Peter Wilt has said he wants a team to play in Chicago so sharing TP is not going to happen. I'm a Fire STH and red stars and I will become a peter wilt nasl team STH.
In a world of continued MLS growth I wouldn't necessarily be as bearish on Chicago as a 2-team city as you are here, but real talk, if the quoted scenario were to come to pass, assuming the NASL team were a better-run and more accessible affair, I wouldn't shed a tear. Am I alone in my loyalty being to this sport and this city miles ahead of whatever "brand" is handed down by Hauptman, Garber, and the corrupt, monopolist, NFL-humping robber baron cabal that sees soccer as their next score?
Yes, but it is still nowhere near the EPL, the Bundesliga, La Liga or Serie A. So why do presumably soccer-educated Europeans still support lower league clubs when clubs in the highest division are not that far away, at least by American standards? Even in the USA, all of the above leagues are more or less easily available on TV and, in the bigger cities at least, live in person during their annual tours. If level of play was all that mattered, only people who are absolute diehards for live soccer would watch MLS. I think level of play only matters at the extremes and, again if Wilt does it right, the Fire v. Sting quality divide won't be big enough to keep real soccer fans from going to Sting games rather than Fire games.
I can't believe we are having a discussion involving "quality of play" where supposedly, the Fire are the gold standard that this team won't be able to reach.
It's not the Fire's level of play. It's the level of play of the stars that the visiting teams bring to TP....
Excellent way of taking one small part of what I said and conflating it out of proportion. At no time did I say that level of play "was all that mattered." I said it mattered, and it does, among a lot of other things (as I stated). As for the rest of your comments, they really do not need to be addressed.
The quality will be different for sure, even the bare minimum budget from MLS will be much larger than anything Wilt can aford. Players like Ritter and Watson are the regulars for NASL. NASL is about the same level as the USL going by US Open Cup results, in 2015 USL went 7 vs. 0 against NASL. Is ok to want something different, and the experience may be better, but lets not be fools, MLS still has a big money edge over NASL.
That's slightly inaccurate. The Dallas Texans and Dallas Cowboys both started in 1960. The Dallas Texans (and the rest of the AFL) were started by Hunt after the NFL repeatedly rebuffed his efforts to get an NFL team there. After the AFL announced its plans and its ownership, the NFL quickly put an expansion team in Dallas so as not to cede the South and West to the AFL. And in the end, the Texans ended up moving to Kansas City after three seasons of trying to compete with the Cowboys at the Cotton Bowl. Meanwhile, the NBA all but killed the ABA. Only four ABA teams -- the Spurs, the Nets, the Nuggets, and the Pacers -- were absorbed into the NBA, with all four teams' owners having to pay a high price to do so, and the Spirits of St. Louis and Kentucky Colonels got taken around back and given the Old Yeller treatment. And before someone mentions it, the WHA also suffered a similarly ignominious fate when it went up against the NHL, and things went even worse for the USFL, which sort of proves the point that it's really, really hard to go up against an incumbent league and you really, really have to have a certain confluence of circumstances and you really have to have ownership who have lots of money and who don't mind losing lots of it for many years, which sadly does not describe too many owners in the NASL.
The best part of that deal was the St. Louis owners for closing up shop negotiated a % of all future NBA TV deals in perpetuity. http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jul/31/sports/sp-aba31 Part of the Silnas' deal called for them to receive one-seventh of the annual TV revenue from each of the four ABA teams entering the NBA. The NBA finally got them to give them an out http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2014/...tuity-deal-with-former-owners-of-aba-spirits/ he Silnas are to receive a $500 million upfront payment, financed through a private placement of notes by JPMorgan Chase and Merrill Lynch, according to three people with direct knowledge of the agreement. The deal would end the enormous perpetual payments and settle a lawsuit filed in federal court by the Silnas that demanded additional compensation from sources of television revenue that did not exist in 1976, including NBA TV, foreign broadcasting of games and League Pass, the service that lets fans watch out-of-market games. Still, the league is not getting rid of the Silnas altogether. They will continue to get some television revenue, some of it from the disputed sources named in their lawsuit, through a new partnership that is to be formed with the Nets, the Pacers, the Nuggets and the Spurs, according to the people with knowledge of the agreement. But at some point, the Silnas can be bought out of their interest in the partnership.
