Great article. I absolutely love Roth's quote here. An owner who understands how to grow his investment. Deeply disappointed by Seattle's playoff loss to Los Angeles last year, Roth had vowed to increase his team's spending on players this year, and he has now done that. But he also wants other MLS owners to step up to the plate. At one Board of Governors meeting, he told his brethren that someone needs to sign Mexican star Javier (Chicharito) Hernández sooner rather than later. "I did," Roth said. "Listen, our [national] television ratings are not good. And any observer of any sport in this country knows television drives the ratings. The only two things that can drive the ratings are overall better play and star power. If you can get both, then our ratings will go up. It's not the networks' fault. They've gotta have something to sell. And I think this signing will be helpful to everybody in the league." Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/news/20130805/clint-dempsey-seattle-sounders-mls/#ixzz2b7USNRV4
That quote is even more interesting since we know LA tried pretty hard to get Dos Santos this year, and while not Hernandez, that would have been huge on its own.
Like a lot of you, this makes me queasy. I don't blame Clint at all--I thought he'd eventually come back to MLS with one of the Texas teams, and I cringed at the idea of him in orange. In any rate, I think anyone who was paying attention knew that there was no way he would end his career in New England, never. Having said that, I can certainly see why he chose Seattle. If they didn't make me sick to my stomach, there is a lot to admire about how they do things over there. I will be honest and say I wish we were half of what they are. The saddest thing is that we were a "Seattle" in the early years by comparison. But we just stopped doing any of the things that made the franchise a successful business at the start. Had we continued down that path, I don't know if we'd be drawing 40,000/game, but I don't think 25,000 would have been out of the question. You guys who are saying that Kraft, in 2013, cannot be faulted for the fact that the Revs couldn't compete with what Seattle offered are missing the point. That is like the parents of a kid who is in and out of juvie hall lamenting that their punk-ass kid just won't listen when they tell him he should be studying his algebra instead of hanging out with those hoodlums on the corner. If the parents had paved the way when he was 3, and set some boundaries, etc., maybe he wouldn't be such a punk. Kraft is like the too-permissive parents who wonder why it all went wrong. Except the only difference is that the parents, while clueless, are actually concerned and want to right the ship if it isn't too late. Kraft has given up on the Revs completely. "Passive investment" is right.
Apparently MLS paid (or helped to pay) the transfer fee to Spurs for Dempsey. That's ... interesting.
Yeah, there was a lot of people who did not like the move initially. And lets face it, the boards sw back then was no where near as powerful as it is today. Jesse reached out to a few of us on the old ISFA lists to see if we would be willing to give the new sw a try. If memory serves, a few Revs and a few Crew fans tried it out and then proceeded to merge the rest of their fans off the isfa lists. The NY fans were already on the new forum sw, running under something called the MetroFan.com, or soemthing like that (can't recall exact name). Eventually soccerboards.com and metrofan.com (or what ever it was called) merged together and Big Soccer was born.
Seems to be some varied opinions on what the exact formula was. Wahl talks about this in his article I posted. It certainly sounds like the league was involved financially and as someone mentioned on the mls forum, it was likely not a coincidence that this all came down 1 day after the board of governors meeting at the all star game. At the very worst, each cash call might grow by a little under $500k this year for the various team owners.
Nothing like a big signing to get the league to better communicate its policies. The league is taking a lot of heat for lack of transparency. Grant Wahl (@GrantWahl) 8/5/13, 2:27 PM Don Garber on Dempsey deal: "This signing followed our rules to a T." Says league will make some internal rules more clear to everyone.
I don't mind that, as the league will almost surely recoup that from increased ticket sales, merchandise and tv viewership. So long as they offer similar support for other teams that want to make a big signing.
Sure Don - as long as you show them the money! Interesting that he only wanted to go to Seattle, LA, or Toronto. Be interesting if any journalist would follow up and ask him why not the Revs?
