Put differently, there is a contradiction in running a team on -- to be charitable and act like they are trying -- "Moneyball" terms, and to expect to be prominent and sell jerseys. The infamous 2002 A's depicted in the book and movie only had Zito and Justice who you could name. The whole concept is trying to win with undervalued no-names. Don't expect to sell many shirts. And in reality the A's lost the first playoff round that year despite the winning streak. At a point against the best teams you either have Springer and Verlander, or you don't. The sabermetric teams that win don't tend to skimp on payroll. Mind you, they do invest slightly in some big fish in small pond Hondurans, but not name brand Mexicans or Argentines, and it's not like we ever leave the country in pre-season, such as to play in Honduras to capitalize on our efforts there. Ironically, now would be a great time to "try" for a change. The Texans alternate between winning the division (then losing in the semi round) and being horrifying, the Rockets have stagnated as a Harden iso team that loses to the eventual winner, and the Astros had the one championship that's now saturated in shame. As in 2006 the city would welcome a team that was a notch better and in the final or winning it all. And the soccer fans, though they would love that, would probably be somewhat content if we simply went back to Middle Kinnear era, some stars, regular playoffs. More pointedly, we're about to add Austin to Dallas and if we aren't "trying" it could get ugly.
In 2012 they averaged 20985, in 2014 they averaged 20117, in 2015 they averaged 20618. From a capacity of 22k. At a conservative $25/ticket x 17 games, that's $8.8m income without any sponsors or TV. I am probably understating that considering suites and lower tier prices. I am also omitting that winning "creates" more games. CCL. Playoffs. A crap team plays 17 home games with modest crowds plus cups and is done. A good team fills the house and extends the season. I have even argued before that spending money to make money is worth it because you earn these extra games in the process. If every game is about a half million in tickets, and we make it two rounds, that offsets a million more in payroll. Even if we had to account for every nickel. As I have said 20 times, you are playing their game. A lot of teams -- particularly the more successful MLS teams -- are owned as part of a conglomerate. TFC shares a CFL field and their owners own other Toronto teams. Seattle is owned by the Seahawks' people. Atlanta is owned by the Falcons' people. If our little shack has to compete on equal business terms we are screwed. Or maybe that's your depressing argument, is I have to accept that even though we live in a top 4 city in size and power, due to the ownership, I have to accept small market rules. You have too much MBA on the brain. Who buys a sports team to get by? This is not an apartment building. This is not a grocery chain. Sorry but usually this is an indulgence. Mark Cuban. It's amusing to watch MBAs try to turn sports into the equivalent of owning a parking garage. Last, with Silverstein trying to buy into Swansea, we see where the fiscal need to maintain strict ins and outs is a fiction. They are not spending their last dime upon which they need ROI to survive. They have other money to spend. Yours is more rationalizing their choices than really an inherently true statement of the rules we must play by.
The Dynamo would also get their share of $90m national TV, let's say conservatively $2.5-3m, the tax benefits of MD Anderson, and then actual sponsorships from Kroger, 76, etc. I think we could afford well into the "teens" if we tried. And that's playing the strict ins and outs game which to me is like why buy a sports team to nickle and dime it. FWIW $13-14m/yr puts you in the top handful of teams. Even $11m gets you to the top half and probably routine playoffs if properly run.
And I also neglect -- as did our owners lately FWIW -- TRANSFERS. We have had offers of $6m for a couple players. Atlanta has now sold at least two players for double digit millions. Part of the Dynamo dilemma, IMO, is they don't want to spend, they like the sound of the offers, but they keep asking too much which I think is because they are so cheap it makes them nervous to imagine paying to replace star players. But IMO we could have gotten $15m for last year's Big 3. So you're trying to make this green lampshade income math at the turnstile, and Nate wants it to be asset flipping, but you could probably fund a lot of the payroll flipping players instead. On top of standard tickets, sponsors, etc. The Ajax model. I actually think Nate has a point in terms of why we are so risk averse, I just don't believe it would make us financially solvent. I don't think Dynamo fans, any more than Astros fans before them, are just going to show up in abundance forever to watch a loser. The Astros tried this and gave up. We would become Chivas USA. A dead or indebted franchise has no flipper value. A savvy investor will decide starting fresh with LAFC is their preferable outcome.
