Well Glazer owns a professional soccer team, and he was supposed to save the mutiny but he copped out
Not true, at least the second part. After the Glazers agreed to take over the Mutiny, MLS demanded more money (in the neighborhood of $10 million). Glazers then said no thank you.
It might be difficult to bring another team to Tampa Bay. I always thought that a new SSS would be perfect for Pinellas County, since there is only 1 professional team there. Sadly, not a lot of room to build over there. Also, Tampa Bay is totally dominated by the Bucs.
Negotiations had been under way to sell the Mutiny to Malcolm Glazer, owner of the National Football League's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but those talks broke down for reasons Abbott declined to disclose. ??? Glazer collected concession and parking fees during Mutiny games as part of the Bucs' lease agreement at Raymond James Stadium.
You got about half the story. Essentially the Glazers offered to take over the Mutiny from MLS but when MLS realized that they might make some more money off the Glazers, they then turned around and told the Glazers they could only take over the Mutiny for $10 million. Glazers said no thanks and the Mutiny died. Ask yourself, you was the greedy party here and who let the Mutiny die? No wonder the ManU-billion dollar owning Glazers are taking their sweet time coming back to MLS and Tampa.
And honestly, just how much liquid assets do the Glazers currently have? It's great to be "wealthy", but if all your assets are tied up, and your current cash flow sucks, your ability to be preprared to dedicate 100 really big ones to a new unproven venture might not be there.
Yea but when you really think about it, 10$ million dollars to buy a soccer team is pretty cheap nowadays, and I'm just surprised noone stood up to the plate....
Re: A stadium and MLS team in Tampa Bay? That is precisely why it has to be revived. It's not only history, but it is good, positive history, which we need to hang on to.
Re: A stadium and MLS team in Tampa Bay? Rodney Marsh owns a quarter of the rights to the name. I think he was given it as part of his deal by the last owners back when he was coach. Marsh was surprised when no one was interested in acquiring the Rowdies name when MLS started. I really doubt he or the other owner would make any unreasonable demands for the name. He would be very pleased to see the Rowdies revived.
It's not "$10 million dollars to buy a soccer team." 1) MLS franchises now carry an expansion tag in the $25-30 million range 2) On top of that investment groups need to have another 60-100million in liquid assets to cover stadium guarantees, league cash calls, etc... The vast majority of that cash would never be used, but any potential investors would need to show the ability to easily generate that level of cash.
The Mutiny were falling apart, the league was killing them with their ineptness (sp?). The Glazers were the perfect owners to take over the club, to which they were planning to. Then after they had told MLS they were going to save the Mutiny, MLS turned around and said "on second thought, we want you to pay us $10 million to take over this losing proposition". I am not a Glazer-lover, but they get far too much neg-press around the world and on BS. In my opinion, the league is why Tampa failed, not the Glazers.
Ten million is not all that much money for the Glazers however, I'm sure for them in the end it was a matter of principal and pride more than anything else. I've asked this before on a BS thread however, was never answered. I remember the MLS made Ken Horowitz stick "to investing" $20 million dollars into the MLS after he pulled the plug on the Miami Fusion. What I want to know is what do the league do with the expansion money or the 10 million they would have gotten from the Glazers? I mean do each team actually get a piece of this money and/or benefit from it (as was the initial plan in the supposed single entity structure) or does this money go into CD accounts and grow (in order to help pay in the future) or fund the SSS or is it spent for DP players? Does the money cover clubs losses?
Well I guess we have to wait for Man U to start playing some games in Tampa, so that the MLS wakes up and offers Tampa a team
Yes, and let's keep this in mind the next time one of the drones of BigSoccer repeats the lie that "MLS tried in Florida and failed; no more MLS franchises for Florida; pro soccer can't work in Florida, it's too hot, the Mutiny and Fusion failed" etc. Anyone can look at the attendance figures and figure out that there were worse MLS franchises at the time that did not get shut down; these others were, however, favorites of the MLS majority owners and thus were never in any danger of being shut down, no matter how much they stank or how much money they lost. The Tampa Bay Rowdies and Ft. Lauderdale Strikers showed how it could be done in Florida. Someone should start emulating what they did. Trying to run a club from the league office does not work. You need committed owners and front office staff who love the sport, know how to market, and know the local community (all these things the Rowdies had in abundance). Reviving the Rowdies would be a nice start, signalling that a future new MLS owner in Tampa "gets it".
And I know it's fashionable to go after AEG, Don Garber, and the league in the San Jose forum, but let's not go overboard with trying to find "blame" The league had to make some compromises in order to launch the league. Those compromises had to be corrected at some point in order to allow the league to survive and eventually grow. The sad and unfortunate thing is that the "correction" involved the disolution of the Tampa franchise. It could have just as easily had been Dallas or San Jose - or even all three. Miami's closure is a seperate topic. The thing is, the league really needed to launch when it did. It had already delayed from 95, and time was slipping away. The problem is that there were only 7 ownership groups. By going with "league owned" teams, MLS was able to get up and running. The problem - that was far more of a problem than anyone could imagine - was that the drain of the league owned teams - in the form of cash calls to the other investors was of dangerous proportions. Several of the original investors backed out, and the various entities that inquired about the league owned teams (mostly Tampa Bay) kicked the tires and walked away. The league owned teams had to go away in one form or another. At the end of the 2000 season, the board of governors discussed, and tabled dropping various combinations of 2 or 4 teams. From what I've been able to gather, the three league owned teams were on the table along with Kansas City, Colorado, and Miami. The tabling of 2000 was with the caveat that efforts would be redoubled at landing new ownership for Dallas, Tampa Bay, and San Jose. They league came close in all three cases. But the overall finances of league were such a mess that nobody was willing to buy in - and Horowitz in Miami was running out of cash. So, yeah, it sucks royally. Tampa Bay's biggest crime was being a league owned team. If Lamar Hunt hadn't been a lifelong resident of Dallas, it easily could've been them instead. I see Tampa as being the victim of unfortunate circumstance and not any maliciousness or incompetence - though there's been plenty of the latter. And, just like every team, and potential expansion team, it comes back to local ownership. The nascent league in 94/95 wasn't able to find a local investor. The Glazers and Steinbrenners both walked away. A new Tampa team will need to have someone with a large bankroll. Unfortunately, the bar is now higher, and a new stadium will have to be part of any expansion deal. I for one, look forward to Tampa's return to the league.
OMG...I completely and utterly agree with Andy's post. It's either #1-not really Andy but a imposter or #2-a alternate universe. I am going with #2. But what he said is the truth. No doubt.
There are also Super Y and Super 20 USL teams in the Tampa area. - http://supery.uslsoccer.com/schedules/2007/6354755.html - http://supery.uslsoccer.com/schedules/2007/6355140.html