Johnny Moore Interviews

Excellent rea!!!. MLS can't be all that happy, but he brings up some very good points. Thanks.

 

So Johnny Moore wants Garber to say "No comment" when CA runs their mouth.

He'd rather have him clear it up and tell the truth. he'd rather the only comment be the Club America guy running his mouth with the league not trying to put it in perspective.

Johnny really needs to take some PR classes.

 

Having spoken to Dylan Hernandez, the reporter who broke the story, without Garber's comments, that story would never have run.

 

Good for Dylan. Really. That's solid reporting. I still think similar comments would have gotten out somewhere else. He did everyone a favor by getting both sides of the story instead of having some crappy translation from La Opinion without Garber being th eonly source.

I just find it funny that there are people who criticize the league for not being transparent (a fair accusation), then complain because Garber spoke up and tried to clarify comments someone else made.

Either you want the league to be more open or you don't. You can't have it both ways.

 

I know this will annoy some of the "Go Quakes!!!" crowd, but that interview to me largely sounded like a lot of sour grapes. Johnny Moore wants to be ticked off at his former employer, wants to champion the never ending side of the Quakes and their fans? That's fine but if many of those same comments were posted by a random person in this form they'd be shot down as being unrealistic, whiney, and out of touch. He talks about the great strides that they'd made in attendance... I don't follow their attendance situation all that closely and certainly don't know about their season ticket numbers, but nothing really jumped out at me last year as, 'wow they're really turning that thing around.'

He wants to take the bullet for his staff that was working hard to sell tickets in the face of rumors about Club America? He feels disrespected by that? It's never good to hear that you might be out of a job or that your employment situation is going to greatly change via the press. But ya know what? MLS is a buisness, corporate acquisitions happen all the time, ownership changes hands from time to time, especially in sports. It is what it is. Either deal with it like a professional, or deal with it like some mouth-breathing-shut-in fanatic. If he feels he was just being true to his ideals... fine. But this stuff about AEG should pay for a stadium now! Reach into your pockets, is ridiculous.

 

A bunch of bullship. Can't wait for ignore list fix on premium members.

 

Moore was complaining about the timing of the CA announcement. Garber apparently had a huge role in the timing of that announcement, despite the baseless speculation that it would have come from somewhere else.

Moore was right. Garber could use some PR lessons.

Personally, I think this is one of the most, if not the most, interesting off-season development in MLS this year. Moore and his staff have built, IMO, the best franchise in US Soccer over the past three years. This isn't some loser serving up sour grapes. This guy has been the best in his business - better than Wilt, Payne, et al. For me, Moore's opinion holds a lot of water - and here are some of the points that I found interesting, in the order they are found in the interviews:

- Developing US players vs. importing Mexicans

- Stupid timing and even worse judgement of CA announcement

- The key of local ownership

- Stadium issues and specifics in San Jose (and league comparisons)

- Contractual details of CA deal

- San Jose losing less money than all other AEG teams besides LA

- The need for clarity of rules definitions surrounding allocations and the salary cap

Sour grapes? I don't think so. These are real and legitimate concerns of most hardcore MLS fans.

 

What kind of determination are you using to say that Quakes are the best franchise in MLS over the last three years? I agree that these are the concerns of hardcore MLS fans but I think that espousing them in souch a way is contradictory to the concerns of MLS buisness.

 

I love the hysteria over Mexican players. Even though the league has said any Mexican owners won't get special exemptions and even though the league pushed Chivas back to 2005 when Vergara wanted to come in for 2004, people refuse to believe the league and buy into the CA-Chivas pissing match.

And I love how Garber saying, for all intents and purposes "Don't believe everything Teuffer says" is a negative. Just like how the league saying "these teams won't get extra SIs" falls on deaf ears.

The absolute worst thing a guy can say is "No comment." Especially when fans do nothing but bitch about the league not talking enough. They aren't perfect, but they just cant win with some people.

 

I don't have a lot of time here, but basically 2 titles in 3 years, and the best soccer team in the league the year they didn't win the title right until their most important player (IMO, Mulrooney has been even more important to the Quakes than Donovan) went down with injury.

As for monster, I should have known you were incapable of arguing ideas without introducing piss-poor strawmen like "the hysteria over Mexican players." In the years I've spent on BS, you have consistently been an emotional little twit - why should this time be any different?

Go pound sand.

 

If anything has proven to be true in regards to the strength of an MLS franchise it's that there's a big difference between creating on the feild success vs. off the feild. Moore may have been at the helm of a front office that put a team on the feild that won two titles in three years, but beyond what he claims in the interview that they were doing well with renewals and didn't lose a lot of money I'm wondering how anyone could call San Jose the best franchise in MLS. Sure it seemed that the work of Moore and the Quakes FO was certainly heading in the right direction but their attendance numbers don't lie.

 

Kiss your mother with that mouth?

Well, when people keep complaining about Mexican teams importing Mexican players and the league has said that won't happen, it gets a little disturbing.

So criticize me instead of the reality of the situation. Still doesn't change the fact that people refuse to accept what the league has consistently said time and time again. Almost nothing of what the Mexican teams have said has come true. Pity people can't see that.

 

This is absolutely a straw man argument. What proof do you have of any of this?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong - you are saying that everyone in MLS except San Jose lies about their attendance?

 

Again, what proof do you have of this? And what numbers can we go by other than the official ones?

 

Did you read the interview? The quakes already were the closest break even club in AEG's stable behind LA, and thats without control of much of its revenue streams. That makes it more successful from a business standpoint than most of the other clubs. And up until the CA announcements, it was leading the league in ticket retention and new sales, indicating that under Moore they were on their way to an attendace jump. That seems like some pretty good off the field success to me.

 

Your off base on this one Goodsport. There were only 4 or 5 anounced sell-outs, and those were legit:

Opening Day, All-Star Game, July 4, MLS Cup. HDC never claimed a sellout on the others. Go look at the average REPORTED attendence and you will see it is NOT 27K.

 

Tickets.
Sold.

 

Maybe.


But my impression is that it's more like

Tickets.
Distributed.

 

This discussion to date seems to have digressed along a tangent. Certainly there are other issues than attendance captured in the interview(s) Moore gave. Issues of import to MLS fans; issues worthy of discussion even here on BS.

I found the interviews enlightening for its perspective on ...

--international player limits;

--the need for transparency in player allocations;

--the possible difficulties of integrating foreign ownership into MLS.