Also FWIW I remember people getting on my case for saying sell Elis or Manotas for "market." That they would do the same thing again next season and be worth the same or more. Now they are platoon players in a rotation. What do you think their value is now? Whatever we thought they were worth, it's the number where a wiling buyer and seller meet and no one ever offered what we wanted, and with the coach diversifying the offense and needing to rotate, no one ever will this contract. We have burned their windows. People like to act like we are run rationally and economically. I think we would like to tell ourselves we are, but we are just cheap. We have had chances but got some mix of greedy or hesitant because of how Torres went. That is not rational calculation. Rational is we could have sold Elis and Manotas for what was offered, it would dwarf annual payroll. But we got burned on Torres -- who was a poor choice to begin with -- and tried to make it up on the more recent ones. And in acting out our psychodrama would get peanuts for them as well. I wish this was "rational," it's not, it's scared and risk averse. This is not some well run but penny pinching business, and even if it was, often those businesses could make more money if they take risks, and they are just being stubborn and dictatorial. Ray Kroc vs the McDonald Bros.
There might be the mindset to return to the NASL theme a la what Seattle, Portland and others have done so successfully. Their clubs have a rather more sturdy connection with the past NASL incarnations of their city's professional D-1 teams but I would not put it past NBA marketing folks currently in place in our FO to look to mimic the success of others over really finding out what the current fans like all of us desire in a rebrand if they do it. Correct. Having the ability to deploy 5 subs per match is allowing MLS coaches to rotate as you speak of. And we are playing 5 games in 11 days.
My thing is C. Ramirez in his peak year had 14G in 30 games and 2392 mins for MN. Last year he had 5G in 10 games and 672 mins for us. That sounds like "less" but in 30 games for us he would theoretically score 15. In 2400 mins he would get closer to 20G. The MNT gave him 6 mins and he had a goal. Zardes got 84' and nothing. Which one does Berhalter bring back? But is his transfer value based on 5G per season or his rate, which might be higher than when he was an in demand forward of NT interest scoring 14 a season?
Rational. So who is actually "running" the Dynamo? After the reorganization a couple of years ago there were supposedly two distinct chains of command. 1. Brener and ownership group - Jordan - Coach - Team 2. Brener and ownership group - Walker - Stadium Ops - business side Apparently, all transfer/acquisition decisions are on Team 1. But who really in that group has the smarts to make those decisions? I'd be interested to see what the transfer fee for Elis is now compared to the reported offers last year.
Now that we are years on from this I can honestly tell anyone reading that I personally called Mrs. Sylvia Garcia and invited her to a lunch with her and her staff so we could break bread and come together on the subject, to find out what she thought was so offensive about the founding year of our city. I even offered to pay for all of her and her staff. I was told by her staff that she would not be meeting with me, that she was flying out to meet with then owner Philip Anschutz. To which she made those threats we recall of, "change the moniker or else". All I was going to tell her was the obvious, if 1836 is somehow offensive to her and others that live in our great city of Houston, than what about the name Houston as well, are we to change it as well. I mean the leading General at the Battle that won Texas Independence was of course General Sam Houston. Glenn via his show or the media in general never raised this issue for her to respond on. There was one professor at U of H that as well tried to dig on the moniker but his efforts were matched by some professor at UTSA or TAMU, I cannot recall exactly, but that professor as well mentioned that if 1836 was some tough pill to swallow than the name of Sam Houston had to be a mother of all bombs to run from. Also, the national language of Texas in 1836 was Spanish. So combine the facts and that politician was in it for one thing only, media traction and glory. She has never attended a Dynamo home game as far as I have heard from the FO staff I have known well over these 15 seasons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Texas#/media/File:1824_Flag.svg Rename the team to Tejas 1824, change the colors to red, white and green. New nickname El Tri. Rebrand done.
You are more right than you know! Here is our club's jersey unveiling from March of 2006 up at Kicks Indoor. Us hinchas made sure that after the name change and the shenanigans from some politico like Garcia, the fact is Houston 1836 was from a historical mindset because of guys like Juan Seguin and his desire for derechos mexicanos 1824. We also made this to symbolize Tejas and the spirit of this land's heritage and people who will be backing this football team. Our Cheech Mexican-Americans flag! They know their futbol! HA!
I guess I could deal with a name change, as long as it’s not some poser name like Atletico Houston. But we should be orange dammit!
