How much further along (or further back) would we have been by now both on and off the pitch if any of the following had succeeded in becoming this francise's Investor/Operator? Dan Van Voorhis The man who previously owned the APSL's San Francisco Bay Blackhawks successfully led the charge to land San José one of the ten inaugural MLS teams. His Investor/Operator tenure here was very brief, though, as ugly divorce proceedings with his wife at that time forced him to then accept a buyout from the league, which was why San José started the inaugural 1996 season as one of three league-owned teams (along with Dallas and Tampa Bay). But how would things have been different for the franchise by now had his divorce proceedings been resolved and he stayed on as the team's I/O (for one thing, word has it that Peter Bridgwater wouldn't have been part of the front office as the two men apparently didn't get along)? Alan Rothenberg & Dentsu In mid-1998, former USSF President Alan Rothenberg and Japanese advertising agency Dentsu almost acquired the franchise before that year's Asian Stock Market crash forced them to pull out of the deal. At one of the Clashroom Chalk Talks during that summer, Rothenberg stated that Peter Bridgwater would remain as the team's President and General Manager upon the team's purchase. Would that have lasted long and if not, how would Rothenberg and Dentsu have then put their own stamp on the team? Silicon Valley Sports & Entertainment Following a successful first season solidifying the team both on the pitch and in the front office all the way to an MLS Cup 2001 win, its parent company (the San Jose Sharks) went through an ownership change that unfortunately necessitated AEG to help co-run the team for 2002. Further problems for the Sharks both on (floundering team) and off (head coach and GM firings) the ice eventually forced SVS&E to cut ties altogether, landing the Earthquakes solely in AEG's lap for 2003. If SVS&E (now Sharks Sports and Entertainment) could've just hung onto the San Jose Earthquakes while the Sharks were righting their own ship (which they eventually did), how would the Earthquakes be now both on and off the pitch? Earthquakes Soccer, LLC It'd been reported that when AEG inquired of Lew Wolff and John Fisher if they'd be interested in a San José MLS expansion team if/when it became available, they asked about the existing team still there, to which they were told "That ship has already sailed" (i.e. AEG had already decided to move the team to Houston). But what if Lew Wolff and John Fisher had somehow been able to purchase the existing franchise while AEG then started the Houston franchise from scratch? While Wolff and Fisher still would've formed ESLLC and still been the majority owners, they would've started off with a much stronger team. Would that have gotten (among other things) Avaya Stadium built earlier and more completely? GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
I often wonder, what if a few years back Donald Trump had been successful in his effort to purchase the Buffalo Bills? How history would be different. https://www.thewrap.com/buffalo-bills-blame-donald-trump-president/
Well if Donald Trump had purchased the Buffalo Bills, they would still have exactly zero Super Bowl championships, he the kind of shoulda-coulda-woulda would have hired and fired two (three) dozen coaches and blamed everyone but himself for their failures. Oh, we have that now, only its the Presidency...
Of the scenarios in the OP it's the last one that is the most intriguing and for that matter sustainable. We would have 4 stars on our jersey. That's pretty much factual. Our legacy would be stronger and what effects that would have are hard to say. A better legacy I suppose. My guess is the stadium would have gotten built 2-5 years earlier.
I think the fact that so many ownership groups fell through on the Quakes over time shows just how risky a venture MLS was early on and how few really had the resources to suffer the losses that starting and operating a new league requires. Had the Shark's group tried to do both them and the Quakes at the same time, it's possible that both teams collapsed, ending pro sports in San Jose forever. I'd probably prefer them to own the Quakes now, but like it or not, Fisher is not going anywhere. He's got more money than he could ever spend and he's young enough that there's no reason for him to sell in the near and not so near future.
What if we had an ownership group that believed enough in the team to build a stadium with a capacity in line with the rest of the teams in the league and competed to sign the best players regardless of cost?
Things happen that always change the course of history. The other day for example I saw a picture of a young Queen Elizabeth giving a Nazi salute , circa 1933. I think it was Winston Churchill who around 1935/36 praised Hitler and Mussolini and a few years later he was involved in a bloody conflict. England could have easily sided with Germany and the USA will have supported both. The course of history will have been changed forever. Same goes for MLS. If Alan Rothenberg made San Jose the league’s flagship franchise instead of LA for the outset , things will definitely have been different. Considering soccers history at the time and Northern California being a hotbed in youth leagues, San Jose along with their great following the NASL era as opposed to two or even three LA franchises, they should have been a marquee franchise.
Churchill's comments on Hitler have been taken out of context, and to suggest that England and the US would have sided with and supported a genocidal maniac is absurd.
Nothing to do with the thread but depending on which history book you read that is not true at all. I have relatives who lived in England prior to WW2 and were expelled before the start of the war. Same with the Englanders living in Florence. They even have an English cemetery. He loved and praised both Hitler and Mussolini. Even gave them merits.
