Dont attack the messenger. just reporting on some hatin going on by some soccer guys on GolTV. They also said Seattle was like Miami because they only support front runner teams so if that makes you feel any better they knocked on Miami as well.
If it's not an option that is palatable then it really isn't an option now is it? MLS isn't making you build a stadium. They are not making St. Louis build a stadium. Both cities ownership groups feel they NEED to in order to make a franchise work. There is a difference.
Miami does not get a fair shake from pundits because most of them are dumb. I like making fun of their empty stadiums and arenas as much as the next guy but every major league team in Miami has posted quite impressive TV numbers. The Dolphins still (still!) sell 70k tickets per game despite being, at best, mediocre and, at worst, horrible for the last decade.
Philly and St. Louis both have NFL stadiums that they could play in, but it was MLS that set the rules that an expansion club need to 1. have a SSS in place already or 2. Have a plan in place to build one with in two years of the expansion. What bothers most people is that Seattle don't have such a plan and yet they are being granted expansion over Philly and St. Louis that have such plans. Seattle will always be in the path of haters, just as long as they don't have a stadium plan. The reason is due to the fact they will always be competing with other expansion cities that have plans and are following the rules set by MLS in the first place. I guess the best time for Seattle to join would be in 2008 with San Jose and leave 2009 to Philly and St. Louis.
You are aware that some of your statements are baseless, I live here and you are totally wrong. The Heat sell well and has a better NBA team than Seattle and we did win the championship in 2006 and a nice arena on the bay in downtown Miami. As for the Dolphins, they are going through difficult times, but what NFL team don't? You say we were bad or in your words "horrible" for the last decade, yet your team that joined the league in 1977, just started winning a few years ago. The Marlins are in a political battle over a stadium of their own and the atmosphere in Dolphin stadium is horrible in mid summer for baseball with out a roof. But with all that they did win the World Series in 1997 and 2003, how about your baseball team? Do your home work about Miami before you talk sh*t and make yourself look dumb!
Umm...I don't think he was talking shit at all. From how I read it, the only team he was talking about having an empty arena was Miami FC. But maybe I read too much into his comments. Sounded complimentary to me, quite frankly.
The t.v. rating statement was as you say complimentary I guess, to me it says the Miami fans stay home and watch or support their sports teams and that's not true. As for the Miami Fusion soccer team, you may know or may not know that is wasn't the lack of fans that killed this club. The owner didn't have enough money to keep the club going, he never spent much money to market the team well and no one down here really knew that there were a pro soccer team in the area until the last few years of the club. The owner ran out of money to further support the club, and folded the team in 2001. The last two year before the club folded the attendence was between 14 to 16,000, much better attendence than say Kansas City and yet the club folded in 2001 after having the league best single season record in leagues history. The public was led to believe it was about attendence, but it was really more about money or the lack of it to run a MLS club. But the league couldn't put a owner/investor - partner out there in the spotlight like that, so the attendence was used to skapegoat the situation and take the spotlight off the owners problems. Why fold the Miami club for attendence and also fold the Kansas City club for the same reason in 2001? (LH, big bucks, that is why)! So that is why I replyed the way I did to that posting and the fact he called folks here dumb!
Wow, I was defending Miami as a sports market that doesn't just support front-runners (see Finny's "message" from GolTV) by pointing out that even if the stadiums are apparently empty people still follow teams and you pop off with this garbage. And that even though they're bad now, they're only what 5k less than capacity at Dolphin Stadium despite a record since '04 of 19-34-0. I bet even Miami FC would get good TV numbers for a minor league team. Be less shrill, plz.
I wasn't talking the Fusion, I was talking Miami FC (the USL side). That's all. Again, it seemed pretty laudatory to the Miami sports market in general to me.
Hey if I am wrong I'll be the first to say sorry, I am not understanding something here and maybe you can help clear it up. You said "Miami does not get a fair shake from pundits because most of them are dumb" who is dumb? The people from Miami or the pundits? That's what set me off, if that's not what you ment, I am sorry, I misunderstood. I just replyed to the thread to explain why people are hating, I for one support a Seattle expansion or any expansion in the league for that matter. People are just upset because the expansion is not with in the rules set by the league, I don't think people hate Seattle expanding to the league, they just don't like the way it being done by the league.
People keep saying "rules" when it comes to SSS. There is no specific rule regarding stadiums. Preferences, yes, but rules NO. I think that is one of the biggest misinterpretations of people posting about expansion. Show me a "RULE", as in part of the MLS by laws etc. Statements are not rules.