A few comments on the selling/re-brand article: - Would not be surprised if Brener sold only because sports team franchise values seem somewhat immune or more resistant to the COVID economic woes mainly due to their scarcity (MLB Commission Rob Manfred admitted as much when Mets sold). Enough rich people who want one, although I think MLS has more of a challenge than the other major sports teams just because they have the revenue fire hose of TV rights to sustain them thru lean times. Dynamo have none of that. - The re-brand stuff sounds like marketing nonsense from the new marketing director they brought in last year from Gulf States Toyota. A re-brand of the Dynamo is a solution looking for a problem. It'd be one thing if they never won or had unpleasant memories - but the Dynamo had a successful first 8 seasons not that long ago. Lived here for a long time and never heard "Hold it Down" ever associated with Houston. - You've probably noticed a pattern - outside sports executive gets hired by Dynamo, quickly decides that there are "issues" that need to be fixed, proposes untested or uncertain solutions in this market, spends time tooting their own horn about how great the changes are, then watch as nothing really improves - but they can live off that changed concept for a few years as they make a splash coming in until it's realized that none of it really worked. Walker, Widder, Scanlon (marketing person) all acting like they've accomplished something here when the jury is still out. COVID probably bought them all another year before accountability kicks in. - Dynamo really pushing that narrative hard about how much better STH sales and retention is while not providing any hard or absolute figures or qualifying the comments with stuff like "most renewals thru the same date" without giving the final number. Timeshifting is not the same as growing. And let's face it, they couldn't go much lower after the 5 lousy season of Brener's ownership, they were down to the hardcores who will never leave.
Here ya go! NEW: @jeffrueter and I have obtained the Houston Dynamo’s new logo. A first look at the #HoldItDown rebrand.Meet MLS’s newest FC! https://t.co/muzPjX5nIR— Pablo Iglesias Maurer (@MLSist) October 16, 2020
Well this would have been good According to an MLS source former #Astros GM Jeff Luhnow (@jluhnow) and Alex Rodriguez (@AROD) approached @houstondynamo ownership about their interest in purchasing the franchise, but nothing developed.— Mark Berman (@MarkBerman_) October 19, 2020
No kiddin' right!!! Talk about brand cross over appeal. Orange star football soN!!! Our alternate all black kits with the orange, imagine an alternate all navy blue with orange and white accents!
i keep saying there are willing buyers out there and probably some within city limits, people give me crap for it this also should give hope in the sense that if we let them run it in the ground or move it, there would be an expansion team in its wake. we have stadia, owners, fans. the question is do you want to provide a team. a team that can no longer beat expansion teams doesn't constitute providing a team. [and to be clear on that, my guess is the historical expansion losses are kinnear running out the B team on a rest night where now we send out the As and look second best.] i have felt like their efforts have been bumbling at first and cheap since beckham, i want to root for historical reasons, but it's professional sports and you need to meet me halfway with a competitive product, they aren't even trying in basketball when a post player is leaning on you too much, you "pull the chair" either spend money, sell, or we will root for an expansion team we got the texans when bud turned into a mega a$$h&le
i have half a mind to say luhnow and arod (or jj, or whoever else) should ask for houston2 and run them out of business
the odd thing would be you float in the media an ownership restructure -- like stick the for sale sign out -- and then aren't listening to arod and luhnow i mean, some ditz on here was acting like they would never sell and are just holding -- and under no financial pressure he claimed -- but that article said some owner or owners wanted out NOW to be clear, luhnow lost his job in january so that's the outer bounds of the time frame when he could be shopping soccer teams and not heading the astros the more likely timeframe is since september when the article came out -- so an article hits in september saying we want to sell and these two show up in the last two months and "nothing came of it" fwiw a dank scenario is they want some buzz, any buzz, and knowing the fans' loyalty and likely beef with the owners, jerk our chains about the logo and "maybe i will sell" to shake the trees or maybe the idea was to get another small minority owner like The Beard for buzz and some money in a broke year, not actually to sell 25, 50, 100% if the name/logo was linked to the for sale sign, does the logo change signify the window has re-closed
Agreed! If you are going to “rebrand”, change logo etc it needs to be followed by a big time player. You get people buying your new jerseys and coming to the games, but most importantly you need to win. Just rebranding doesn’t cut it.