Looking at the schedule, I don't see 6 wins. Hard to believe that we will miss the playoffs for 5 straight years. Unbelievable that can happen in MLS. Hopefully, one day we look back at this as the dark times.
Given some of the things that social media team has put out in the last 8 weeks . . . . I'll cut Asher some slack on how his statement was characterized. Hold it Down, right! (I have lived here about 30 years, never heard Hold it Down until John Walker tried to sell it as a native phrase)
It will be 8 out of 9 years. You almost have to try to do that. And now you are about to have no games on local TV at all, everything going to Apple TV with a subscription. How are they gonna draw in any casual fans?
They weren’t drawing casual fans to begin with, either through results or broadcasts. Barely anyone watches MLS on local tv aside from maybe 3 or 4 markets. Casual fans don’t need to watch games to know if the team is good, you have hundreds of apps and websites to check scores and standings.
TV broadcasts are the best advertisements for sports teams, you will not get a single casual fan interested in the Dynamo without games on some sort of normal TV channel. How many Spanish-language households have Apple TV + and will purchase an MLS subscription? How does a sports team possibly expand its reach with this arrangement? If you say "well, they don't have much reach anyways" then I guess you don't have much hope for the Dynamo ever investing in the team if their fanbase shrinks further unless Segal just doesn't care about cash flow.
To be fair, Apple T.V has impressed the hell out of me and I think lots of people have it because their programming is really good. Ironically, the app itself is clunky and difficult use. Don't know why they didn't just copy Netflix on that, but the content is great. They won best picture this year with CODA which was a great film. Ted Lasso is a major hit, so is The Morning Show. SEE is my personal favorite show at the moment, can't wait for season 3. So I think a lot of people have Apple T.V already. At 5 bucks a month it is a hell of a bargain. I'm actually happy that that I won't have to stream Twitter to watch a game or not find a broadcast in English. Many is a day when Brian and I had to get real creative to watch a game in English.
“We want our team to look like our city.” Is it: A) A statement of looking like our blue collar city that works? Full of strong resilient, warm hearted, hard working, people that have turned a swampy coastal plain into a metropolis with arts, culture, one of the greatest medical centers in the world, the 8th wonder of world, the second largest port in the nation (created out of 5’ deep bayou for God’s sake!!!!) and the energy capitol of the world? A city of winners that doesn’t see the color of anyone’s skin, but see’s the nature of their character? Or B) A statement that the Dynamo should be full of hispanic players because that is all Houston is to MLS executives, Wall Street Hedge fund moguls, and carpet bagging sports executives. Houston is a part of Mexico. I hope it is the former, A). The cynic in me is that he means B). Because I have been hearing that same crap for 40 years — that all you have to do is get Mexican’s playing soccer here and the Mexican fans will show up in droves. They are turning the Dynamo into a replica of Chivas USA because people like Don Garber never learn from their mistakes. It has always been Garber’s vision that the Houston team be a Hispanic themed team. There is no one in Dynamo leadership that understands what and who Houston is, nor do they understand this soccer market. But Segal is trying now. This attempt at making the club look like what they think Houston is will fail … and he can hopefully move on to something that will work. Something that looks like Austin FC that embraces the Hispanic community as part of a bigger community of greater austin and welcomes players of all nationalities. Something like that without Austin’s pretentiousness but with Houston’s hard working blue collar city that works ethos. It will look like Dom Kinnear’s Dynamo. A team that worked hard for each other. And all of Houston will love them including Hispanics whether or not the players are Hispanic because Hispanic fans are simply sophisticated fans that love GOOD futbol.
It’s not just about the Dynamo but the league as a whole. Per Boston Consulting Group, as reported by The Athletic, in 2015 MLS teams averaged 17,000 audience per match on local tv in 2015. Granted some things have changed for the better such as expansion teams with more profile, but also for the worse as far as cord cutting goes. The numbers are barely much better for national broadcasts as well. ESPN can usually get a few 100k but FS1 is often lucky to get much over that number much less break it. This league has had over 20 years to make TV work and it’s never broken out. I can see why they figure jumping head first into streaming might be worth a shot.
TV viewership has been poor locally, but a casual fan could watch or at least the channel (AT&T Sportsnet) was on most cable and some streaming packages. Now to watch a game you have to: - have an Apple TV+ subscription AND - subscribe to the MLS package (price unknown) STHs apparently are getting it free (which in theory enhances the value of the STH package, maybe sells a few more) but they would be likely to have bought it. How much of the targeted HH audience has Apple TV and will be buying the MLS package? For the Seattles, Portlands, Nashville, Austin, etc. the Apple TV deal is probably not much of a hurdle. For the teams that already are struggling locally this is just another obstacle to overcome. You do realize that when the Dynamo have sold team sponsorship packages they include the TV time and commercials, which is why all of the TV commercials during a game on AT&T is FuboTV, Kroger, MD Anderson, etc. Only team sponsors. How do they do that on Apple TV when it is only one league broadcast? The TV dollars help the owners but its not all upside
Apple TV is fine, I've watched the MLB games on it, I am sure they will do a fine job with it. But its penetration for Apple TV+ is a fraction of the other streamers and an even smaller fraction compared to traditional TV. It's free I think the first year after you buy a device. But its still far more limiting in each market as compared to traditional TV. Other drawback is that apparently is only going to be one English language feed for each game called centrally off of monitors. THat's not great if that is the way they do it. I recall back about 9 years ago when the Dynamo went with CSN Houston and only Comcast carried it that they gave MLS Live subscriptions away for free to all of the STHs because so many complained that they couldn't see the games. Same issue will happen this year but the STHs are taken care of so it will just be lost opportunity vs. angry members.
