Some things never change do they? Death, taxes, and Kenn being a d!ck to everyone for some reason only he knows. LOL
He may be a dick but more often then not he does have a point. He just delivers the message in a way that is "dickish".
Oklahomans know Brad Lund; he's known for his operational success of the Oklahoma City Blazers during the second coming of the Central Hockey League (CHL). What kind of contract did SOS have with Rayo OKC; also was Lund's SOS group getting paid or played? We welcomed the NASL to OKC; however, USL Oklahoma City Energy FC had a two year head start on marketing to the inner core of OKC. Rayo OKC hit the ground running in an impressive fashion. The player personnel acquisitions were impressive. I've supported both franchises. Really don't see a difference in the play, as NASL is labeled D-II and USL D-III. Combined the USL & NASL in the OKC metropolitan area average around 10,000 fans per game (good non MLS market numbers): http://www.kenn.com/the_blog/?p=8105 Both USL Oklahoma City Energy FC & Rayo OKC televise all games locally: Energy FC on Channel 52 and Rayo OKC on ESPN 3. Lund stated (in another article) that he had to attend to other clients' business; has anyone seen SOS' expansive portfolio: http://soldoutstrategies.com/clients/ U. S. Rufnex, you're familiar with the name Lund; Uncle Jeff in Tulsa (Tulsa Ice Oilers. AA CHL), as well as Brad in OKC, the family did a great job with the initial roll out of AA Central Hockey League in the 90s.
I've said the same thing for years. However, the point is, the d!ckishness and the good points CAN be mutually exclusive things very easily. Just sayin.
If you're worried about being offensive to the 12 year old & under on this forum; that word's not going to phrase them one bit.
No match thread for tonights game, so I'll make my contribution here. First off the Nexxfield was in play despite suggestion that they were not going to continue the maintenance on that front. <-good to see The new coaching style of Nus was apparent tonight, and despite not getting the result I liked what I saw going on in the left side of field all game. Attendance was down -expected from SOS's departure and bad press- but this did not effect the quality of play on the field. Make no mistake, this team is here to win and are exemplifying professionalism regardless of the off field shenanigans. <- disappointing to see a poor turnout, perhaps the local fans still don't understand the apetura/clausera format as this game was crucial for their combined standings.
Tickets were printed with the wrong date (30th) for this match apparently so it had an effect on the attendance as well. Poor first home game in that regard with the spanish in charge. Some may think that may mean there will be a bigger crowd on the 30th but that's a weekday game so not likely. Poor first home game in that regard with the spanish in charge. With 5 home games left for Rayo OKC the average attendance before the spanish arrival of 4416 per game under the old administration of Eric Newendorp and SOS will likely take a beating.
In my opinion Nasl should work in two directions, first help Brad Lund and SOS to find other partners in Oklahoma City and start a new franchise keeping the colours of Rayo but changing name and symbol, yet not too different in order to give the supportets a sense of continuity, and in the other hand help the spaniards to find new investors and move to California, San Diego would be the best place, close to Mexico and full of latinos, Rayo de San Diego would have a much bigger appeal, I'd love to see next year or in 2018 Oklahoma City Lightening and Rayo de San Diego and this would help the league to grow
SD is not LA and it would be a very different situation,I guess it could work, and about Rayo Vallecano keeping to manage a team in NASL could work too but 60% of shares should be owned by an American investor
If anything, SD would work worse than LA because, not only is ethnic pandering not some panacea to getting Mexican-Americans to support your team, any Mexican-Americans in SD looking to support a Mexican/Hispanic team have Los Xolos right across the border. Even if you could get Mexican-Americans to support a team purely because it's got the name of a club that also speak Spanish (and the Rayo brand wouldn't even register; most would have never heard of the club and even if they did they why would they support it instead of a non-Rayo branded club?), SD has far less of a Hispanic population (28.8% city, 33.4% county) than LA (48.5% city, 48.4% county) in a smaller market. When you do the math there are 4.5x more Hispanic people in Los Angeles (4.9m) County than San Diego County (1.1m). How about you treat the Mexican American fans with respect and give them a well run and well marketed team that represents the city they live in, like you would any other group, instead of ethnically pandering. The "Mexican Team USA" concept died a merciful death in Chivas USA. Let is rest in relative peace.
