The MLS is responsible for who becomes an owner yes? or nor? The MLS brought Horrobitch into the picture yes? or no? The MLS overcharged the Horrobitch by 15 million; it should have been 5 million and not 20million Yes? or no? The team, having been over taxed already from the onset perhaps could not afford to promote themselves. I don't know the answer to that! I swear I knew nothing about the FUSION until the end of their 2nd or 3rd season. I only learned about it because one of the kids on my soccer team had mentioned he was going to see the Fusion that night. Shortly afterwards I started following the Fusion and then later became a season ticket holder. Then I started buying tickets for my friends and then my friends started buying tickets. Then we became season ticket holders for the next season. Then we had a great team and things were really starting to look good. We had some terrible games in which we had very low attendance but that was due to the weather conditions on those specific dates due to heavy rains and lightning. Soccer in South Florida is a very FAMILY oriented sport. Many parents will not put their kids in danger by taking them out to an event when it is lightning. Wait! don't take out your violin just yet. I understand the MLS's position for pulling the team; since at the time the MLS could not find another owner. (BTW, that is a whole other subject) Where the MLS was wrong was in overcharging for the franchise in the 1st place and for not finding an owner that was willing to stick with the team. Trust me the fan base is here! I play soccer, I coach soccer, I see soccer down here everyday, without a doubt we have one of the most diverse soccer fan outlets of anywhere else in the United States, maybe 2nd to New Jersey. Argentineans, Colombians, Brazilians, Jamaican, Haitians, Koreans, Costa Ricans, Mexicans and array of other fans including US Americans which have only been involved in soccer for 5 or less years but those which felt the passion and now can't let go and certainly will not go to see a boring baseball game after having experienced what soccer could be. I hope I've answered your question. Believe me, it's not my intent to create enemies on this or any other site. But when people go on ranting and blaming the fans, when they know nothing about what really went on. It irks me! Many non Floridian people choose to put on blinders and assume that what is being done or was done is correct. Florida Fans are not idiots like the MLS would like everyone who is non Floridian to believe. Granted! we don't know how to vote or not count chads. But we do know our soccer! Fusion style soccer was to have been the style of soccer in which a US standard would have been adopted and made us a dominant soccer country. In contraction, the MLS set the clock backwards.
That was a pretty good post, CoachRiver. As to ovecharging, if $25 million or $20 million or whatever was too much to pay for as MLS franchise, then Horowitz should never have bought in in the first place...for Horowitz to make an excuse of that later on, in order to attempt to excuse his ineptitude, is pretty lame. AEG had no issues with the same fee for the Fire, and that franchise has turned into an MLS model. I wholeheartedly agree what MLS shouldn't have let Horowitz into the league. However, once he was in (which was, by the way, the descision of the departed Doug Logan and had nothing to do with Garber), you have to admit the man made a mess of things, and I'm not sure exactly where MLS could have helped him out. They weren't going to take over the franchise. LOL. Believe it or not I was living in Palm Beach County at the time of this election, and those ballots were actually pretty confusing, though you could easily figure them out if you took 10 seconds and used a little brain power. I doubt, however, that anyone will accuse Palm Beach citizens of doing that very often. Off topic, sorry... I don't think anyone would argue that contraction set the game back. It clearly did. But what I hope you can eventually recognize is that MLS had to take one step beck to take two forward, and those two steps forward are already happening.
superdave...the quote you refer me to, WAS by C O A C H R I V E R but we do sound the same, one big dif.. I want MLS back CoachRiver ...dont YOU know why we sound the same ??? because we are the voices of many in S.Florida!!! next time you are in S. Florida we each buy you a beverage, and that will equal to 2 1 pepsi 1 coke ;-) S.Florida Fusion 2001, the best team ever contracted by MLS