Florida should get a team. The state host a large # of soccer fans and I think that we have almost ne thing it needs. We've had teams befor but they got cut for who knows what.
u need to shut ur pie hole wtf is ur prob. i posted it because it has to do with that subject and because it bothers a holes like u now dont post if u aint on subject ********* and thanks for backing me up
More than likely MLS will return to Tampa....*if* local ownership or league investors can be found. Tampa has a huge youth soccer organization that was supportive of both the Rowdies of the NASL and the Mutiny. Will just come down to whether or not a local owner or ownership group can step up.
Rowdies were the best y'all will ever have. Florida is a joke! Houston had one of the original franchises back in '95. Then FIFA ordered that ALL Div I leagues must play on natural grass and not turf. (FIFA has since changed that due to turf inovations i.e. The Fire) Houston was to play at Rice Stadium which is turf. Thus MLS shipped our franchise to Tampa and with guys like Lassiter in '96, Ralston the Rookie of the year that year, El Pipe running the show and several years of success....NOBODY in the Tampa/Clearwater/Orlando area came to watch. I recall watching Tampa Bay matches and Raymond James Stadium was as full as a Junior High football game. What happend between the Rowdies and the Black Spiders we will never know. Safe to say no one cared...its not like the Mutiny were fighting a long winning legacy in the Bucs! Y'alls Southern State is the worst for a MLS franchise. Proof in the fact that Florida has lost not one but TWO clubs....hence Florida is a joke!
Well you guys are going to be talking about this topic for a long time since its going to be atleast 10 years before MLS is back in florida, probably even more then that.
This is probably a ridiculous statement (few posts aren't) but I've always believed that Orlando would be a good place to have a team. Millions of families visit for the Disney/Universal parks but a relaxing night taking in a "professional" *cough, cough* soccer game that is relatively inexpensive for a family seems like a good deal. Your hardcore fan base would probably be next to nothing but you'd probably draw decent crowds in spring and summer with a SSS. Fire away, I can take it.
To reply to "Florida Should Get a Team"...................................................................................................................................................NO, They Shouldn't!
yeah i think you are right, they had a chance with not one but two team, we should give other cities a chance before they get another one. they had a chance and they blew it. if MLS plans on going to 16 teams in 10 or so years a Florida team should be number 16, the last team to join.
See that was the problem Florda needs one central team 2 at once was 2 many for a new thing in a area if there had been one team then there would have been atleast 2 times the atendence to games but see with 2 mls screwed its self so if they had only had made one team in the area it would have been all good but no they didnt realize the mistake until it was to late now wtf do u got to say wat now ass whole
you are Wrong, and the reason why is Tampa's attendence sucked even before Miami was added two years later.
ok, as a lifelong lover of this game and a lifelong resident of Florida here's my two cents: no matter what you read, where you read it, or what you hear, the only question as to whether a pro soccer club can survive and prosper in Florida is whether or not the ownership group proves with their deeds that they want the club to succeed. the orlando magic ownership has just learned that lesson the hard way. even though they gave away shaq with a big bow on his head to the lakers, they still thought they could sell out the games and rake in the dollars just by showing up. and people got bored and stopped going to games. now the team's ownership has realized they have to operate their organization like every other business: they have to advertise, they have to tell their prospective customers little things like 'hey, we'd love it if you bought our product...which, by the way, we still happen to be selling despite the fact you haven't heard from is in five years." all the business plans that have driven pro teams in florida in the past 20 years have been garbage. no offense to TIKY (I say this from downtown Orlando, and I love it that someone else thinks O-town would be a good idea, but it isn't) but that concept about there being so many vacationers that a few of them would spill over into a local sporting event is wrong. when I go on vacation I don't go to another city's sports team events unless my team is playing them. also, any team put here in Orlando that had as part of its buiness plan a siginificant chunk of attendance coming from vacationers is not a place I would want to be. my team is my team, and local fans that follow that team should be supporting them no matter what. take as an example the rowdy die-hard fans of most every team in the northeast: do those fans look like people who have been mindlessly wandering around malls, museums, and attractions all day? no, they look like people whose lives are in and about that town and they have a direct interest in seeing their team win because it represents them and their community. if I saw a bunch of waddling sunburned tourists dozing off at an mls Orlando team match, I'd be forced out of reverence for the good of the game to immediately call commissioner garber and break the bad news to him that another Florida mls team was not long for this world. there's a right way, and there's a wrong way and all we've seen down here (marlins, devil rays, lightning, panthers, mutiny, fusion, xfl(?!)) is the wrong way. no team will ever succeed with shallow business assumptions such as "there's plenty of retirees in tampa who grew up with baseball in the northeast where they all retired from, so naturally they'd make our baseball team a success" or the previously mentioned and ever popular "there's tons of tourists with plenty of money looking for something else to do while on vacation...naturally there would be just enough of them coming to our team's games to keep us from going broke". bad ideas with similar results. when it's done right, it'll work. until then, forget it.
