Soccer as a business

I'd agree with you. Many A-League "franchises" run themselves as if they were recreational beer league teams.

 

Why don't you try doing it? The USA is not sufficiently oriented around soccer to make a business of it. So the youth model is one of the better ones to follow. If that fails, the beer or ethnic league one is probably next best.

I don't know if you have any money. If you don't, you should shut the *************** up since you have no qualifications to discuss how others spend or invest theirs. If you do, then I suggest you buy a USL franchise and show us your stuff.

 

Great response there pal. The guy asked a decent question and I responded.

Why don't you shut the ************ up. I have more brains in my right testicle than you have, and unlike like you I have a pair of them.

 

You are a fool who obviously has never had any money, much less invested it.

 

The Impact got the idea. They became a non-profit organization (tax breaks for sponsors!) whose mission is to develop local talent. Longtime "godfather" Joey Saputo brought onboard the provincial government as a part-owner and the club is doing amazing, on and off the field, since. Even turned a surplus last year.

 

Yes, Montreal is non profit, but a very professionally run organization. The players are paid well, and lets face it, unlike the Toronto Lynx players Montreal have never been left to sleep in a train station overnight.

Modena man doesn't have a clue, and probably lost money running a soccer team the way that losers do, which is why he is such a little fart.

 

Oh, this is a Canadian thread, that explains it!!

 

I think that the main reason why it seems like most of the teams are run like youth clubs is that's where most of the people come from. In most cases people get invovled in a team ie either ownership or front office is because fo their love of the game. It's not because they view it as a way to make money (profits or big pay check). To be honest if someone was looking to make a lot of money they wouldn't get invovled with professional soccer.

 

Then you have some clubs who say they're going to run it like a business, and then they proceed to run it unlike any business you've ever seen, eschewing all principles of business you've ever heard of.

But it's damn hard to make it work either way. A handful of clubs have tried the non-profit bit, and I haven't seen any great stories of how well that has worked out.

Of course, by definition, almost any soccer team in America is going to be non-profit.

 

I think almost any soccer team with a SSS is going to be profitable.

 

I was once told that the Battery would have been profitable had the owner not insisted on spending a half mill on salaries, and I've recently been told that they will be profitable or close to it now.

 

I think I could take this thread a little more seriously if the poster defined what he means, exactly, by "run like a business".

MLS is most certainly "run like a business" by "business people" and they aren't making money either.

Do you suppose this has something to do with the fact that they're selling a product that not enough people are willing to buy?

Or are you one of those people who claim that the problem with professional soccer in the US is "lack of marketing" rather than "nobody gives a crap". According to this theory, if you open up a chain of stores selling dried dogshit, customers will line up to buy big bagfulls if you just "market" it correctly.

Baseball is a big, BIG success in America, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue at the major league level. How are they doing in Double A?

Fact is, without subsidies from the Major leagues, minor league baseball would disappear tomorrow. Maybe sooner.

And that's a sport that Americans both like and understand.

But as far a minor league soccer - the only reason the scalpers aren't getting a C Note per seat in the parking lot is that it isn't run right.

You guys can dump on Modenaman all you want here, make crude scatological references until your Mom washes your little mouths out with Palmolive, but the fact remains that you're way off base here.

You can get a PDL Franchise with for $45,000. All the league demands is that you have a permanent team phone line. You want to demand much more, great; just be prepared to see PDL go out of business.

Like I said, define your terms and we'll see if you have a point. Otherwise, the guy's right.

 

If you would like to come up with another ten owners with pockets as deep as Tony Bakers', I'm positive that Tim Holt will drive to Chicago and personally paint your house.

 

Well, there's independent baseball, which, depending on the league and who's involved, does quite well because their player costs are very, very low.

I think there'd be some serious retrenchment, but minor league baseball was around before there were subsidies from the majors, and it would likely be around if there were no more subsidies.

It sure would change the way they do business, though.

And I'm sure Tim Holt would do that. I wasn't questioning anything about Tony Baker, only adding to the thought that Charleston might or might not be profitable. So calm the hell down.

 

First off in was Modenaman who responded with the insults. Read the thread again. A question was asked I gave a reply and Modenaman responded by telling me to "shut the bleep up." Telling someone to shut the "bleep" up in a forum intended for discussion is retarded and will always be met with insults returned. Also there were no "scatalogical" insults bandied about.

As for running a team like a business, I don't know what the original poster thinks running like a business is but in my mind it's the opposite of what they have been doing in Calgary, Indiana and Cincinnati just to name a few cities.

