Yup - the Quakes dismal record over the period of Fisher's mismanagement is only possibly equaled by the Fire. We are really unapproachable in terms of our mastery of suckitude.
I just read the comments in the Athletic article that falvo linked to. Those comments and the article make it sound like 2 of the 4 owners want to sell and get their profit out, plus they never succeeded in building an SSS, which sounds quite needed but problematic. So the comments speculate on whether new owners will build that SSS or move the team.
I doubt that the team will move. The article says they were 7th in attendance and had doubled their season ticket holder numbers in the last few years. They are much better off in their market than we are, or ever were, save for the fact that they don't have a SSS.
Yes, and isn't there now a sort of rethinking of stadiums where hey maybe a larger multipurpose stadium is the way to go? Chicago Fire abandoning their SSS for Soldier Field? Kind of back to the future? The turf is an issue but other than that, maybe there isn't all that much of a pressing need for an SSS?
The athletic had an article on the Swedish league, where teams are 51% owned by fans but in addition adhere to these rules Broadcasters must give at least two months’ notice if they intend to move games for live television broadcast. Teams are not asked to travel more than 30 miles for midweek fixtures. No VAR on the grounds that it would spoil the experience for those inside the stadiums. It is a league designed by fans, for fans.
Altho one problem is that getting $40M for the champions league has given Malmo a superior financial advantage, as that is equal to their annual regular turnover. hubby points out that $40M is 1/5 of Leeds $200M turnover in the Championship. Shows how difficult it is to compete across leagues, such staggering differences in finances
I think you will also find a significant difference in the depth of pockets for owners in the Championship and the Allsvenskan.
The point was not that the leagues have different levels of wealth in owners. My point was that it’s hard for a Swedish league’s champions to compete against another league’s champions when the resources differ by 5x. I’m thinking the Club World Cup may really highlight those differences.
Sorry, i didn’t mean to say that a Swedish team is in the CWC. I don’t even know who is in the CWC because I plan to boycott it. I’m just saying that if you have 5x difference in resources between clubs in the CWC, it could become quite a painful difference, maybe not worth watching.
In what first division league besides MLS (and maybe CPL if that counts) is there NOT at least a 5x difference in resources between the top and bottom clubs? I guess no other soccer is worth watching... just gonna assume MLS is by far the most popular soccer league to watch in the world without looking into this any further.
I see what you’re saying. There are many leagues with much higher quality than MLS. Teams that have many players better than our league’s best players. (Maybe excepting Messi.) so the level of skill is awesome. But the downside to many of those leagues is that before the start of every season, every fans knows which teams will inhabit the top of the table, and which teams will suck. There’s competition for the very top spots, and a struggle not to be relegated at the bottom. Of course, we all know the best and worse teams in this league, but there’s more movement. The good teams slip after a few seasons, and some of the middling or even weak teams move up. I’m not really excited about a league of haves and have nots where the rich teams dominate year after year. Although our league is moving in that direction. At some point, I’ll give up on the league, or at least the Quakes. That’s pretty depressing. Go Quakesfans!!
Exactly. Why is a league of perpetual massive haves vs. massive have-nots necessarily a good thing? Hey, let's tune in for a massively non-competitive game between Chelsea and Southampton!! I think the MLS level of parity is good right now. It's not like it's a complete roll of the dice every year - you can have teams that are usually near the top. But teams can easily go from bottom 3rd to top 3rd in a year as well. You go into every season with some hope - even as a Quakes fan .
Thanks! At the same time, I used to watch FC Porto several years ago. It was billed as Portuguese Soccer, but one of the two teams was always FC Porto. I had been in Porto for a few days years before and I love the city. So I was always pumped to see them destroy some hapless lesser team once a week! But, think how shit it would be to root for one of those lesser teams? You might beat FC Porto (or Benfica or Racing) once every five or ten years? That would be really, really depressing. Go Quakesfans!! Happy Holidays!! Everyone!!
I think even that would get boring after a while. When you always beat another team, how fun are those games when you know what's gonna happen?
I happened to be in Porto in 2022 when Sporting Lisbon came to play. Since Lisbon is only about a 3-hour train ride away, lots of Sporting fans were thronging the streets. Very fun to walk around Porto that day and get a taste of the rivalry. Tickets were impossible to get, but watching the fans might have been more entertaining than watching the game, which Porto won handily. Speaking of lopsided victories. Wow -- writing this just triggered memories of a dream I had last night, where I was watching a Quakes game and the score was 4-9 in the 52nd minute. All I could think was "hey, we scored four goals -- that's amazing!"
You’re always going to have disparity between top and bottom of the league. My point is that Gianni has wanted the Club World Cup to be a tournament of champions, but if there’s big disparity between domestic leagues, it could end up being an awful lot of bad games.