Yep, I read it tonight. Nothing ground breaking but it summed up the current state of business in America for Soccer.
I read this today as well... there is a pretty bad picture of McBride and Kante eyes shut and grimacing as they challenge for a header. Along the bottom of the first page (the article is one page + one column on a second page) it lists the "five top reasons soccer hasn't taken off" 1. It's still young... [back up text for each] 2. It's still viewed as foreign... 3. It's a low-scoring game... 4. It's "Timing" is off... 5. It's and advertising nightmare... The article is in the BusinessWeek that ranks "The Best B Schools"... it also has a fairly bleak outlook for people like me that just started working towards their MBA
simple solution to the advert. problem.....do what Telemundo/Univision do (every so often, have some dumb graphic)
yeah, the situation will be worse, with too manypeople looking in one field...kinda like what I'm going through in TV. Too many pretenders getting the jobs and shutting out people like me
The most interesting quote from the article: A 50% improvement in the bottom line cannot be discounted. That, if true, is a major step forward for MLS. Also good to see the WUSA adding sponsors. Pro soccer in the USA is not a zero-sum game. Sachin
"Still, as sports-marketing consultant Frank E. Cuzzi of Corner Kick International Inc. points out, soccer in America is a young sport. It's easy to forget, Cuzzi says, that in 1961 there were only eight NFL teams and football had been around for 50 years." I think that says it all right there.
I have a few problems with this article. It is trying to attack Phil Anschutz in some blatantly wrong way. The obvious one is that Phil's net worth is not plummeting!!! He just made three billion dollars in a RGC IPO three months ago. He has lost some but he is far from plummeting in wealth. Mr. Anschutz has already spoken to Congress VIA phone and respond to the allegations and came out of it unscathed. They are tryign to paint him as a guy who is trouble and that just isn't the case. They should get their facts straight before they go an write an article liek this.
I take this to mean they lost half as much money. But, I thought this year was no better than last year because of the one-time costs associated with contraction? Maybe they excluded one-time costs and revenues (if there are any of the latter.)
What it says is that Frank E. Cuzzi doesn't know football history very well. There were 14 teams in the NFL in 1961 and eight more in the AFL. The former was fairly well established (formed in 1920) and had been for a decade at least.
There were at least 12 teams in the NFL in the late 40s. Pittsburg, Cleveland, Chicago Bears, Chicago Cardinals (also spent some time in St. Louis), Green Bay, Detroit, LA, SF, Giants, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington.
Personally the "50%" statistic is what I find most intriguing. If this is true....then there was great improvement within the league in terms of cutting costs. I think one move that should be considered by MLS is moving the headquarters out of NYC. WUSA did that and they saved a lot of money. The league should also consider that.
"Still, the two U.S. pro organizations --Major League Soccer, which on Oct. 20 wraps up its seventh season with the MLS Cup in Foxboro, Mass., and the two-year-old Women's United Soccer Assn. (WUSA)--have yet to become more than marginal attractions." I'm not saying it's not a marginal attraction, but my question is, when does it surpass marginal attraction? 20K average attendance? X.X rating?
What is the "RGC"? I hadn't heard ol' Phil had pocketed anotehr cool 3 billion. btw, after Anschutz had responsed to the allegations and "been cleared", the Congress in fact "called him back" and asked some more questions. It was still up in the air I believe as to the outcome.
RGC is Regal Cinemas...a cobbling together of 3 theater chains in bankruptcy. He bought them for pennies on the dollar, but to say the 3 billion went to him directly is probably not correct as I believe it was used to retire debt of the 3 separate chains.
I think this was the NFL as of 1960. Some of the teams -- most notably the Browns -- came over from the All American Conference which started after WWII and folded some time in the 50s, with the NFL absorbing its strongest franchises. I think the AFL's first season was 1960 or 61. The lucky thing for the AFL and the great break for the NFL was TV -- the "world's greatest game" in 58 when the Colts beat the Giants for the championship, and the advent of TV. Hard to believe now, perhaps, but the NFL began playing on Sunday's to avoid the competition with college football -- the pros were afraid to go head to head with the college game.
This article to me seemed like lazy journalism. The guy just accepted for fact the 250 million losss figure without any personal analysis of that number.
For what its worth.. I'd compare MLS more to the NHL...mostly because they compare much more favorably. The NHL only had six teams for what, 70 years? Expansion wasn't until the early 60's as I remember? If we can just stay the course for 65 more years, we'll be right in there as the number four league... Back on topic: any stories that cover the sport and the league, as long as they are factual (i.e. non-Deford) are good. We must be making some noise if major publications are running stories on us.