Oh for sure, I'd expect your average MLS team to be better than your average NASL team. Nobody is doubting that. The question is will the gap in level of play by itself cause most Chicago soccer fans to shun an NASL team here. Normally, you could make that case. But level of play is not the only thing that matters in sports. Nobody likes to feel like they're being played for chump and I'd say most Chicago soccer fans have now had that experience with Hauptman's zombieFire. Which is why all the bridges that Dollar Menu has burnt could very well come back to haunt the Fire IF (and that's still a big IF) Wilt does everything right with the hypothetical Sting and builds an organization that treats its fan well and is competitive in its league. If that turns out to be the case, then soccer fans in Chicago have a win-win. We can go see live men's pro soccer at hypothetical Sting games and, if we want to see the highest level of play then screw MLS, we'll go watch La Liga, EPL or Bundesliga on TV at the bar or in the comfort of our homes.
1 difference is that both are local choices vs. Foreign leagues, I like the NASL and I have been following them since the split, I hope they grow and become a substainable soccer league that perhaps pushes MLS or at least gives some fans options. But I have seen games live and on the NASL stream, and well we joke about a team full of Ritters, but that is what NASL teams tend to be. As an alternative I think it is fantastic, I just want people to keep their hopes realistic on what a Chicago NASL will look like. Also don't be surprised if after an initial good year, that the team may struggle to get 5K+ fans to their games. MLSsnobs are as real as EPLsnobs.
That's right, but even in addition to that I wouldn't underestimate the number of Chicago soccer fans that haven't even gotten that far. Bridgeview + No Marketing + Constant Failure during an era when the interest in soccer has skyrocketed has created a pretty large potential customer base that has had no real reason to interact with the Fire in the first place. It's easy to forget that on a board for hardcore long-time Fire fans. The "vibe" that has blown up MLS markets elsewhere has just not struck Chicago yet, period. A well marketed men's pro team in Solider Field COULD create some of that. Could. Money will be a problem, NASL talent level and lack of exposure will be a problem, a cavernous stadium with football lines will be a problem, the fact that Soldier Field isn't actually THAT easy to get to will be a problem, but despite all of that, Chicago is an enormous potential soccer market and the Fire are barely scratching the surface of it and receding all the time. There's an opening there.
I have loyalty to the local men's professional soccer club that does the best job of competing within their league and has the best game day experience. Right now that is the Fire, merely because it is the only choice. Well, besides not supporting a local team. I actually do hope the best local club will be the Fire when the Sting become a reality, but based on the current state of things I don't have high hopes and the moment this is no longer the case my loyalty will shift. The Fire have done nothing to make my loyalty any more resilient than that. They could have. But they haven't. I don't expect anyone to agree or feel the same way. But the Fire will lose my support when I have a better option.
I have made the same arguments with friends who poo-poo the rebirth of the Sting because of the NASL's level of play. As long as I can celebrate a Chicago championship with my sons, I don't care if the Sting play like Long John Silver impersonators. I do question, however, the desire to play in the city. Soldier Field is a pain in the neck to get to for suburbanites. Yes, public transportation is a plus for those in the city, but for me T.P. is easy to get to coming in the back way off the Tri-State. Once again, I would recommend the Hillside area, where all the highways come together, as the location of the NASL stadium.
I don't mean to be snarky, but this is important to note: because of the above, Chicago Fire Soccer is a VASTLY better product for you than it is for me, Andy, suckitude, raccoons and all. No value judgments of where anyone chooses to live, but Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Logan Square, Bucktown, Ukranian Village, etc, are where the densest concentration of the 2016 US professional soccer fan demographic are located. The inconvenience of getting to Bridgeview from those places is almost impossible to overstate. Soldier Field is imperfect, but much, much better. If the location of Toyota Park looks like the plan in 2005 was for people from Naperville and Downers Grove and Hinsdale to be the center of gravity of Fire crowds, that's because that's exactly what the plan was. Fire leadership was better then, but it was not clairvoyant.
I think they, and the fans here on BS, also underestimated the intangibles associated with being in the City proper vs some dingy suburb (no matter how close to the city). For most suburbanites, going to The City is an event in an of itself. It's exciting. Hell, I still have romantic memories of sitting in the car with my dad in the early 80s, seeing the skyline, the Coca Cola sign that meant we were getting close. Chicago is a capital D destination. Bridgeview is not.
Oh, and the team should be called Lokomotiv Chicago, and the supporters should be called Los Lokos! edit: get it? Section 8-crazy-loco?
I don't care where the Sting plays, in or somewhere around Chicago, I'll be there. Same with the Red Stars. Same goes for the Fire if they were still worth my time.