His wife's hometown, where he stays for part of his three-week off-season. His hometown is North Brunswick, NJ, and no matter what we may think about it, he is very fond of New Jersey.
After all, what would America do without Mountain Dew, Johnny Knoxville, Quinetn Tarrintino, Kenny Chesney, and Chad Pennington
Maybe Mr. Jackass would like to start a USL2 team and call them the Knoxville Johnnies. They could bang free kicks off each other's unprotected goolies.
MLS would never work in Knoxville. In fact, the only league I could see expanding there is the WNBA. I really can't see the MLS working in Tennessee or anywhere in the south for that matter. Not including Florida, the only pro team in the south that gets decent support is the Braves. That's because if given a choice, the average southerner is always gonna choose college sports over the pros. But regardless, if there's someone in Tennessee with money that wants a team, then none of this matters.
But like most married men, he just does as he's told..... Re Memphis: with recent talk of building a new stadium (fairgrounds, I think) I was hoping there might be interest in an expansion MLS team. But so far, nothing.........but I have serious doubts about any new stadium anyway. EDIT: Of course, if the Redbirds ever leave, there is that beautiful downtown ball park that could be reconfigured.....
as cool as this would be, Worlds Fair park is not big enough for a stadium. As a ut student i would love it.
Gets my nomination for idiot post of the year. You've been watching too many "Dukes of Hazard" and "Mama's Family " re-runs.
Right, I mean, it couldn't be that I've actually lived in the south or anything. It couldn't be that the Vols play in a stadium almost twice as big as the Titans'. Or that North Carolina has four college hoops teams that reguarly outdraw the Bobcats. Or even that whenever my Packers play on the road against the Saints, Jaguars or (until recently) the Bucs that the home team is always outnumbered by Green Bay fans. Yea, clearly I'm runnin' with stereotypes...
The Panthers, Falcons, and Saints draw very well. The basketball one is probably because Carolinians realized the NBA is a scam.
I thought they only had good attendance when they were winning. I seem to remember some very dim actual attendance numbers despute high ticket sales.
Should point that the Titans always sell out their 67000 seat stadium. (The Superdome fits 2000 more, the Georgia Dome 4000 more, and Charlotte's stadium 6000 more.) NFL teams are NOT hurting football in the south. Especially where they're not in direct competition with SEC teams, and the only SEC school in an NFL town is Vanderbilt, and Vandy has almost no fans outside of people associated with Vandy (and as a relatively small school, that isn't many). How big is Neyland? 120k now? UT football is a freakshow.
Never mind that the South has some of the top collegiate programs in the nation, and that the South has had some successful pro teams in the past (back when soccer was not at all popular). Just because football is big here, it doesn't mean soccer can't be successful as well. You're comparing apples and dump trucks. I don't know anyone who drinks mint juleps either, and I've lived here all my life.
I dont see Tennessee as a viable expansion option at this point. MLS needs to concentrate on expanding to cities that either have very large populations and/ or have demonstrated they will support professional soccer. Rochester and Portland OR come to mind. No offence, but Knoxville is too small. Until MLS can get ALL of its large market teams to do well, I say they shouldnt even look at any place smaller than thier current smallest city. In fact, I dont think they should consider any place even THAT small. The club in the largest market in North America cant even get any real support, getting 6,8,10,13K per game maybe 15 K on GOOD days in NY. That metro is close to 20 Million people. So no, no MLS in TN in the forseeable future.
New Yorkers are glory hunters, that's why it's so low. If you look at the USL in the South you'll see what MLS wants, just in smaller packages. Atlanta - RE/MAX Grt. Atlanta Stadium Carolina (Cary) - SAS Stadium Carolina (Greensboro) - Macpherson Stadium Charlotte - Matthews SportsPlex (2008 or 2009) Charleston - Blackbaud Stadium Charlotte (Bank of America Stadium), Chattanooga, TN (Finlay Stadium) and Columbia, SC (Charlie Johnson Stadium) and Nashville (LP Field) have stadiums built with soccer in mind. Why hasn't pro soccer caught on here? It's never been given a fair shot. Atlanta, Charlotte, Greensboro, Charleston, and Richmond have been around for more than 10 years in leagues with very little exposure or money.
Good post. BTW, they replaced the grass at Chattanooga's Finley Stadium with artificial turf. That town is way too small (in both population and mindedness) for anything more than a PDL side. I used to live there. Honestly, I think a city in North Carolina would land an MLS team before Tennessee. Central NC is more densely populated and it's a more soccer-friendly environment. Regardless, MLS is a long way off for either state -- if ever.
Neyland stadium is 107-108k. I live 1:30 from knoxville and UT football is just part of life here. You wouldn't believe the thousands of people that go to Knoxville every weekend from where I live. Having lived here my whole life and being fairly knowledgable about Knoxville, I agree with what others have said. I don't believe there is any chance MLS could make it in Knoxville. There is no way any sports teams would be completely embraced in Knoxville that isn't UT. I think there is a good soccer fan base in Nashville, but I don't know anything about Memphis. I attended the US Nats farwell game in Nashville just before the World Cup, and there was a good crowd of fairly knowledgable fans. I know one game isn't anything to base placing a MLS team there. Nashville does have a large metro area, but as much as I would love to have a team in Tennessee I think it would be a huge gamble to try it.
There are easily enough people in New York and its surrounding area to give that team a regular crowd base of 20k. There are so many people there that you could name any interest or activity under the sun and at least 20,000 people will be involved in it at any given time. When I've been to NY and NJ, I've seen soccer played and supported on a level I've only seen overseas. There really isn't any place in the US that I've been to that compares to it. There are no fans of any team anywhere in the world who would have put up with what fans of that team put up with-- the lies, being jerked around, playing at a stadium that is by design only practical to reach by car, in a place where traffic is so bad only a small minority of people even own cars. I agree, Yankees fans, Knicks fans, etc., are total glory hunters. But from talking to Metros/Red Bulls fans at games when I visited NJ, they would be content with only a NORMAL bad team, not a bad team run by a revolving cast of egotistical lunatics who look to screw the fans at every opportunity. On to the topic at hand: central North Carolina has more people, but very decentralized. It would be another KC, a place where a small core of great soccer fans can easily get to games but casual fans wouldn't bother more than once or twice a year. I don't think Nashville or Memphis could support an MLS team either right now. Sadly, I think only ATL is a good fit for soccer in the southeast right now, and then only with the perfect stadium location. Let's see how things go with the RailHawks. My feeling is that if a city can't be near the top of the USL in attendence, it won't come close to being a success in MLS.