I guess what it is with both Seattle and Miami, is that people only speak on what they hear from others with out really knowing all the facts. People say since the Fusion thing, Miami is a bad sports town and in some ways now a days I hear the same about Seattle. These arguments are baseless and unfounded at times, yet people speak as if it's the law. The pundits ask, can Beckham save the MLS? No one in MLS ever said the league needs saving, and the single structure insure that. We'll never stop the pundits from their views, but if given the chance, I love to prove them wrong all the time. Seattle can do so and I hope to god you guys do, I just hope the fans come out and support like in Toronto. Thats the only way to shut up all the pundits!
Philly and St. Louis may have stadiums they can play in, but, would they be rent free? Seattle does have a stadium plan, it's just not the one preferred by BigSoccer.
It's not just BigSoccer, it's way beyond that! Fans in other MLS cities, future expansion cities new ownership groups, media, some MLS executives and current owner/investor groups members... For the other post, "rules" = requirements set by the league offices on future expansion in 2004. This is the reason for Real Salt Lake's new stadium in Sandy, Utah opening in 2008 and Chivas made a deal with HDC and the Galaxy and don't forget Toronto at BMO field in their first MLS season.
You STILL haven't shown where it says, in black and white, no SSS plan, no team. Why? Because you can't, it doesn't exist. Preference? Yes. Requirement? NO! And, just for the record, we ALREADY built one! We were promised, PROMISED, an MLS franchise if we approved the building of Qwest Field. And that was BEFORE Don Garber, and BEFORE all of this "SSS" talk got started.
I had the same post all written but figured it was wasted effort. Thanks for picking up the torch. There is so much denial about this issue that it is just amazing. Then you watch a game at an SSS and there are the football lines that everybody bitches about being at those LARGE NFL stadiums. The whole SSS issue is a big joke. I would even venture to guess that the "facts" that teams with these stadiums are in the black. You couldn't trust MLS attendance numbers, and I still don't, so who's to say the financial figures are real. I think it's a ploy for communities to feel invested in MLS. Well, Seattle invested in MLS several years ago...... now we want the team.
The BigSoccer remark was done tongue in cheek. It all comes down to money. Real Salt Lake is building an SSS becasue they cannot be profitable playing in that college stadium. Hanauer and Co. apparently have convinced MLS that they can be profitable playing at Qwest. Pretty simple. And stop with this "rules" nonsense. MLS will do whatever it damn pleases.
2005: Chivas USA was admitted to the league before they had even picked a city, much less a stadium. In fact, there was a very real possibility they could have played in 71,000-seat Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego! It was Vergara & Cue that picked the HDC, not MLS. 2005: Real Salt Lake. They were admitted to the league before discussions had even begun about a new SSS. They did have intentions to eventually build one, but hadn't even started thinking up plans yet, much less had any discussion with local governments. Definitely not guaranteed. 2007: Toronto FC. The stadium came about because the CSA wanted to build a new stadium for the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The stadium worked well for MLS, & MLS worked well for getting the stadium built (after the Argos & York U. had backed out), so the deal was done. 2008: San Jose. Obviously they have plans to build an SSS, but the team was awarded long before any agreements have been reached. It still a long way from being approved. If MLS has "regulations" that you must build an SSS before you can have a team, they sure are flexible about them!
First understand, I support Seattle expansion. I am addressing the argument of why the hate, you all feel people have hate for Seattle joining the league and I am telling you it's not hate towards Seattle, it's more that people feels that Seattle didn't meet the requirement that everyone else had to meet to get an expansion club. Addressing the proof you need to see from MLS, this is what I found, it's a statement from the league regarding Toronto's expansion. Go to the very botton and you;;ll see what the league said about the requirements of expansion. " Major League Soccer's major requirements for expansion include a dedicated ownership group, stadium plan and an expansion fee. Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake -- MLS expansion teams in 2005 -- reportedly paid $10 million for the right to join the league, and Garber said that the fee for a team in Toronto would be slightly more than that figure. Oct. 31 has been set as a firm deadline to reach an agreement to expand to Toronto for 2007. Should that deadline not be met, Garber stated that the deal would be taken off the table. No formal announcements have been made about a timeline for the second proposed expansion team in 2007." http://web.mlsnet.com/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20051011&content_id=45504&vkey=news_mls&fext=.jsp
They never said you must build a SSS first. They said you must have a two year plan or have an SSS in place for expansion along with being a good ownership group ("do to the Miami experence") that's my feeling, and having the required membership fee.
"...stadium plan." Read SSS into that if you must, but it could just as likely mean a long-term plan for viability in a given stadium that already exists. Most Seattle people have talked this issue to death. You could try starting another such thread in the main forums.
Ding, ding, ding! Winner, winner. With free rent, shares of the concessions, parking, etc, and the FO being part of the Seahawks FO, how could a team NOT be financially viable? And I ask, once again, when are the mods going to do as they promised, and deal with all these Seattle haters?