I'm too lazy to restate my last post in today's "Quakes Newspaper Articles" thread, so let me just add a few tidbits from Dylan Hernandez's latest Mecury article, and my take on them: The fact that CA wouldn't even know where they were playing until late August at the earliest makes their bid a hell of a lot iffier. You always need lots of lead time to plan things like moving a team; September could be too late to get things like a front office and sales staff in place for the 2006 season. Nothing else could hurt a team's and a league's image than moving the team to a city where there is nowhere to play--it makes everybody look small-time and foolish. And if CA and AEG announce a deal to move without a stadium in place, the price of negotiating for that stadium goes up, and quick. if I were AEG, I'd be telling CA to move toot suite on finding somewhere else to play or else the "deal", if they have one, is off. But their other choices all involve sharing with a football team. If CA is insistent on playing in the Astrodome, they and AEG are taking a huge risk. Although the notorious Soccer America article also refers to the ramifications of a larger deal between Phil Anschutz and Grupo Televisa, the more I read up on things, the more I'm starting to like our chances . . .
Concur 100%! Sure AEG wants to liquidate its investment in the Quakes, but after doing so they are still a major investor in MLS. They therefore want the league to succeed. So the SJ franchise moves to Houston without a stadium deal in place. . . . . . kinda like what they have (or don't have) now in SJ, right? Someone like Phil Anshutz did not create billions by making stupid moves. Moving a franchise from a town without a place to play--long term--to a town without a place to play--in either the short or long term--is, simply put, a stupid, stupid move.
Seriously, though. If Televisa Group really really really want to put some clone of Club America into MLS - it should not be a problem for them to pay $10 million expansion fee. And if they don't want to suck - they should select players who can actually play the fast and physical brand of soccer, not just players who are fluent in Spanish.
I was reading Soccer America Daily yesterday and noted with interest that Bradi Chastain (playing for her Scaramento team) scored twice and beat an "in-state" rival Ajax America. An excerpt from the article... "BRANDI CHASTAIN isn't finished. The U.S. women's great ... scored both goals for the California Storm in a 2-0 win over Ajax America in a showdown of WPSL California powers. " It looks like the Women's team is based in Southern California... http://www.wpsl.info/ajax.html
Very true. However, if Club Am negotiates a backup agreement with another stadium owner (Reliant Stadium, University of Houston's Robertson Stadium or even the Rice University stadium), which could be voided if they eventually work out an Astrodome deal, MLS, AEG and Club Am will have their arses covered (at least partially). How likely it is that one of these other stadium owners would agree to a clause allowing the contract to be voided in the event an Astrodome deal is worked out, I do not know. I do know that such contract voidance rights have been negotiated in the past in other contexts. What will make it much easier to negotiate such a "backup" deal would be a provision that requires Club Am to "buy out" the contract for a set price. For example, if the "backup" deal is voided within three months after signing, Club Am pays the stadium owner $100,000. If voided more than three months after signing (but less than six months), Club Am pays the stadium owner $250,000. Plus any out of pocket expenses get paid by Club Am, so the "backup" stadium owner gets free cash for merely signing a deal which it never had to live up to.
Not sure if this means anything or not. But, I just received an email from the Quakes asking me to fill out a season ticket holder, "customer satisfaction" survey. One of the questions is do I plan to renew my season ticket for 2006. Is this for SSV's potential investors? To pitch to potential SSS sites? I can't imagine that AEG gives a flying rat's a** about my level of satisfaction or if I plan to renew next season. So, is this just a routine information gathering activity? Or one more thing about which we can speculate wildly and into which we can read all kinds of hopeful/sinister intent?
Too bad, they require to supply the account number (which I don't remember of course). I typed "don't know" in that field - and it worked, though. In any case, I encourage everyone to pass the survey (it is really short), and also type in an optional custom note, something positive about keeping the team in San Jose, of course.
Yeah, I got that too. I don't recall receiving a survey from the Quakes office like this one in years past. I did enter my account number in the field on the survey, and it wouldn't accept it -- it said that I couldn't enter numbers, only letters and punctuation, but last time I checked, my account number was all numbers. Maybe my account number has changed since I last checked. So I put in "dunno" and it worked.
I don't think they can avoid it. Chivas has shown a lack of understanding and Club America will probably only naturally repeat it. Here's what these two Mexican clubs don't have- the shrewd GMs in MLS have experience in a player acquisition format that's very unique in the soccer world. Chivas and Club America have no experience with a salary cap, or the much more complicated MLS rules about international status, SI, TI YI, and the devlopmental status and allocation process. Some foreign leagues have similar rules but they are less extensive and simpler. MLS clubs (some better than others) have become experts at finding players from Latin America who provide excellent value for the money. IMO if Chivas and CA want to succeed in MLS, they should hire someone from another MLS FO to run things, or acknowledge it will take time to learn and commit one of their insiders to at least 3 years in charge so he can get that experience.
I think AEG actually does care about your opinion/intent here. It's just like last time when SSV got the season ticket pledges to show potential new owners there was a solid customer base. I think checking "yes" on that question is one of the best things we can do to keep the team here.
Well, there was that mammoth 6-page affair that was sent out by the Krafts, and which was eventually responsable for changing the team's name to "Earthquakes".
I agree. Who knows what's going to be done with the results of that question, if anything. But I suppose it's possible (though not probable) the information could have some affect on the sale decision, either from the investors or the AEG perspective or both. And given this is one of the few things we can do that might possibly have some effect on what happens, might as well respond to the survey and answer "yes" to the "renew" question. I wonder if this is a Kate McAllister thing or something Lalas initiated. I would imagine she's been told to help run the club to the best of her abilities and not worry about the sale. Doing a survey to see how you're doing in terms of customer satisfaction is a good thing to do for any business. I've also had a feeling that AEG thought that Quakes attendance would really dwindle w/o Landycakes. They may be surprised but a little skeptical that it's holding up just fine. Maybe they're wondering if season ticket sales would hold up if everyone knows LD is gone. I'm confident it will have little effect. There are a lot of popular Quakes players. Maybe there will even be a little boost due to people wanting to join in on the Landycakes "boo wagon" .
Anything "Lalas initiated" was really McAllister initiated anyway (or in some cases, Freccero initiated). GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
http://www.worldtalkradio.com/archive.asp?aid=4426 SSV's Colin McCarthy on Inside Soccer radio, click to listen. Tony
I get the following error message. "Windows Media Player cannot play this file. Connect to the Internet or insert the removable media on which the file is located, and then try to play the file again." Can someone please post a paraphrase of what he says for us non-tech guys?
They have a guy who has the resources to buy the team and get a stadium done. They are hopeful that the guy will pull the trigger. Meanwhile, he has no inside perspective on the CA angle. (The show host repeated that it's a done deal.) The only interesting things is Colin said the guy 'has a relationship with AEG'. If that means the guy has talked with AEG, that's nothing really knew. (They said as much int he email.) It could mean that the guy has a pre-existing relationship with AEG, which would be more ineresting and something to be optmistic about. The overall tone was not extremely up beat. He reluctantly said that they had talked AEG about securing the name, colors and heritage of the Earthquakes for an expansion franchise if the worst happens
Well, this was before the announcement that CA and AEG had a "done deal." So whatever "done deal" that the radio host was talking about has already come up, and it's not really a "done deal."