We definitely would've had four stars on our jersey, no doubt about that. With the stronger team on the field plus with some marketing muscle that hadn't been there before, enough demand likely would've been there to fast track the stadium's construction. But considering that it would've been the same owners as we currently have, would the stadium have been built less cheaply? GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Very good points about owning MLS teams in those early days and about the Sharks. Word has it that while Fisher was (and still is) the main money person of the ownership group, he allowed Wolff to take point throughout most of the stadium planning process, which is why the initial stadium plan that was thankfully turned down by the City Council was so cheap. Heck, it took David Kaval to convince Fisher to raise the stadium's budget to a $100 million, which by modern MLS SSS standards is still pretty minimal. How differently would the stadium have turned out if Fisher and Kaval had actively worked on the stadium from the outset? GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Indeed. It does seem like our franchise has always been treated minimally from the outset (though Peter Bridgwater did his best, our team was still league-owned at the beginning). Would our franchise have had a stronger start had Dan Van Voorhis still been the Investor/Operator when the inaugural season arrived? GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Judging by what I heard about his ego, I suspect that if Alan Rothenberg and Dentsu had been able to purchase our franchise, he would've made damn sure to try and make San José second to no one in the league. Whether or not he would've succeeded in that is anyone's guess, but Dentsu sure would've given him the financial backing the likes of which the franchise would've never had seen before (Dentsu was, and still is, among the top five advertising agencies in the world). GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Peter Bridgwater Selling the Quakes to Bill Lunghi also could have changed the course of soccer history. Lunghi wanted to play an exhibition schedule against Mexican teams and he bailed out of the WSA/WSL making way for Dan Van Voorhis’ SF Bay Blackhawks. Lunghi hired former Peruvian international and New York Cosmos player Ramon Mifflin as coach. At one time , late 1988 early 1989 , we were to have two different semipro soccer teams in the area, the Quakes and the Blackhawks. When Lunghi was involved in some shady business dealings,Peter Bridgwater took the Quakes name and logo back. I think he used his USSF license to have exhibitions played in San Jose in 1990 and 1991. At that point he was hired by US soccer to head the Bay Area venue for World Cup 1994. Had Lunghi not come around, Peter Bridgwater will probably have retained the Quakes in the WSA. I’m pretty San Jose will have had an MLS team regardless.
That was an out of context "Enquirer" level of crap news... Look at their faces, is obvious they were walking, probably playing some kind of game that involved moving their arms back and forth
In that scenario, Peter Bridgwater would no doubt have been the President and GM of the San José MLS team, but would he have had the financial backing to enter MLS in the first place like Dan Van Voorhis had? GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
My relatives didn’t lie about their pre , during and post WW2 days though... Back to the thread.... Bridgwater told me he wanted to be the owner but MLS had people with deeper pockets on board. He also had the name rights for the Quakes and he sold them back to MLS I believe. He wanted to name the San Jose team after the original Nasl franchise but Nike wouldn’t let him. Alan Rothenberg also didn’t want to revert back to the old leagues names. It took Don Garber to go back to the old names. They had , Hunt , Subtonick and John Kluge, I think Uncle Phil Kraft, and a Horowitz came in 1998. The premise was supposed to be a single entity where all the owners own all the franchises.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I honestly have few issues with Avaya the way it is. It has great sight lines, is comfortable and can be navigated without much issue aside from when the teams come out onto the field (that part I hate). The visiting side gets a little cold due to wind, but otherwise, it's easily one of the top stadium experiences I've taken part in. If they upgraded the beer selection, I'd be very pleased, and that has nothing to do with the stadium itself. Edit: Forgot to mention that yes, it is pretty well known that Fisher acted as a silent partner while Wolff did all of the public facing activities and probably the majority of negotiations. Whether you think Wolff did enough for his teams or not, I honestly have to give it to him for being the public face of the ownership group and for absorbing the incredible amount of criticism he received. Fisher has not really done much of anything to transform into a public figure after Wolff's buyout, and there doesn't seem to be any signs of change there. He's a curious case of an owner.
Agreed. The supporters section should have been designed better, but hopefully this will be rectified before next season. The main merchandise shop was too small, as designed. That should be remedied some day, too. And, finally, museum space should have been designed into the facility. Hopefully, that will come with the expansion and re-design of the merchandise shop and satellite stands. All it would take is to re-purpose one of the others.
The deal for Peter Bridgwater to sell the rights to the San Jose Earthquakes name, logo and stuff to MLS was just about to go through in 1995/1996 when Nike stepped in and stopped the deal, wanting to name its six covered MLS teams itself. It was only when the Krafts took over operations in San José and Bridgwater was promoted to the MLS office in New York (both occurring in November 1998) that Bridgwater was able to sell the rights to the league. Still, it took subsequent GM Lynne Meterparel to actually make our team's name change happen a year later. The MLS ownership in 1996 consisted of: Colorado Rapids: Anschutz Entertainment Group Columbus Crew: Lamar Hunt D.C. United: Washington Soccer, LP Dallas Burn: Major League Soccer Kansas City Wiz: Lamar Hunt Los Angeles Galaxy: L.A. Soccer Partners, LP New England Revolution: Robert Kraft New York/New Jersey MetroStars: John Kluge and Stuart Subotnick San Jose Clash: Major League Soccer Tampa Bay Mutiny: Major League Soccer Then in 1998 came: Chicago Fire: Anschutz Entertainment Group Miami Fusion F.C.: Ken Horowitz GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G