at all. The lease is between Dynamo Stadium LLC and the county sports authority and the team (Dynamo Soccer LLC although I think they changed it to Forever Orange LLC after Brener bought it from AEG) has a lease with the stadium company but since they're all owned by the same parties it doesn't really matter what that figure is.
I had two main reasons for not renewing. The main one was that the product on the field was getting worse, not better. The second was that my family had so much going on on weekends that we missed just about every match after July. That isn't going to change much. I'll probably be back down the road but not in the near future. Will still be supporting the club though and watching on TV from time to time.
Oh. And I'm tired of this team allowing itself to be run roughshod over by Garber and the MLS brass when it comes to DP allocations and accommodations made for other teams. Other teams get Drogba. Other teams get Giovinco. Other teams get Villa. Other teams get THREE name DP's (as well as DPs that can help the club win.) We get f$%k all.
We are free to sign any DP in the entire world sans: 1. the few that are part of the allocated player pool; and 2. any player that another team has already put a discovery tag on as we would have to negotiate a deal with that team for his rights. But other than that, we are free to sign any player in the entirety of the world of soccer with the exception of maybe 50-60 or so. The fact that other teams have Drogba, Giovinco, Villa, and we get F$&% all - has nothing to do with Garber and MLS brass anymore. That argument ended when AEG sold it's stake in the Dynamo. Now it is solely, 100% on the ownership group and front office.
We're #1 in allocation now, so hopefully we'll see how this plays out. I imagine some new rule gets created before the MLS forces a big name player to play in Houston.
Incorrect. Why? Because certain players want to come to MLS ONLY if they can play for certain clubs. MLS will accommodate those players to make sure they get them here. That means that NY, LA, etc... will ALWAYS be the preferred destinations. MLS and Garber are involved to make that happen whether you'd like to think so or not. And getting out from AEG's ownership, while in theory made sense, has done nothing to bring a top drawer/name DP to Houston. For once, I'd like to see MLS tell one or two of these players, "Not gonna happen, you're either in Salt Lake or you're not playing here because that's where the allocation is." Imagine Ronaldo says he wants to finish in MLS. Colorado Rapids are at the top of the list and Ronaldo says nope. So MLS passes on their chance to get Ronaldo because he only wants to play in NY or LA? I know you know what the rules say. What's less apparent is where you know where certain teams in MLS fall in the order of things. So when you say "we're free to sign any player in the entirety of the soccer world" you know that not entirely true now right? And that means it's not 100% on the ownership group and front office now is it?
Both sides are right, except with respect to Dempsey. His brother disclosed that he wanted to come to Houston explicitly, only to be told by MLS that was not an option. Seattle was not the only option, and I can't remember off the top of my head who else was, though I am certain Houston was a no-go despite his request. "Maneuvers" were made to make Seattle his new home.
Correct. I can confirm this now that you mentioned his brother. I was asked not to but since you have, well there it is. Clint WANTED to finish his playing career here in Houston Texas U.S.A. This was not allowed as Dom did not want a single player earning so much money compared to the rest of the guys on the team. Even though a player like Dempsey, who is among the 23 men in the history of the beautiful game to have ever scored in 3 consecuative World Cups, such a footballer from Texas, wanting to return to Texas and play for an MLS team in Texas, Dom axed this purchase of Dempsey from Spurs.
I assume that either, (a) the league says Blah Blah is coming and preliminary discussions suggest a $Zillion salary demand, and we balk at an early stage of the bidding or (b) if they do follow the discovery claims process, we're not burning a bunch of our discovery claims -- or maybe any -- on players we won't pay enough to acquire. The league signs the players but we have to cover paychecks. Even if we were in a position to bid on these players we probably bail for lack of finances. This is not complicated. This is no longer you sign a MLS deal and they assign you, with the technicalities are finessed to stack certain teams. This is, if you either have discovery claim and are willing to pay, or outbid, you get the guy. If Colorado is willing to pay Howard wages, they don't care if Colorado is unsung. If TFC is suddenly willing to slap down cash their roster fills with talent, and the crap team becomes good. You want to compete in this league in some way other than trying to be sharp eyes for unknown talent or great coached, get out your pocketbook and start slapping bills down.
I can't quite tell if this is claiming the "picks destination" theory is true or not or dooms us or not. This suggests at least some players have us on their list if not on top. It could also support the "picks destination" theory in general, but if some pick us then it's not the general screw job being claimed. Y'all've muddled your own arguments. If we were offered Dempsey and didn't take him, that's our problem, not MLS'. And it in fact looked to me like for years we in fact pursued a policy of keeping all salaries down and similar, which may mean that Kinnear in his era played as much a role as anything else in why we didn't Go Big. I had a feeling this is why DeRo left when he did. He wanted to blow the controlled low salary thing up. That also would not explain post Kinnear FWIW. Even if we're past that we are still pretty cheap for the league. But we have become a team that will, for good or ill, give Barnes a huge raise.
We probably wouldn't have ponied up the money but most of my memory of this is @troutseth trying to argue MLS actually followed its signing and allocation rules when clearly the process was contorted to get Dempsey to Seattle or LA. Grant Wahl had an article just a few days later where anonymous GMs were quotes saying they never had a shot or were never informed Dempsey was available although they were ahead of Seattle in the allocation order. I can't believe that he thought MLS actually followed its rules back then because they bent them constantly or made up new ones as the went along.
And? Convince the player they are wrong and they should consider Houston, the 4th largest city in the US. Court them over extended years. It's what Seattle did with Lodeiro. It's what LA did with Beckham. All you have to do is look at how they do business now. Loan to buy deals. They are and have always been horrifically cheap. The only real money they've spent in their existence was on Cubo. MLS shouldn't force any player to any team. Be a big boy and go and sign a superstar. Want to convince a player of Giovinco's status to come to Houston - get out your checkbook. Worked for Toronto and worked for Orlando City with Kaka. Coffee is for closers.
I agree with everything except the scenario where MLS kicks dollars in as a league to get a player and and then funnels him to a certain team - that's putting your hands on the scales. Garber claims those days are over.
You and Celt could be right, as I have heard this explanation before. However, I also understood that was just an excuse to cover up how embarrassing it was that we were passed over. Either way, it was a hugely embarrassing point in Dynamo history, regardless of which version of the story is correct. Which is better - getting passed over by the league or having a management stuck in MLS 1.0 mentality? I'm just sorry for bringing it up again.
I don't totally disagree with Dom's thoughts on worrying about that salary disparity but from an ownership and front office perspective the Dynamo would've had one of the most marketable US soccer stars in it's market for a number of years which would have relieved them from trying to sell a bunch of loaned Honduran players as superstars ("Quito and Elis are so big in their country they can't even go to the bathroom in San Pedro Sula!!!")