Some of the recent decisions are baffling, especially losing Espinoza, and to a lesser extent, Josef. But the Hernán thing - Bruce made it pretty clear he didn't care for the way he played. But the Espinoza and Josef thing makes me wonder if Fish might be going scorched earth, like he did with the A's before relocating (in this case hopefully selling and not relocating). It's possible - we'll see what moves we make to bring in players this offseason.
It makes sense for relocating a team to start from scratch and dump contracts but a scorched earth policy makes no sense - devaluating an asset you are actively trying to sell (part of). Personally: I say it's all Just wind in sails It's just Bruce being Bruce. I don't think Fisher would direct Bruce to implode the team and I don't think at this point in his career Bruce would agree to that. We're dumping a ton of salary and Bruce will do whatever Bruce needs in order to get what Bruce wants for next season. Should be an interesting couple of months...
You’re probably right. But another possibility is that if Bruce expects the team to be sold (say a sale in the works) he could choose to clean house and then rebuild the team in his “image” (not a great visual there) with more capital incoming. Sure wish we knew what happened with Espinoza. Did they just think they could nickel and dime him and he told them to F off? Or did they actually screw up and miss the deadline, and is Leitch’s departure related to that. Or did Espinoza want out? I’m sure the crack local press team that covers the Quakes will be right on it! All we have now is speculation by national MLS guy Tom Bogert and his bald sidekick.
Shawlee controls the Quakes organization, Fisher just owns the team. Fisher gave him cart Blanche to do whatever he wished with the club.
Pretty sure that claim about Shawlee was originated by a certain Redding resident who used to post here.
I spoke to my contact in the front office this weekend regarding ownership, he said Joe Lacob is for sure interested in purchasing the team but there are 3 or 4 other "ownership groups" also discussing purchasing the team, he said expect news sooner than later but did not have an exact time , i asked if it would be before the new year and he thought most likely right after the new year, He also said the team is in discussions with Espinoza to bring him back on a Tam deal the interest is mutual he wants to stay in SJ, they want to have 2 dp slots available for next year he said.
Well that's good news on the ownership front. I think the bad memories of the "search for a real owner" in 2004 and 2005 was on my mind, and I worried we wouldn't have any seriously interested parties, and we'd wind up Tony Amanpour 2.0, and then a relocation. As for the Espinoza comments, this framing lends credence to the theory that we didn't "miss the deadline" but that we wanted to ratchet him down in salary. That's some pretty agressive nickel and diming. He was at $2M last year. If he's gonna be TAM buydownable I believe the ceiling is about $1.75M, at least it was last year. So they're trying to nickel and dime him for about $250k, but more importantly it frees up a DP slot. If I was Espinoza I'd be pissed but it does show that the Quakes are thinking pretty agressively.
Yes they are being aggressive , hopefully if we clear up another dp spot we actually use them on some quality players, Tony Aampour god that brings back horrible memories, i remember he came on a tv broadcast at halftime and i was so excited, little did i know he was a fraud .
Was it Eric Wynalda who was doing color on some game during that time, and he said something like, "He cares, and that's cool." :facepalm
Back when we were naive and hopeful fans, before we became embittered and cynical. It hasn't been an easy 20 years!
Yeah, "Hey there's this nice man, Tony Amanpour (he must be related to Christiane Amanpour!), he really loves the game(!), he's a local wealthy businessman(!), and he's gonna buy the team!!
Oh please!! Please be true!! I don’t care who the new owner or (more likely) owners are. I just hope that one of them is a soccer fan. We really need to try to keep Espinoza. BUT! New ownership is the number one most important thing! And one of those new owners should be a fútbol fanatic! Shit! Here I am getting optimistic again! I should start drinking heavily now. Go Quakesfans!!
I want to say it was a road game in Dallas on kicu channel 36, John Shrader and possibly Chris Dangerfield doing color commentary when they brought Amanpour on at halftime
That was probably a different game than the Wynalda "He cares and that's cool" one, I think when they showed Amanpour at a game? Or maybe that never happened. I have fuzzy memories of that.
In any case, once rumors started leaking on what Tony Amanpour planned to do, I started becoming much less enthused about him, to the point that I was actually relieved when it eventually didn’t go through with him. So besides being a soccer fan (as Mark just posted here), it’s also vital that the new owner (or ownership group) both keeps the team in San José and keeps the team named San Jose Earthquakes. GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Bad deal. No future sell on. Verhoeven sold to SD. $350k GAM. Sources: San Diego FC trigger the trade option to sign on-loan USYNT fullback Oscar Verhoeven from San Jose Earthquakes.$350k GAM w/ no add-ons, I'm told.Verhoeven, 19, played 1,000+ mins before getting injured. Had started 10 straight games before injury. pic.twitter.com/CI91vwYs17— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) November 18, 2025
I think it vanishingly unlikely that any new owners would move the team. The cost would be prohibitive. But, a new owner thinking that they should “rebrand” and change the name, yeah, I think that’s possible. Go Quakesfans!!
Back tge Why is it more costly to move the team to Vegas than it is to wherever Mayor Mahan wants it moved within the San Jose city limits?
As of February 2025, Joe Lacob's net worth is estimated to be around $2.1 billion, largely due to his ownership of the Golden State Warriors and his career in venture capital. He has significantly increased the value of the team since purchasing it in 2010. Which tells me he's an invested sports owner, not an absentee landlord.
Both ideas would be expensive. I don’t think it likely that a new owner/s would want to move out of PPP. Both another city and elsewhere in SJ would be really expensive, and unnecessary. Go Quakesfans!!
F@#$ That!! I could see new owners thinking that they are really smart and need a rebrand. It's the dumbest thing I can imagine, well, one of. But I can easily see a new owner thinking this. Hopefully, the existing staff will tell them that way lies failure. Go Quakesfans!!