Like someone else posted, going to PDL wouldn't work. It doesnt' solve the expense they have of traveling themselves and then paying for clubs to come there. I'm sure they aren't paying their players very much, so you don't really save money there. It's strictly a revenue / sponsorship issue with them. They aren't getting money from sources that the previously did ie Bermuda Travel and a couple of other because of the recession. I can only think of a couple PDL teams that have the attendance that you think could maybe support a USL 2 team. And none of them are located any where near other USL 2 teams. The cost of the travel just doesn't make sense for them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/s...l=1&adxnnlx=1251208969-1L4hAJBVy9CdmtFyGKZp/w If Traffic buys USL, then Miami FC will stay in the league for years to come. Maybe.
The general feeling we're getting down here is that regardless of who buys, Miami FC is in for at least next year in the "new" USL, whatever that may be. I imagine if they own the whole league they'd want a team, but that doesn't necessarily mean MFC hangs around.
5 teams in USL 1 made a profit. I'm pretty certain we can figure out 3 of them right off with 3 others that could make up those last 2.
They is the USL: they are always scouting new sites. St. Louis has decent support for the women's league. They could garner good support for a USL team. Also, youth soccer is well established in MO with alot of strong clubs producing good talent. There are some rather large tournaments in MO that are nationally ranked a well attended. All that combined creates a good fan base. That being said, the sale of the USL sends this ideas out the window. We'll have to wait and see.
Wayno, you still need group to step up and actually buy a franchise in those cities. The USL can try and cultivate potential ownership groups in markets they think are a good fit. But USL isn't going to build the franchise. However, if I had won the mega millions yesterday I would look into a USL 1 franchise. My dream is to become the AEG of USL.
May you win the Megamillions the next time!!! I like your thinking! Other threads have wild accusations that 2 separate groups out of St. Louis may exist that are interesting in buy a franchise. No idea if this is true. Hey, but let's go with it!
There's a quote floating (somewhere here on BS, I'd wager) around purported to be from a high ranking league official. It goes something like this: "When we said "X" number of teams made a profit, we didn't say it was all in the same year" wink wink nudge nudge.
A lot, but it's worth isn't in the professional divisions. I'm willing to bet Charleston made a profit.
The ones that didn't make the playoffs? Back to back trips to the USL-1 final all but bankrupted the Richmond Kickers. It's why they relegated themselves to USL-2
That's hard to do for a club drawing less than 3,000. Montreal, Portland, Vancouver would all be fine travelling as they not only draw well in their home leg, they also sell concessions like crazy.
Which should have signaled to Marcos & Holt that this country is too big for and soccer isn't popular enough to maintain national lower divisions.
No, it just signaled what happens if you over spend and don't do your budgeting correctly. Cleveland is suffering from some of the same issues.
When you're only drawing 1500 on average, it's impossible to budget for plane trips to Puerto Rico and Vancouver. Seriously, do the math: $9/ticket x 1500 x 15 games = $200,000. If you don't spent ANY money on travel or the office staff or renting a stadium and split the money evenly between only 20 players (though I see 25 on the roster on their website) that means the players are getting paid $10,000 each for their services. Sorry, but you can NOT seriously think the team could survive in USL1 on $200K a year. Everything I've seen says that USL1 teams should be running a budget of at least a half million, but more like a million.
When did I say or think anything about 200k a year or the teams survival? Ummm... not sure why you're telling me all this like I don't know it. Budgeting for a USL season includes estimating revenue which involves estimating attendance/ticket sales. The Cleveland FO underestimated their ticket sales. They also have the lowest payroll in the league I think. Even so, they failed to budget properly for this season. You forgot to include sponsorship money into your figures as well. Anyway, not quite sure why you responded the way you did to my comment.
Hell, not only did they underestimate their ticket sales but tickets are only $9? No wonder teams can't meet their payroll when tickets are dirt cheap.
That's just for the last game, I think. Outside of the $5 games, tickets were $12. I'm not positive, but I think that's how much they were.
Cheapest tickets in Vancouver are $16 and that's for seniors and youth. The cheapest tickets for adults are $18 while the highest price tickets are $35. You can't get a ticket in the grandstand (there's only one) for under $24.