2021 Season Schedule

Abbott could be understood as trying to preempt cities and counties from resisting opening. Including sporting event rules. Setting aside what I think of this as government policy, I expect businesses to sue about continued local orders and they may or may not be able to have them. So we'll see if limits persist. I think we may soon have it where full capacity is allowed, wise or unwise.

I still think this is a separate question from "will people show up." Vaccine or not, Abbott order or not, with variants around, I am going to watch the raw state health numbers for whether we still have a problem or not. I expect x% of people will do some version of what I will. What is my risk. I expect the Dynamo will do the same. Conflating government orders with private activity is an error. People can make private decisions.

Re vaccines, though this was often discussed naively in politics, the pivotal number is in fact "herd." Herd is calculated by flipping around the R-0 ie the infection rate, and subtracting from 1. You get herd when the R-0 is shoved under "1." That is, the average amount of people an infected person infects falls below 1 ie a sick person on average finds less than one person to get sick. Infected + vaccinated add together to see if you make herd. You get real herd when the virus can rarely find anyone else new to sicken. At which point even if someone gets sick there is no where for it to go.

I have seen varying herd calculations from 75-90%. USA is at 30m cases which gets you 10% head start. Means you need something like 65-80% vaccination, assuming we don't have antibody escape ie variants that evade vaccine and can reinfect (in which case we're back to zero immunity on that variant).

As I understand it we've vaccinated another 35m which is basically another 10%. That's 20% including infected. We are nowhere near herd. They have bought more than enough vaccine for everyone much less to make herd but at some point we will bump up against how many anti-vaxxers can be convinced or instead remain.

Due to political resistance I am skeptical we get to herd. Which will leave some degree of outbreak potential which then every so many RNA mis-replications gets you the variants.

However anyone watching Abbott knows his actions have little to do with the numbers and science. So I expect a remaining tension between us being nominally open vs how many people the health situation results in attending. Some won't care, some will do things once vaccinated, some will avoid that sort of public event until it's over. That's going to remain no matter what Abbott does, unless we actually push for herd and mandate the last chunks get immunized.

 

The most insulting line of the press release:

“The Dynamo will have a Bye for Decision Day, scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 7.”

MLS thinks we suck so bad we wouldn’t matter on Decision Day.

 

yes, someone was sitting out Decision Day but rather than the expansion franchise they sidelined the Dynamo. Can’t tell me if it was the Galaxy or Seattle last that they would have done that. It says MLS realizes we are badly flawed and troubled franchise

 

Say BYE Dynamo faithful!

 

I wonder what our record was after 300 games as compared to now? Probably a lot better Won or Tied %

 

Games by Month:
April - 2
May - 6
June - 3
July - 5
August - 6
September - 6
October - 5
November - 1

Some call it the European Calendar (which forgets about Sweden, Iceland and Norway domestic leagues) thus even more call it the Fall to Spring Professional Season Calendar for soccer that has league play from August to May with nations having some Winter Break save the EPL and SPL. So with that in mind, if one looks at the above breakdown for our Houston Dynamo games and takes out the June and July matches, that is only 8 games that are played over what would be the Summer Break to aforementioned Fall to Spring Calendar set up. Which we know MLS HQ had to consider COVID issues thus we witness MLS starting in mid April 2021. This MLS season's calendar that is starting very late compared to just last year and the season before that,
So going by just recent MLS seasons and a start in late February, then MLS taking the training wheels off and seriouxly taking all FIFA International Weeks into the season schedule. Moving forward, there is an opportunity for MLS HQ to take a huge step up for the league and respect the talent in MLS that is called into National Team camps as it is known the world over. Let them have the respected time off for country without worrying about missing club commitments as pros.

Also, looking ahead to the future of our league. In theory, MLS HQ can take these 8 games I speak of and easily spread these fixtures from the last weekend in February, the 4 weekends in March and then the 3 weekends in November ending the last weekend before Thanksgiving.
Simply put, MLS can adhere to the FIFA International Weeks and should be proud to do so. Also avoid playing during the big FIFA and or regional tournaments held on a known schedule way in advance. I mean there was a time when MLS just played right on through the 1998, 2002 and 2006 World Cups not knowing how odd of a message that sends to so many soccer fans from all corners of the globe that want to give this new American and Canadian league to their soccer diet.

 

There is also this, something new on the radio front for our Glenn and Eddie:

New this year, the Dynamo will broadcast six games in English on ESPN Radio 97.5 with select games also simulcast on its sister station, 92.5 FM. Davis and Robinson will deliver the radio call on those games when the Dynamo are on national television. Fans can hear the call by Davis, Robinson and Burbano for all other games by streaming the audio at HoustonDynamoFC.com/Radio.

 

they tried that out during one of the Dallas games near the end of last year. Glad to see they got good feedback and hopefully leads to more radio presence.

 

Good feed back. Feedback from the people that are consuming the product that our FO is promoting. So our FO is turning that ship around and getting back to actually having an ear to the ground with our fan base.
It reminds me of when us in EB literally pleaded with our FO's marketing department to get with Adidas and promote a Raven Black 3rd jersey. Our FO kept rejecting the idea. Then Adidas starts to promote 3rd jerseys with other MLS clubs and wouldn't you know it, our team gets a black 3rd and it flies off the shelves, making lots of money for our club and Adidas. Even other fans across MLS stated how sharp of a look the all black with orange and sky blue trim looked.

 

The only part I take issue of that was it wasn’t a third jersey they just replaced white as the away color with black. I think the only third jersey in team history was the red one that Canetti swore was actually a shade of orange.

 

When we had the dual home Wildcatter Orange and Away White is when us in EB made our own Raven Black Houston jersey and sold it to folks at our Rob era tailgates (MISS THOSE TAILGATES! HA!).
Again, the point is that we pleaded with our own FO in charge of making new revenue streams for our club and they turned down the concept of replacing the away white with any type of black 2nd jersey. Their answer was that a black jersey was not going to sell well.
The grapefruit ruby red-orange jersey is technically our only 3rd jersey as it is defined in the pro soccer world, on this you are correct kind sir.