Los Angeles already had the Galaxy, SD hasn't had a pro team in a decent league for ages, plus Rayo wouldn't be labelled as mexican-american team but a team wich something in common and the same language, plus the symbol is appealing enough to draw people to the stadium, put together a good team as Rayo OKC did this year, maybe with a couple of mexican veterans more, do a good marketing campaign, sign a good deal with a local tv and radio and a good national sponsor and see that Rayo de San Diego could last for enough years and would start a good rivalry against SF Deltas and in the following years against the new teams in LA and OC
And last but not least I defend the choice of the then TOA investors to leave USL to found Nasl, in Spring 2013 they had 7 teams, in 2015 they have 12 and you have to put in account failures of moves to MLS of Atlanta Silverbacks, Montreal Impact, Minnesota United, Puerto Rico Islanders, San Antonio Scorpions, AC St Louis, Crystal Palace Baltimore, plus the backstabbing of Rochester Rhinos and the aborted franchise of Virginia Cavalry. No league nowadays have been attacked so much like the actual Nasl, but they keep going on and slowly expand signign deals with Tvs and sponsorships....now they only have to secure things in Oklahoma City, and work to new expansions. If they can work Chicago (hoping it is the Sting), Los Angeles (Aztecs), Orange County (maybe convincing OC Blues to change league) Las Vegas (why not the Scorpions?) and resurrect a new franchise in ATL Nasl would become a serious threat to USL and MLS, without counting the rumoured franchise in Mass with Celtic Glasgow and why not the Philadelphia Fury now in ASL....Si vis pacem, para bellum
OKC - Good Luck securing that. Based on what I've seen (or haven't seen, as in ads or promotion), the owners might be running out the clock. Best case scenario, they're minimizing losses, but it's not looking growth-friendly. Chicago - As Kenn said elsewhere, they still need a place, and they could give the Fire a good run for their money. I wouldn't try it, but if anyone can pull it off - at least to start - it's Wilt. Los Angeles - I'm sorry, I must have missed it: are people in LA screaming for a FIFTH professional team? OC - ...especially when a fourth is barely breaking a thousand a game? Is the NASL brand going to improve on that? Las Vegas - Sure, go ahead. New Atlanta NASL team - Last time, they were wards of the state for the final years. Now, they'll do way better going up against an MLS team with 22K season tickets sold! Celtic Glasgow in Mass. - It could happen. First Chivas, then Rayo; these disasters always happen in threes. Philly Fury in ASL - Because what league contending for first-tier status couldn't resist that? Besides, if we're going to keep true to the Pro/Rel wet dream, they need to take that ASL Championship PK win to a spot in the NPSL or PDL and keep working their way up. For all of these examples (and including San Diego referenced above), all we have are markets that might support a club. But that is only the first of many, many things you need. You need ownership with money who is willing to suffer losses and invest in growth before earning a return (or at least, breaking even) in an industry with a history of instability. Only OKC and Chicago have those two, and the former is looking for a divorce attorney. You need a venue. I suppose any old suburban high school field or semipro baseball park will do in a pinch, but it does seriously undermine the whole "World Class First Division Soccer" vibe you're going for. You need management that can succeed in attracting fans, talent and sponsorship dollars - and that will pay for themseleves. OKC had that (sort of) until recently, and Chicago could well have that. Aside from Chicago and OKC, none of the cities listed have any of those things. This is a lot harder than it looks. I could name over 70 towns that have the market to support soccer in tiers 1-3, but few people have the capital or the inclination to make it happen, a site to make it happen, or the staff to make it happen. And what happens to the teams that can make it happen? The Minnesotas, Orlandos and Montreals, who made it succeed in spite of being cursed with existence in a lower division that (to hear the conspiracy theorists' argument) mean they don't have any way to succeed? They move up, of course. I suppose they could have been sincere and stayed in the lower leagues and hoped their successes alone would lift the rest of the respective leagues they were in, inspiring fandom across their circuits until the popularity and excellence of said leagues forced a recognition from fans at large that, yes, indeed, these lower organizations are just as stable and excellent as MLS (now 20 years old - which is a number that eclipses the mark set by...I forget the name, some league in the 70's and 80's) and that promotion and relegation won't hurt big teams a bit. And that, when they objectively observe the equivalent successes of the two leagues, MLS would then give in and change course. They could have stayed to make that happen, perhaps. But they didn't stay. They moved up. Not because the system is corrupt or that people are out to get NASL, but for the simple reason that businesses like stable and more profitable environments - and that lower divisions are still, largely, not.