Review: Did eliminating Tampa, Miami save MLS?

why bother even posting this? So we can all fight about how the two Florida MLS franchises were shit on and defend ourselves against a pile of ignorant posters whose only contribution to the thread will be "lol Tampa and Miami suxors! Florida is bad for soccer!"?

It's been 10 years. MLS made mistakes. They aren't likely to ever admit that or move to try and make it right. So what does it matter?

At this point we should just keep supporting the NASL and our new heritage teams as best we can as if that is as good as it gets. I don't see how crying for MLS will convince our owners to give it a look if they aren't already. Good job to the Sons of Ben for making MLS happen there and it'd be great if something like that worked here in Florida, but I don't see it and I don't even know if it would be appropriate while people are committed to the NASL and trying to make it work.

Just sigh, all around SIGH. uhghghg

 

Spot on! Some people just can't handle the truth and it easy to follow others misinformed facts like the first lemming who jumped and all the others who followed instead of learning the facts. The entire argument about attendance where the old Miami Fusions are concerned was nothing more than an elaborate cover up of the truth by the league to justify absorbing the Miami franchise and the covering for one of the league's early investor that operated the Fusion and wanted out because of financial problems.

The league was in a bit of financial trouble and two teams needed to be sacrificed, it was easy for the league that was near to going out of business to eliminate two of it's clubs and Miami was a easy choice because the owner who wanted out due to lack of money to operate the Miami Fusion FC club. After years of no marketing or I should very little marketing, in 2001 the Miami Fusion started to turn around it's franchise and in fact it was Doug Hamilton's business and marketing acumen that resulted in sponsorship agreements for the club topping a record $1 million. While attendance has been an issue for the entire league in th early years, the Miami Fusion through Doug Hamilton increased attendance by 49 percent in 2001. But the ownership lost so much money like the rest of the league clubs in the two previous years that the owner did not see investing in a soccer league at that moment as something beneficial and he wanted out...this ultimately changed the way the league picked future owner operaters.

But the Miami Fusion FC was no worst for attendance than most of the other teams in the league at that time with the exception of only one or two clubs. In fact the same year the Miami Fusion was absorbed by the league, it's attendance was growing from the previous years and in fact increased by 49 percent bettering the Kansas City Wizards (now Sporting Kansas City) at that time. But because the Wizards was backed by one of the league biggest investor in the late Lamar Hunt, absorbing that Kansas City Wizards team was not an option. When people make the argument of how bad a sports town Miami is for soccer, it was better than Kansas City then. The fact Kansas City has turned around that franchise which at the time was also one of the worst soccer market's is a good and encouraging reason to believe that Miami could duplicate the same kind of success with the proper ownership in place. For that very reason I can not buy into the argument that soccer can not work in this South Florida market where we do have the built in soccer educated demographic for success.

So when someone ask why is Don Garber and MLS set on South Florida as oppose to Atlanta or other southeast cities, Don Garber knows the truth and you all could explain now to the rest the real reason why Miami is more attractive if implemented correctly.

 

All I know about Tampa Bay Mutiny was that they asked the Glazer's who are Tampa natives to purchae the club and they were going to do it.

Then all of a sudden the Glazer's said no and decided to go after Man Utd a few years later. That really got me angry. Go and own a team in your own backyard but they decided to help MLS fold the team.

That got me upset.

 

I guess the Glazer family is more into business than soccer

 

What saved MLS was the owners being willing to stick with it. If cutting losses in Florida made them more willing to do that, I suppose it was a contributing factor.

Doesn't mean Florida is somehow poisoned forever, as the support for the minor league teams shows. Doesn't mean the fans didn't deserve better, either.

 

I remember that MLS was going to drop the San Jose Earthquakes, but suddenly they eliminated the Fusion in the semis and went on to win the MLS cup, so MLS had to look for another victim

 

Wow! Didn't Joe Robbie say how they did in the playoffs would determine whether or not the original Strikers moved to Minnesota?

 

Here's another way that one could look at it; eliminationg Tampa and Miami may have saved soccer in South Florida. Look at how long it's taken alot of the original and early MLS franchises to overcome MLS' down years and become successful again while most of the newer markets from Houston onward have taken to the league during it's commercial height and therefore have more enthusiastic fanbases. If a Florida market is indeed the first southeastern market in MLS since the contraction, then an argument can be made that they'll be more successful than either of the original teams would be had they been in existence all along.

Just crazy speculation anyway...

 

I understand that much. The point that I was making is that soccer in Florida didn't miss much by riding out MLS' down years since most of the markets that existed during that period are struggling or rebuilding now. Outside of LA and Chivas for divergent reasons, the most successful markets in MLS are Houston and onwards. Earlier markets are still trying to rebuild their fanbases although KC seems to have succeeded there by almost creating an expansion-like atmosphere. They basically succeeded at what FCD tried to do when they opened PHP-er FC Dallas Stadium. Perhaps the only difference between the two approaches is that the timing was better for SKC. Both did Euro rebrands upon opening new stadiums, but one did it during the leagues growth in popularity while the other would be apt for the tree in the forest analogy.

My point is that, assuming Florida ever gets back in MLS, you may have been better off. So many fans were lost over the late 90s and early aughts.

 

general suckage ? lol !

 

No .

 

The decision to have no league-owned teams going forward was an important one, but the creation of SUM and the joining of the MLS TV rights to those of the World Cup was probably what really "saved" MLS.

It's unfortunate that the Mutiny and Fusion had to go - for various reasons - but there's a good chance it wouldn't have mattered had they not created SUM and done that TV deal.