Attendance wasn't the problem in Tampa. A lack of an owner/investor, and a horrible lease agreement with Raymond James Stadium were what killed the team. And neither of these things had anything to do with fan support. Yes, Tampa Bay didn't led the league in attendance. But every year there were teams with worse attendance. Heck, the Mutiny drew more people last year than San Jose - the league champions?! Put another team in Tampa with a decent owner/investor and a decent place to play, and the team does fine.
How about: Tampa and Miami are like 5 hours apart, they're not exactly "in the area" of one another. I've lived in FL, I highly doubt Tampa drew too many fans from Ft Lauderdale, or vice versa. I lived near Miami, one of the big problems there was a complete lack of promotion. I had a kid in a class who wore a Revs t-shirt one day, professed to like the Revs, and yet had never heard of the Fusion, though he was a FL native.
If Tampa area investors were willing to pony up for a Soccer Specific Stadium as well as commit to owning the team, MLS would be back in town in a heartbeat. Of course, I don't see that happening anywhere in the near future.
I will be really happy if it does happen though. I will be able to handle the wait and the drive(I will be living on the east side of Florida by then) even if it takes 5 years.
1) Tampa had the worst overall attendance in the league over their existence. They were always in the bottom two or three. True, other teams were at the bottom (miami, san jose, kansas city, colorado) at one time or another, but they didn't start there or stay there. Tampa never developed an upward trend. I would argue that attendance was a very big problem in Tampa. 2) My understanding of the lease deal at Raymond James was that it was quite reasonable. Of those we know about, more than half are far worse than Tampa's.
Feuerfex, I don't mean to pick a fight, but I have to respectfully disagree. Yes, Tampa's attendance wasn't great, but in MLS we're not talking about great fluxuations in attendance between teams. Only a couple thousand in attendance separates the team with the worst attendance with all but the top two or three teams. And as for the Raymond James lease, it was simply criminal; zero money for consessions, zero money from parking, zero money for stadium advertising (except for the ad boards around the field), and extremly high rent. Unfortunately, there isn't another suitable alternative venue in the Bay area. Sorry for the rant, but you really hit upon a sore subject with this old Muts fan.
When Steinbrenner was approached about possibly buying into the Mutiny, he said that nobody could make any money owning the Mutiny as long as the club was saddled with that lease. That sounds like a pretty strong statement against the Mutiny having a "reasonable" lease, from a guy who knows a thing or two about the subject.
Hey! I'm from Florida. Proud of it too! I would love to have a pro team down here and no doubt there are some of the best and most knowledgeable soccer fans to support it. However, the MLS has F(*&(*d us once already. What make you think they won't do it again? Florida is not the joke here; the MLS is. Expansion, Contraction, Expansion...I don't think they have clue what it is they want to do. As far as I'm concerned they can stay clear out of this state I won't be supporting them. OH YES! I know know very well that my opinion is a minority here; and there are those who would sell their souls just to have a team down here. HOW SAD!
some of us that know this market, will have our day. S Florida and Lockhart is one of the top venues in US... but it takes good management to get the best out of it. Attendance was not the problem (11,000 and growing) the problem was Horrorwitz, and the imbeciles at MonkeyLeagueSoccer, and the wankers that have no clue about this area, but keep on being experts on it, from accross the country. WP Beach to S Miami 80 miles, by 20 miles wide with Lockhart in the middle of it all, hundreds of thousands of Argentinians, Brazilians, Hatians, Fans from Central America, us Floridians, and our children...the top true blue soccer market in US...mismanaged, and contracted...MLS & Garberchiov knows nothing about true passion, and how markets respond. Most fans here, did not even hear about the Fusion. Word of mouth, Hudson and the lads got the 11000 fans out...not Fusion owner or management, not Garber and his cronies where does a 10,000 fan market belong, with the least expensive soccer specific stadium in the Nation, and the highest International TV ratings... where ??? MLS stole the manager, the palyers, and the coach and managed to show the most despicable third rate soccer season, that I could never watch.
Can't disagree with the angry South Floridians. === Here's a description of the Tampa lease: http://www.sptimes.com/News/052201/news_pf/Sports/Mutiny_renews_lease_a.shtml