You block me but I will agree with you that Austin has done it the right way with good balance. @*rey* and @CeltTexan may recall the original Robertson "La Doce Norte" team and Budweiser sponsored supporters group (I think it never even made it to game 1) and low rider contests in the parking lot. Herberto Ramos and his jackpot justice law firm (713 -GANADOR!) has sponsored the last two promotional giveaways which tells me the executives see the club as more ethnic than we think. What other team has an official team exclusive personal injury law firm sponsor?
I was there at the Meet and Greet where Asher spoke for about 20-30 minutes, took questions from the folks there. I agree, I will tell you it appeared to me that they are speaking of focusing on building back the fans base over some marketing gimmicks.. It was broad in scope, everything from the youth scene and selling on our youth players, DP past and present and future signings and how he specifically wanted to sell players off to Europe and made specific mention of Almiron from Atlanta and got sold to the EPL for good money. AEG FO suits thought of breaking up the Texian Army and EB in the name of a FO controlled Budweiser sponsored La Doce section all along racial lines in our Season 1, to which that was the famous response from one leader in EB that told our FO, "Hell naw, we are staying with the Texian Army! The Bad News Bears from the L.A. North Valley League had Chico's Bail Bonds! Hahaha!!!
As rey has spoken on over the years and specifically mentions the exact same concept from is stated here, what works with pulling in fans of the beautiful game, either here in our city or elsewhere around the planet, people just want "buen futbol", good soccer. He spoke on this years back when our club started this slide in attendance in the stands and the quality of play down on the field. Well, it still stands as truth to this very day. A winning team, a team with guts and a resilient way of being, these are what will always earn a fans heart. I do think Pat Onstad knows this and we are in good hands with him at the helm nowadays.
it's not a "perceived" flaw. i made a fairly elaborate objective explanation with several stats categories. did you not see the stats? are you blocking me? among the forward candidates i looked at, fafa is 4th in goals, 5th in goals/90, 4th in shots on target, 3rd in shooting percentage, 4th in assists, 5th in assists/90, 3rd in percent starts won. he leads the team in percent starts tied and offsides. on my version of the stat quoted, pp start (the poster used ppg which includes subs which he lost them all), despite the implication of the post, he's only 3rd best there, behind thor and baird. particularly if the argument is drop thor and put fafa back out........are you kidding me.......the kid is better on productivity and the same stat being quoted. this is the problem with quoting a number but then not comparing it to all the teammates to see if it proves a gosh darned thing at all. turns out fafa is only as much a winner as darwin is, and less so than thor. this is not moving the goal post, it's using the very goal line you set up. and it's not my "perception" or "bias" when it's your own metric. the data suggested fafa should be roughly the 3rd or 4th forward on the field, after thor darwin sebas....... but at a time when we are sucking and wing shopping that should be a slippery slope. and if you're competing with thor for time and thor has as many goals and more per 90, wins more often, etc.... last, to be blunt, what he appeared to be better than anyone else at was tying games, not winning them, and i struggled to find any productivity stat that explained how he in particular helps get the ppg being quoted. i think it boils down to the statistical fluke of being benched coming off the international break and thus avoiding many of the string of binary 1s and 0s we have generally gotten since then. if he had played every game like sebas and darwin (almost) then his numbers would look like the team's. he looks better for having been benched and not having those games in his ppg while he watched. whoop de do. i don't think you folks believe a thing i say -- even backed by numbers -- even backed by your own stats metric -- it's a reflex. and geez it was a nice decontextualized number but take some freaking critique. it doesn't prove what you thought it did. keep trying.