 

No, they've just been running it like a bad business.

Though I'm still not sure what "running it like a youth club" means, or what that looks like, exactly. I think most teams above the PDL level would like to think they're in it for the money, only there rarely is any money because they're usually such bad businesspeople.

 

I thought that the origial poster was saying that teams run their clubs as a youth hangout or something, a place for kids to hangout for 2 hours.

Take Toronto for example. Last night they had a game against Rochester. This is an excerpt from a long time fan of the Lynx posting on the Ultras board. I think this explains running it like a "youth club":

Quote from DJ Hordash: "This team has manage to become serious laughing stock but the circus is get better and better.

The franchise has amalgamated two elements in one, the zoo on the field and the circus/mc showdown/ kid’s drawing and wrestling competition in the stands so it’s time to take our hats off to the entire franchise. Accomplishing all this in only 7 years is quite an achievement, congratulations! The zit poppers with the microphone animating the kindergarten excursions in the stands was just icing on the cake! Absolutely brilliant! Since stynx football = flushing money down the toilet now we are getting our money’s worth with all the fabulous entertainment in the stands. It’s time to celebrate! I think I’ll go out and rejoice with the fervent stynx enthusiasts sitting around me today, the breastfeeding mom, the juniors drawing a whole slew of cute little bears and the crew that disappeared at half time but happily came back with hotdogs just before the end of the match!

Don’t let the stynx ruin you day, they are not worth it!
I used to be furious, now I just don’t care "

 

All we need is about 10 times as many hardcores as we have now, and you won't notice the kids so much.

 

I think one of the problems is that teams just don't have the budgets to market the teams properly. It seems like team marketing departments tend to focus on one group each year at the detriment of the others. You have examples like Atlanta last year where they focused solely on the hard core male audience and their attendence plummeted. You have Toronto apparently focusing on the "family" aspect of the crowd and the Ultras are feeling turned off by it. We need to market to the whole soccer market - Hard core fans, youth soccer market, families, corporate sales instead of a single minded focus. There just isn't the funds to do all this. I don't think focusing marketing on one specific area is the answer...then again I don't have any answers to how to make things work either...and I certainly don't have any money to throw at it either.

 

And the REASON "player costs are so low" is because somebody else is paying them.

(And I AM calm. This is me on Prozac, kenn. You oughta hear me on Glenfiddich)

As for the Battery, I was just pointing out that Baker can afford a big staff.

 

Not in independent ball, they're not. Which is what I was talking about when I said "player costs are so low".

Northern League. Atlantic League. Those leagues. Unaffiliated with the majors. Pay their own way. Some are doing quite well.

 

Thats kind of oversimplifying things. The guy doesn't feel the way he does because he's "hardcore". One would argue that the Ultras are hardly what one would consider "hardcore" crazies. However I'm sure he'd feel more comfortable if the Lynx tried to market to the adults as well.

I know everyone will repeat to me that marketing to the kids is an investment for the future but thats crap. Because in that case they are at least looking over 20 years down the road, and how many teams have got that time to wait? Once these kids that the teams are marketing get to the age where it's not "cool" to hang with their parents and it's "cool" to not hang out with the little kids they will stop going to the games. Why? Because they will have learned to associate attending soccer games with what little kids do with their parent. So they'll stop going to soccer games because it's for kids and not "cool". I guess the teams will have to wait until they become adults and have their own kids to bring to the games. Of course none of them will still be around then.

 

No, I'm not big on the "wait 'til the kids grow up" theory.

It's just that, in most cases, you don't choose your demographic, your demographic chooses you. One business principle is to find out what your current customers look like and go find more people who look just like them. If suburban white people are coming to your games, for whatever reason, and they're coming in greater numbers than the hard-to-please "serious" fan, and you don't have the resources (or, likely, the ability) to target them both, many teams will target the suburban white families with kids (soccer-playing or otherwise). Just makes sense.

Doesn't sound like the most pleasing strategy if you're one of the serious fans who doesn't like kids underfoot, but when you're in the obvious minority, that's what happens.

And one could, of course, argue that that strategy hasn't "worked", but it could be argued that it's a sounder strategy to go after the people who've demonstrated they'll come to games (or, more precisely, people just like the people who've demonstrated they'll come to games) in certain numbers, than to worry about trying to find or appeal to people who look like the 200 or so who sit behind one goal and like to be loud.