MLS has gone a 10 team league (after contracting two) with $5 million expansion fees in 2005, to a 29 (soon to be 30 with San Diego paying $500 million) team league that has 20 (more than twice as many as the Premier League) of 50 most valuable soccer teams in the world in 2024. These are the 50 MOST VALUABLE soccer clubs in the world: European soccer clubs dominate the top of the financial table, but MLS lands the most clubs with 20 in the top 50, more than twice as many as the EPL.Full list: https://t.co/G8pKNPSzKZ pic.twitter.com/URUhmxQwtV— Sportico (@Sportico) May 8, 2024 Weren't people calling MLS owners and Don Garber stupid on this board just earlier this week? In any case the Quakes are the 49th most valuable soccer club in the world... which is still way below where they should be given they're the only first division team in all of Northern California. https://www.sportico.com/feature/soccer-teams-football-club-ranking-list-1234721408/ What's hilarious is that many are actually upset by this, and most of those people are... soccer fans in the US. For those surprised by @MLS's position here, the U.S. league has four things driving up valuations: - No relegation- Modern stadiums- Cost certainty - A single-entity system where owners largely collaborate https://t.co/crcYwAfeT9— Eben Novy-Williams (@novy_williams) May 8, 2024
Yeah, and according to FIFA president Gianni Infantino, maybe the league could grow someday if they sign better players. The thing about US soccer fans being upset about the very things that have made MLS successful is that they won't be satisfied until it's some kind of replica of a euro league.
"MLS clearly doesn't know how to run a successful sports league, obviously they should listen to me a random guy confidently and persistently stating his brilliant opinions online"
One of the reasons EPL is so big ($-wise) is all the American plutocrat, Russian Oligarch, and Saudi oil money that's been snarfing up teams in that league over the past decade or two...
Apparently that's "depressing"... Americans now own the majority of clubs in the Premier League, which has destroyed the culture. That culture being, as pointed out in the article: "decades-old stadiums with hard wooden seats and squalid bathrooms. The fare at concession stands was almost exclusively beer and reheated meat pies."
Wooden bench-style seating and squalid bathrooms (with troughs) are indeed the civilizational standard from which we have fallen.
When you have the lowest attendance this weekend and don't fit in the first tweet: "a small crowd" 14 #Quakes74 14,172— MLS NETWORK (@mlsnetwork) May 19, 2024 Or maybe "a small stadium" given that #13 (19,284) is larger than the max capacity for PayPal Park... #13 19k to #14 14k, what a drop off!
- Winless in their last 10 US Open Cup matches on the road - Eliminated by a lower division opponent for the third straight year Your @joshhakala stat of the night: We have a new Modern Era record.@SJEarthquakes are now winless in their last TEN @opencup matches on the road.— TheCup.us (@usopencup) May 22, 2024
John Fisher has failed at everything he's undertaken. He inherited a large fortune and has been diligently working on crafting it into a small fortune with brain-dead ideas and neglect or mismanagement of once-valued enterprises (i.e. sports teams). It's really too bad that we have as an owner an abject failure who uses sports teams as a way to convince himself that he's not utterly incompetent and unimportant. I truly wish there was some mechanism by which he could be forced to divest himself of the assets he has so woefully mismanaged.
The last 3 games have been about the most brutal stretch I can imagine in terms of heart-breaking losses. What is it, 7 goals conceded in the final 10-20 minutes of the game in the last 3 games. And that after 3 promising games? 2 steps forward, 2 steps back...
After the Orlando game, one of the reporters kind of threw Luchi a bone, saying, "if it wasn't for bad luck you wouldn't have any luck at all". And then we went out and doubled down.
True. I can chock up the Portland game to a bad call, and the Orlando game to being unlucky to some extent, but we didn't play well enough in that game to reliably win either. A tie would have been fair, a loss a bit rough. The Sac game was not really unlucky in any way. Our defense just failed at the end.
How the game actually went is irrelevant, the game was winnable if Luchi started the lineup that was needed in order to give the Quakes the best chance to win it.
The 1st article seems like a great summary of John Fisher; the 2nd estimates his wealth. As long as the Gap is running ok, he doesn't seem to be in any danger of falling to the level of small fortune. SF Gate article Jul-Oct-2021 A month before the A's mass furloughs, Gap Inc. stock plummeted to $5.65 a share. As of July 14 [2021], shares closed at $31.00. Per SEC filings, Fisher owns 18% of Gap Inc., a position worth roughly $2 billion. The increase in value of Gap Inc. shares, in tandem with the A’s organization’s growing valuation, suggests that Fisher is able to afford additional investments in the team despite low attendance and revenue numbers from 2020 and 2021. (As ProPublica recently reported, many sports owners are also able to write off millions in tax savings by citing the amortization of their purchase;... Forbes estimate of Fisher's wealth The lowest dip in 2020 = $2.1B, highest point = $3.1B, and 2024 is $3B
Well as I said the Sac game was lost last Saturday night when Luchi revealed his lineup against Orlando, demonstrating that he didn’t take my advice and rest starters for the Sac game.
smh Most points dropped from winning positions in MLS:1. Sporting KC, 172. San Jose Earthquakes, 153. Nashville SC, 14T-4. Portland Timbers, 12T-4. D.C. United, 12 pic.twitter.com/lbbN80aFbt— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) May 24, 2024
Nope. While the starting lineup hasn't been perfect, the issue is game management. Too often we try to protect a lead with a team that can't execute a "bunker" defense. Add that our depth is less than stellar and you get our results. Sure, I would love to sit Gruezo and Yuell. Will it make a difference? Some, but Niko has been inconsistent and so has Jack (some good or bad).
we made the cut "STRUGGLING MLS CLUBS | Chicago Fire FC, San Jose Earthquakes, and Sporting Kansas City"