"look like" is not "work like." i think he meant exactly what he said and the team has changed in composition since AEG left. it is dominated by latin players and has a latin coach likely in part to be trilingual for them. this briefly worked as a soccer thing when it was boniek but now it's just random hispanic players. where are we shopping now? i mean where in the world is pat onstad? literally. exactly. and nothing against it per se, but i judge results. i want more thors, raines, and younger quinteros. quality, and if they are hispanic, cool. we should probably do some -- and i advocated it when we barely did any -- but at this point thor is exceptional. the pendulum went too far over the other way. i'm not sure if that delivers the best players. this has in fact drifted a little chivas. side point, i usually tune in at game time, but one day i saw some of pregame and the suggestion of one player (adam i think) was we are deliberately being high energy early in home games to try and stress teams in the heat. that (a) sounds like low table tactics -- "play hard first 30" -- and (b) feels backwards of common sense or what has worked here in the past. my sense was the dynamo used to be chill and let other teams punch themselves out in the heat. we then used our saved energy and acclimatization to thrash them as they tire. to me trying to outwork opponents would tend to equalize. we expend unusual energy and equal out their second half tiredness. i think that shrinks rather than increases your advantage. when i worked in a manufacturing shop one college summer, where they had no AC, the mantra was actually work smart not hard. a lot of our problem is we do a lot of predictable high work rate low technique erratic soccer. can't find the 9, can't hit an accurate service. what this actually begs for is brad davis hitting balls on a dime for 60' for a few assists then having a beer in the locker room, not some conservative values dream. a lot of soccer is the ability to slow down and do the technical thing in the key moment. we try hard already. so what. try better. get better. one reason i said if we aren't going to churn we should spend a ton of time shooting practice is if we are stuck with this roster two things are killing us. zone defense and finishing. one is a coaching choice. man mark, particularly on dead balls, and some of our problems would go away. the other if a coach had a few months should be fixable within limits. you can't make a player pele in a season. you can't teach the truly sublime shots. but you can probably get a scattershot team putting balls on cage.
be real, they just plunked down heavy coin on HH to get a mexican NT guy. they are obviously chasing the yeti having seen the latent soccer fanbase shown by mexico and america friendlies. sebas was signed from MX before that. to be fair, hadebe before that. the obvious question there is snobbery -- as with UCL obsessives.**** are they even open to it. the less obvious issue is if you are selling UCL/MX connections part of that snobbery may be an expectation of results as bad or worse than even normal fans. because in my experience true snobs lacking a personal connection tend to be overdog fans. so it's not just the snob approved players you need, it's the results. they don't tend to root for burnley. *****some of the "snobs" just grew up watching and rooting for something else. but a chunk of snobs are just the lazy equivalent of NFL fans who root for brady or the rams or chiefs. to me it's actually more sophisticated to be able to discern quality play at any level than to root for UCL or MX stuff as a short cut.
Reports out of Colombia are indicting that #HoldItDown have reached an agreement with Liga BetPlay team Once Caldas for 19 year-old winger Nelson Quiñones.The reported fee is 1.8 million dollars with #HoldItDown obtaining 80% of the players rights. pic.twitter.com/ePn24QZ06a— Somos713 (@Somos713) July 25, 2022 Well….
Oh for the love of....please, Pat, don't get mixed up in this percentage nonsense. It's ridiculous and shouldn't be allowed in the sport.
A Once fan came on Reddit to give feedback on this kid. Said he knew he was headed for bigger things. Talented with blazing speed. Said his style is similar to Luis Sinisterra, ex-Once player who just made a $22 mil move to Leeds from Feyenoord but not quite as polished.
someone earlier in the season tried to shut me down on gitau saying "but the GM said the parents said no." on further thought, the funny thing is they didn't say no to preseason. sorry but having pondered it some more one doesn't send their kid to what the dynamo describe as "consistently trained with the first team throughout the 2022 preseason," as well as a road trip to arizona for games, because the idea all along was he would come back and be an HD amateur for years more. clearly something more complicated going on. ask pat your followup and maybe don't shut me down so hard next time. your "pat answer" isn't real solid if you think 5 seconds. re the gitau video, if you look closely the "baseball card" info on that video and the others by the same youtuber look like they are in portuguese. the players are european, south american, gitau. all YNT. lot of effort for a fanboy. video person used a dynamo youth game and not a US game, as well as an action photo in orange and black. i don't know how many action photos or videos the team posts though i wouldn't be surprised if some of the big tournaments streamed some games. one of the players with a video has an agent listed on TM. agency's clients are mostly uruguayan.
re sinisterra, he had 4G 4A for once his last season age 19 before transferring out. quinones in a couple fewer games this year age 19 has nada first team production. yes, raw speed, but in an oduro way, a developmental at best. we need a finished product who can finish and he doesn't look finished. period. i'm watching a few too many crosses behind the target, a few too many lost dribbles. definitely not worth a good chunk of $2m having played first team and done squat, with no YNT or NT caps. remember coco was 2-and-change, coco whatever i think of him is a NT regular who had some productive club years behind him. this is "blue sky," first year first team and he had no goals or assists. i think we're overpaying. TM has him valued at $330k. more pointedly, if "we're paying," and above the tote bag donation level, i gave you a list of americans and i kind of doubt they were all over $2m. considering this kid ends up being raw goods and we have a slot issue. are we going to buy then loan back like with bajamich? i don't think i'd mind if it was a loan to HD2 but this is likely a fairly expensive transfer to HD1. HD1 needs immediate help.
considering he has no NT or YNT caps and no club first team production for an attacking wing, we should get 100% rights for him and another few caldas for what we are rumored to be paying. 80% sell on for overpaying for rights is awful. consider the $1m plus overpay as compensation for the remaining 20%. geez.
anyone want to call my americans list stupid, now, as HD cut a $1.8m check "for this?" wanna know what shaq moore's rumored fee was? $2m. solid NT player with some productivity playing for a spanish yoyo team that is not his fault. nico at orlando was a free transfer rumored $1.6m value. we do not know what we are doing.