Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news If they have young talent at 15k a year and can sell them to MLS teams for 100k, then they may have a chance....Ticket sales and merchandise doesnt cover the admin costs -travel - and electric bill....... Difficult part is putting out a team out that can compete - the fans will come if the matches are exciting! - win or lose because of loyalty. Perhaps Glavin's boys are the perfect feeder for us.....and we feed to the MLS with young talent - We have to run the business like a reserve team for the MLS - it may be too late
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news Dude I think we all get the idea on this...but they need more immediate solutions. What you're proposing takes a lot of time and patience, you may hit on 1 of 100 kids to come through. And even then MLS would probably wait out the kids contract until he was free.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news Again - issue stock to the fans.....or find a corporation to back us.....either way, it is the community that will determine the fate of the club......
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news What are you talking about? Stock is never going to be issued to fans. Money will determine the fate of this club. We could have 8,000 fans but if the club has no money, they are gone regardless of what happens in the "community".
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news What are you talking about? Last August Valencia issued stock to 26,000 fans to save their team - in 6 weeks raised 18 mil EU - The PIGS, despite all their financial problems - love futbol and so does their "community", but nevertheless - I thought we were discussing possible resolutions -Myself and others have been proactivly looking for corporate sponsors.... - now - I am done. Good Luck
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news 18 million euros is about 21 million USD, which means an average investment of $800 per fan. Problem 1: We don't have 26,000 fans. This is a brand-new D2 team. Problem 2: Most of the fans we do have could/would never invest that kind of money in a team. This isn't a top-flight franchise with a century of tradition. I've invested $150 for season tickets and $45 for merchandise (probably $50 or $75 more as the season goes on). I'm not going to give them an additional $800 out of my public school teacher's salary. That would add up to over $1000 for one season, and I have a family to support. Don't make it sound like somehow the rest of us are bad fans because we don't have $1000 each for D2 soccer.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news I was hoping to see him come play in Tampa Bay
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news Unfortunately now some the SLSG club directors are saying that AC STL is NOT coming back next year. That's not a good sign, seeing that these are the guys that have worked closely with Cooper over the last couple of years with the mega-club merger. Plus, their offices are based at Soccer Park so they know what's going on. I'm absolutely ashamed of what has happened in recent weeks. We need someone like a Dr. Abe Hawatmeh to step up like he did with the Ambush. He did that with his own money. While he never made money, he was able to limit the loses....and I guarantee his expenses were higher than Cooper's. He took care of his players, travel, and high rent at Scottrade Center. Plus, Abe wasn't afraid to advertise and he hired a good staff. That translated into an average of more than 8,000 fans for the 8 year history of the Ambush. I'd take that 8,000 average now, for indoor, WPS, or D-2 in a heartbeat.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news Kind of hard to do when you can barely squeeze 6000 into AB Soccer Park.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news so does anybody have the real dirt on what's going on here? how did Cooper go from wanting to buy all of USL last year to not being able to afford payroll for a D-2 team? can we blame it the failure of Athletica and women's soccer? or is he just a total fraud? or what?
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news oh man! From what we know, he can't just buy in because it would be a breach of contract. The guy isn't a business wizard, so therefore made some big ass mistakes in how he dealt with selling the majority of the stock, contracts and not having a plan if something like this happened.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news How could any of this be blamed on Athletica and women's soccer? When Athletica folded and some of the team's supporters blamed ACSTL the supporters of ACSTL all claimed that the two were completely separate. Many also claimed that AC STL was a better investment, was in a better league, etc. so there was no way ACSTL had anything to do with Athletica folding. Athletica fans who blamed AC and planned on boycotting AC games were told that they were not true soccer fans because they weren't supporting both teams. Is that somehow magically not true when the situation is reversed? The real problem is Cooper selling the teams to the Vaids. That's what has brought both teams down. Allocate blame between the Vaids and Cooper as you see fit. No matter how you view this whole fiasco you've got to admit that this is a sad time for soccer in STL. If/when AC folds I don't see pro soccer returning any time soon. And really, there's nothing any of us can do about it.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news That and he didn't tell the WPS and the NASL that he sold the entire operation to the Vaids. At best he is incompetent, at worse he is a fraud who really has no money. It's up to you to decide which is which.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news If you think he doesn't have any money, you are rather clueless. He was one of two founding members of a multi-billion dollar law firm.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=20943673&postcount=311 This post may be of interest to you guys....or it may not. It comes from an investor in the SF WPS team, and does not put Cooper in the best light.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news I have a feeling you can't handle the truth.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news No. I can handle the truth when the truth is actually presented to us.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news Actually, we know he told the commissioner of the NASL, because it was him. WPS and the NASL are not the same thing. (We've already been over that on these boards.)
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news While I don't doubt that you've talked to SLSG directors, because you love to tell us all constantly how important you are, I have a really hard time believing that the SLSG directors know what will happen next year since nobody at this point seems to know what's going to happen next year, Cooper included. Is is possible that AC will go away? Yes. Is SLSG probably making contingency plans so that they don't get dragged down with the ship? Yes. Does any of that really guarantee anything? No. Is Redhawk the most negative poster on BigSoccer and so everything he says must be taken with a grain of salt? Definitely.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news Quick reminder that Cooper is no longer part of SLSG.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news I don't think anyone knows exactly what happened or who to blame yet, but I feel pretty confident that Athletica wasn't to blame in any way.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news Hell I've been saying on here for long time that Cooper doesn't has the money he first said he did when he wanted an MLS team....and NO ONE believed me. Everyone jumped on the band wagon becaue you were all given FALSE information. Fans read the STL Post-Dispatch and listened to interviews on the radio and everyone took the bait. Cooper didn't want the true facts posted online, in the paper, or on the radio, so the general public never knew the REAL truth. I'm not trying to be negative here, but just stating the facts. I've never stated I'm an important person at all, but just a passionate fan like the rest of you. I want pro soccer to succeed to STL, but it'll never happen until we have a STABLE ownership group. Cooper is NOT a stable owner and has completely destroyed soccer in St. Louis, not only pro, but youth as well.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news You couldn't be more wrong. The investors Cooper had lined up for MLS are not the investors he used for Athletica/AC. But thanks for playing. Sorry, he didn't hire you like you wanted. I bet that hurts.
Re: AC St. Louis Scrambling to Save Team and other related news Actually NO because I'm making much money money now than I would working for AC STL. And from what I'm told, it wouldn't even come close. What hurts is that Cooper has let soccer in STL go to hell and none of us can do anything about it.