I think he was right. From the article, "He was up for coming back to MLS, but the only teams he was interested in playing for were Seattle, Los Angeles and Toronto. "
My issue is that Clint was one of the last pieces of relevance for our franchise and now he's not ours anymore, so to speak. While he was in England, he was still a former-Rev. Now that he plays for a direct competitor, he's not ours. I don't care how selfish or stupid that is. That's how I feel. The national podcasts I listen to and the pieces I read never reference the Revs unless they're saying "get your sh** together Chivas, NE and (formerly) DC". There's all this excitement and success and progression and Clint was our one tie to that. Clint was one of the only things that tied us to the current US soccer picture (hang in there, Parkie!), and now he's joined the rest of the league that's leaving us in the dust. It's like now he's one of the cool kids and he won't talk to us anymore. He belongs to Seattle. This must be what it's like to support a feeder club. When one of your players moves no to a bigger team in your league, do you still wear that guy's jerseys to games? Exactly. Everyone is moving forward, doing new things, making headlines. Dempsey was our headline maker. The reason the broadcast crew would have to say "New England Revolution" during National Team games. Should we just accept our place at the bottom of the league? Should the guys at NE Soccer Today cover Dempsey's successes at Seattle as if they're some entity that we can only watch with our mouths agape?
Yeah, he only broke the American scoring record in England about 14 months ago, and is arguably the best USMNT player. He is leaps and bounds a better player now than he was at his heights in a Revs uniform. That's apparent to anyone who isn't blind. I'm glad you brought about "join date" because if we are making baseless observations based on limited information, I'd imagine you haven't seen him play since then. How is that for judgement?
It's really not that bad when a player of Clint Dempsey's stature "snubs" us. It's when players like Nate Jacqua do that really make things "worse". That's perspective.
thanks for twisting the knife what I was thinking was it would be worse if Dempsey in our division and scoring against us 3 games per year rather than 1 game per year.
Sorry but the revs were never a Seattle, even in the early years. The revs were among the league leaders in the first 2 years by introducing things like freekick magazine at games, getting Globe coverage and ensuring every revs game was televised but they never could be compared to Seattle for a single day of their existence. I remember walking through what was essentially a kids carnival with my dad at our first revs game in '96 so even back then the team was marketed as "wholesome family entertainment" as opposed to a sporting event. Very different from Seattle where the broader community embraces them as a pro team rather than a curious semi pro novelty like many people did the revs here in the shoot out era. It may make you and me sick but the emerald green team from the pac NW has done so many innovative things since joining the league in 2009 like having the Supporters voting for their GM to in stadium signage and visible owners who have been supportive and accountable to their fans from MLS day one. In terms of attendance, the revs had one Seattle-esque attendance outlier at 38k in the last game of '96 but that's nothing compared with 5 years of sustained success. Sustaining 25k into the 2000s would have surprised me as the Krafts were never fully committed to the success of the revs at the same level as Seattle's owners, even back then and the new stadium lost atmosphere of old Foxboro. That's revisionist history.
He is far from the best USMNT player. Top 4 or 5 I'd say. I've seen him play many times as a Rev, and with both English teams and with the NATs and yes, he is better now then he was but he's also lost something too. When with the Revs... the best part for me was some of the moves he'd pull off during a game( about 1 minute in on vid link below) and the drive he had to score. Made him and exciting player to watch. Watch his MLS highlight vid and tell me that the player there is not as good as the player coming back? Link to Dempsey He certainly was more exciting then
Shows that they really have no knowledge about what was and in some cases, limited knowledge of what is now
open disclaimer: i'm a founding '96er of the Inferno in Dallas that quit the Hunts cold on opening day 2009. if i were still a paying supporter, my fury would know no bounds.... because the league paid 100% of Dempsey's transfer fee, the (remaining) paying supporters in Dallas and New England helped fund Dempsey to Seattle: http://prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com/...ers-transfer-news-latest-major-league-soccer/