I would love a pro indoor team in Utica. It would shorten my drive from 1 hour to Syracuse to 10 minutes to the Utica Aud. However, it wouldn't happen. A Utica pro soccer team would have to compete not only with the AHL Comets but also the Utica College hockey team, which led all of Division III in attendance.
I fear Utica is too small for indoor soccer. I fell your pain on going to Syracuse though. That NY State Thruway is ridiculously overpriced.
What do you want done, by this point, exactly? It was, what, 11 years ago? The kid doesn't even want anything done about it by this point. That was three owners ago for the Wave. What, do you want Larry Sayles to pay for the kid to go to Disney? You'll be 85 at some point and still on about this thing that the people who you believe were actually harmed don't even care about anymore.
I really liked that promotion as a one-off thing, until I realized that it was all sponsored by Centruy 21.
Good points. I primarily brought up the Cavaliers because you mentioned Palace Sports & Entertainment (basically, the Pistons and, at least at that time, the Tampa Bay Lightning, IIRC), another major league organization, having issues with selling tickets for that many teams. The issue, IMO, is not so much trying to sell tickets for too many teams as much as trying to sell the possibly unsellable (indoor soccer post-founding of MLS).
All that field needs is box lacrosse lines and it would look like the indoor equivalent of a high school/D III college field.
I think the NFL sells their game pretty well. Otherwise, I agree. It's a bit of a paradox. Sports have never been more profitable, but they may never have truly been less popular.
In regards to marketing to casual fans over diehards, I don't see it as an either/or. I have been to many minor league baseball games where the front office manages to provide a great experience for both diehard/serious and casual fans.
They have the advantage of having the single most popular product in the country to sell. (Not that there wasn't work put in to get to this point.) But come on. The NFL also sells history and tradition and pageantry and mythology and controversy and a lot of other things. And the NFL also knows that they're up against it now because their in-stadium experience isn't as good as the home experience.
But those are connected to the game itself. Gambling may be somewhat peripheral to the game, but is still connected to the game itself. It's not as if the gambling interest is being derived from pari-mutuel wagering on halftime wiener dog races. MLB and NBA are becoming more like minor leagues (especially MLB) in that they have to market stuff that is a complete sideshow to the game.
But they're selling all of it. You said the NFL has done a good job selling its game. When, to be honest, if you strip out all that "other" stuff, the game actually doesn't sell itself anymore. A four-yard run off tackle is a four-yard run off tackle, but John Facenda and cheerleaders make it into armageddon. Whatever you want to include in your personal definition to obscure the fact that the NFL is the single easiest thing in the culture to sell, be my guest. Oh, okay. Because the NFL doesn't have to do any of that. An NFL executive would never tell a reporter something like this: Oh, wait, he actually did say that. Everybody has to sell the sizzle as well as the steak now. It just so happens that Americans like the NFL's steak better than anybody else's, but they still want two sides that come with it.
Ever since Ed Hale went on the Kick It radio show and announced that he is forming his own indoor soccer league, I've been pretty quiet on this board. After thinking about this for awhile, here's my thoughts: Hale has been one of the best things to happen to the Blast as an individual team and one of the worst things to happen to indoor soccer in America. I don't believe Hale has the cards to pull off a "legitimate" league (read that as 6-10 teams all visibly showing themselves as professional - read that as no PA Roar, Norfolk Sharx, etc). If, for some reason, he pulls off this new league, I'll give it a shot and keep watching the Blast to see what happens. If not and he shuts the Blast down, I'll find an MASL team to root for, maybe Tacoma. My guess is that Hale can't pull it together, the MASL provides him with something of a token position (assistant to VP of marketing and goal judges) and Baltimore, Rochester, Syracuse, (Harrisburg) all stay with the MASL. Bottom line is that I think this is truly a power play by Hale and it was a quick attempt to judge the willingness of other team owners to join him. I believe he found out really quick that many were not on his side.
It's not a power play by Hale, he's mainly trying to protect his investment in his team. The MASL was run as a single-entity league last season (the same way the PASL had been run). Here's a cloud definition of single-entity: "single-entity ownership structure is defined as a for-profit league that owns and controls all member clubs. Investors then purchase shares in the league overall. This means that each investor purchases an equal stake in the performance of each member club." That's not what the MASL is. Its teams are independently owned and operated. It needs to operate as a franchised league to be completely legal, among other things. To have a franchise league, a franchisor creates a business model, and then allows franchisees to purchase rights to use the business model. That was supposed to be the reason why the MASL was created and the ex-MISL teams didn't just join the PASL. A franchise arrangement wasn't set up and/or couldn't be agreed upon, so the new league operated as single-entity for a season. Apparently, an agreement still wasn't reached in the league meetings, which led to Hale announcing that he was pulling out. As an MASL member, if he wanted to sell his team, he wouldn't be able to do it since, according to the current league structure, he doesn't really own it. Of course, he actually does, but he would have to withdraw from the MASL before he could sell it. He also couldn't sell to anyone who wanted to put it back into the MASL. Confused yet? Whether or not Hale , if he does indeed start his own league as a franchisor, can attract enough other MASL teams to join him as franchisees is certainly debatable. The talk of AHL teams getting into said new league was brought into play (I heard in an online podcast that a few AHL team owners contacted him, don't know if that's true or not). Hale is certainly no saint, but I don't blame him for doing what he did. Rumor has it he's still willing to work things out, but he's keeping a side bet in play just in case.
In case you missed it and are super bored this weekend. Here's the podcast from Wednesday night's FWL show. The show was all about the potential break up of the Major Arena Soccer League ; we had Alan Bathrop, Soccer Sam Fantauzzo, and legendary coach Kim "The Rocket" Roentved join in the conversation. Check it out here http://wp.me/p5qZnx-9l or subscribe on iTunes.
I wonder where "BALITMORE" is. I know the "Registered Agent" means little, but it's still a little weird to see Kevin Healey's name there, isn't it?
So far the closest thing we've heard from the staying with MASL side is Allen and Wichitas coach, both of who seemed to lean with staying side, but also tried to stay neutral. After 3 radio shows, a week plus of this going down, and all the comments on facebook and that side has yet to make an official statement. Where is Savagio? Zimmerman? Hell, even Dom or LV? No one? Don't know what to think of all this, one side is telling the entire story right now with the other refusing to defend or bring up counter points.
Yeah -- you'd think they would at least release a "no, our league structure is actually quite legal, we wish the Blast well but will move forward with our 2015-16 season" statement. Syd?
Hale could think about setting up a limited partnership or LLC and then sign up teams to that. If he were to get more than two other teams he could then have a seperate league. Then that league could have an interlocking schedule with MASL using a single schedule, standings structure and playoff system This has happened a number of times in hockey where two independent leagues played as one unified structure. The CHL and WCHL did it before a merger and the CHL and IHL2 did it for a year. I'm not privy to the details of the NASL and USL playing together in the NASLs first year but they were two seperate companies My point is if sane people look at this there should be a solution. The trick with the two hockey scenarios above was coming up with a structure and agreement first, then telling the lawyers to implement it. Getting the lawyers in first will just bog things down forever
I honestly think that something like this will take place , Right now Ed Hale has a few owners on his side He is not going to create a league out of the blue without any backing . Right now they are still working on a solution so nothing has yet to be set in stone for anyone .
If nothing is set in stone, then why did Hale say he was creating a new league? Are you saying we should give that statement as much credence as Soccer Sam's statement awhile back that he was folding up the Lancers?