Or so he told Arace yesterday. He lists his goals as in order, 1 selling the stadium out regularly, 2 winning playoff games, 3 expanding the Nordecke. He could make a step toward all 3 goals by firing Warzycha now instead of at season's end. http://www.dispatch.com/content/sto...-owner-says-crew-can-thrive-like-packers.html Does anyone know where and when he'll be stopping by the soccer bars tonight?
"On another level, what Precourt is talking about is perfectly sane. The Packers have a standard of success and they are supported by a fervent fan base" This implies fans that actually know what they are talking about and care about the team and hold the team accountable. Not a bunch of soccer mom families that just turn up once in a while and don't really care about what happens on the field, or why - which seems to be the current FO message.
I'm not sure what the message is that people are expected to take away from the new "I'm a fortress" campaign. Fortresses after all are designed to keep people out. Not sure it's an improvement on the old "Come see our opponent's star player" campaigns.
Columbus is about 7X larger than Green Bay - it's not as small a market as he's making it out to be. However, I appreciate the sentiment. But the culture change is gonna have to happen from within the club before anything else. Hopefully, new dude figures that out after talking to some people around town.
This is the schedule the Union and HSH posted. 5:15pm – 6:20pm @ 4th Street Bar & Grill 6:30pm – 7:30pm @ Hendoc’s Good luck!
Is it 5:15 or 5:20, can some please clarify? I thought most Crew faithful started drinking before 5, especially since 2009.
Per Tom Bowden's Twitter yesterday #Crew96 fans, @APrecourt making stops tomorrow night @fourthstreetbar (5:20-6:20p) & @Hendocs (6:30-7:30p). Show him a massive welcome! Details
It was going to be 515p - 620p at Fourth Street and then 630p - 730p at Hendocs but someone complained that Fourth Street was getting an extra 5 minutes so they changed it.
And yes, I'm just kidding on someone complaining that 4th Street is getting extra time. Or at least I don't know of anyone that was officially complaining.
The Packers are essentially Milwaukee's team with an extremely exurban stadium. Until the stadium renovations in the early 90s required that all the games be played in Green Bay, the Packers played four of their eight home games in Milwaukee's County Stadium each year in order to save their fans the drive. So the Green Bay Packers situation isn't so much about a tiny podunk yokel town supporting a football team, but rather a slightly bigger market than Columbus supporting its team despite the fact that it doesn't have a stadium within 100 miles of downtown. That's definitely passion.
"I’m a smaller-market guy,” Precourt said. “I like the underdog mentality. You know, Massive." Well, at least he used Massive correctly in a sentence. Thats a step in the right direction.
As a Cheesehead, I have to disagree a bit. The Green Bay Packers are Wisconsin's team. From Fond Du Lac to Kenosha to Green Bay all of Wisconsin is Green Bay Packers. People from all over the state converge on Green Bay on game day. There is a strong Milwaukee group but I would say that is less than 25% of the fans. I hope PSV is thinking they want to make the Columbus Crew, Ohio's team in the same way. Maybe we can buy stock in the Crew also.
For what it's worth, the Packers usually only played 2 or 3 games a year at County Stadium with the other home games at Lambeau. The Packers are followed all over Wisconsin but aren't particularly tied to Milwaukee. Lambeau field was built specifically to keep the Packers from moving to Milwaukee, back in the 50s. Milwaukee had it's own NFL franchise the Milwaukee Badgers back in the 20s when the NFL was getting started. Green Bay is a vestige of the days when smaller cities had pro football. The NFL was founded in Columbus. Canton had a team and what became the NFL was organized there (which is why the Hall of Fame is there). Even Portsmouth had a team, the Spartans (they moved to Detroit and changed their name to the Lions). I'm a Packer shareholder though I support another NFL team. The share gives me the right to attend the team's annual meeting each July and vote for the directors. There's no dividend and the shares can't really be sold (at least not easily). It's mainly a fundraising mechanism for the team and allows the shareholders to say they are NFL owners. If the Crew ever became publicly traded I'd prefer it to be like other listed soccer teams where people can buy multiple shares or even control of the team. Keeping it from relocating is something that should be accomplished via the lease.
