Let's try this again: Stay on topic. If you want to talk about politics, take it to the politics subforum. Please see the new sticky at the top of this subforum regarding the new political discussion policy. This is why we can't have nice things.
Oh, don't worry, if you take politics out of it you'll have zero activity in the Dash threads. You can shut this down and lock it now
I'll allow the Chronicle link rather than the Keeper Notes link (which ran an hour before the Chronicle link) because Corey has done such a great job this year.
Got something of a "showcase" event on Sunday yet you still rented the stadium out for a Mexican friendly on Friday night for extra money. Pablo Mastroeni and DaMarcus Beasley both commented on the pitch being in poor shape w/o being asked about it. NWSL final is 4 pm Sunday.— Corey Roepken (@RipSports) October 9, 2016 Ground crew taking care of the field moments after the game. NWSL final is here tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/SXxyMbFoi8— Corey Roepken (@RipSports) October 9, 2016
I'm sure that the nwsl got a good deal. I'm not sure how many people are going to show up to watch these two finalists. I am fatigued with the whole organization.
Not as many as would have been the case had Portland reached the final. Still, a lot of people have made the trip for the game. Lower bowl is sold out, all the premium seating is sold out and upper bowl sales have been underway since earlier this week. Basically once lower bowl is gone, financially it is a success. Off the field, it is definitely a success. Lot of WoSo fans here from all over gathering together. A lot of stuff on social media. Full house yesterday of fans for WoSoCo 2.0. This is what going to a planned venue was all about.
A great weather day - glad it's a financial success since the FO uses the Dynamo STH money to fund the overall operation.
Will be interesting to see the field condition - the Dash posted a video and it looks decent but I think they may have rolled/tamped that field hard and then spray painted it. It looks a lot better than last night which frankly seems hard to believe. May play very hard/bouncy today
Shock of the day - understaffed stadium!!! I'm told there are long lines for the merchandise stands right now, doors just opened a little while ago.— Hal Kaiser (@Hal_Kaiser) October 9, 2016
Lot of people in the "sold out" lower bowl dressed as empty seats. Some sections have very few in them, doesn't seem sold
I caught the end of extra time and the last few shots of the shootout - is it customary for fans to sit and watch a shootout for a title? Seemed like most didn't know it was over
People were allowed to move from the sections in the sun up to the upper bowl in the shade. The shade side of the stadium was packed. After the sun went down, the sections that were somewhat empty filled back up as people moved back down.
For a neutral site venue? Yeah. By game end, one corner of the stadium was the Spirit Squadron along with Portland Thorns supporters groups. They stood throughout. Most of the fans had no particular rooting interest.
Nah, this year it is the other way around. The Dash turned a profit, the Dynamo didn't. At this point, Dash STH are subsidizing the Dynamo.
With all due respect, that's absurd. Without the Dynamo infrastructure there is no Dash, no stadium,no cheap rent payment, no practice facility, no accounting department, groundskeepers, trainers, etc. What you are likely defining as "profit" is that the Dash cover their variable cost plus some excess which is not "profit" the way anyone would look at it on a standalone basis because it is likely excluding all sorts of fixed costs and overheads that are not being charged to the Dash.
The Dash are expected to cover all of their costs. They have arms length agreements for all facilities. There is an internal allocation of costs for any shared staff. To be honest, at the end of the day the cost structure for the Dash is actually higher than for the small independent teams. The costs of running women's teams is not that high. If you can pull 5000-6000 plus on average (and less than that for the independent teams) you can turn a profit. These teams aren't run the way MLS is where it was okay to lose a boat load of money as the league was built up. I'd argue it is the wrong approach to take, it's okay for any start-up business to lose money in the early years as long as they have a viable plan for reaching the black. But, for a whole host of reasons, investors are skittish about women's teams running as money losing operations.
Im sure I'll never see a lease agreement but I am very skeptical the Dash are charged the same rate and terms as a third party. I used to work on section 482 transfer pricing studies so I've seen big swings on arms-length agreement. As to the Dash cost structure being more costly than an independent team, that implies the Dynamo are so poorly run they get zero or negative economies of scale by running and leveraging a larger organization than an independent team. It defies a bit of economic logic. The implication is a truly independently owned team could make more money than the Dash running the same team at the same facilities seems very strange
They aren't running the same team and the same facilities. They are running teams at much lower cost facilities. The Soccerplex at Maryland seats max 4500 and requires much less staff. Seattle plays in a high school football stadium. Sky Blue pays next to nothing to play at Rutgers. Their staff is much more bare bone and is paid less. Playing in an MLS stadium with MLS training facilities is more expensive but the assumption is MLS owned teams will draw higher attendance to cover those costs. The independent teams can't draw MLS owned team attendance but don't need to in order to turn a profit as their fixed costs are lower and their facility costs are drastically lower. The cost structure of their team tend to be lower too. Some teams have almost no international players, which tend to be the most expensive, not just from a cap standpoint but the other two buckets that teams are allowed to pay - housing and related costs, and relocation costs. MLS owned teams are pushing up against the cap in all three buckets. Independent teams are not.
Wait, is that a fact? In 2016 the Dynamo were not profitable? Our operating expenses and debts must be HUGE, and/or the team must be horribly mismanaged. According to this site, as of September, we were selling almost 19,000 seats per game (tickets sold). I would expect the team to be making money with that number of seats sold.