Or... maybe protect one's people? It's a good expression unless you're one of the serf's who didn't make it before the portcullis closed.
Right, the Packers are Wisconsin's NFL team like the Brewers are Wisconsin's baseball team. It's not so much about a team in some isolated little town.....it's still drawing from a market bigger than Columbus. (I referenced Milwaukee earlier because the team used to play games there and Milwaukee is the most populous city in Wisconsin.) I acknowledge all of the various corrections, but the point still stands. Comparing the Crew to the Packers isn't about saying C0lumbus is some tiny podunk town in the middle of nowhere. It's about making the Crew a strong and successful source of city and regional pride in a comparatively small pro sports market. The Milwaukee market is Packers territory, so I think it's an apt comparison.
Not to be pedantic here but the NFL was founded in a car dealership (Hupmobile, IIRC) showroom in Canton. I'm not aware that Columbus had anything to do with it. The salient point though is that the meeting didn't consist of a bunch of guys hoping to start football teams. Rather, it was a meeting of a bunch of guys who already owned active teams who felt that organizing into a league would be a good idea.
Dayton Triangles 14, Columbus Panhandles 0, may have been the first game in NFL history. There was only one other game that day, but nobody knows which game kicked off first. But Bill's right, the Columbus ownership did not attend the Hupmobile meeting called by their Ohio League brethren from Cleveland, Akron, Canton, and Dayton. The Panhandles were still invited to join the new league as a charter member once it was formed. The Packers joined the following year and have been around ever since.
I was referencing PO'dinCowtown's comment that the NFL was founded in Columbus. But yes, the fact that the Decatur Staley's didn't have staying power in the NFL (although I think they called it something else at first) is hardly a surprise. But they did move to Chicago and changed their nae to Bears. I grew up in Upstate New York, where NBA founding members like the Rochester Royals and Syracuse Nationals met a similar fate. Or, put another way, the Rochester-Cincinnati-Kansas City-Sacramento Royals. But even there, the Royals were a very old club, dating to the 1920's.
The Bears and Cardinals are the only original NFL teams left, although both have been moved. Decatur became the Chicago Staleys in the 2nd season and wgot renamed the Bears in year three. The Cardinals started in Chicago, then went to St. Louis and Arizona. Other fun facts: The New York Yankees are the relocated Baltimore Orioles. The current Baltimore Orioles are the original Milwaukee Brewers, who became the St. Louis Browns before moving to Baltimore like all teams named Browns apparently do.
The first league of professional football teams began in Canton at the Hupmobile dealership on August 20, 1920. It was called the American Professional Football Conference. At another meeting a month later on Sep 17, the league was renamed to the American Professional Football Association. Jim Thorpe was hired as the league president, and the number of teams increased to 14. The advantage of the league was an agreement not to hire away each other's players and a schedule of association games, though the teams still played games against outside teams. There were lots of other pro football teams at the time including the Packers. The Packers joined the APFA in 1921 but were expelled for using ringers (top college players) in a professional game. George Halas of the Staleys reported the Packers and their coach Curly Lambeau for cheating. The team was allowed to reorganize and rejoin the league which is how it came to be publicly owned. On June 24, 1922 the APFA reorganized and changed its name to the National Football League. That was done in Columbus. Columbus resident Joe Carr was named president of the league and it was headquartered here from 1922 til 1941. There's a plaque on a wall on the Hayden building at 16 E Broad street noting the NFL was founded and headquartered here. The Columbus Panhandles NFL team disbanded after the 1923 season. I checked and Sirk and Bill are right that the NFL claims to have been founded in Canton at the August 1920 building. Two of the original 11 teams are still in business (the teams now in Chicago and Arizona).