He doesn't care enough to tell us what is going on with the draft. He doesn't care enough to tell us what is happening with the expansion teams. Hey, we are only the people who are customers. Paying for all of this. Stevie has to go. The man has no vision and is destroying the league. Attendance is going down on average, not up. No regular TV contract. The Versus deal was short and wasn't announced until late into the season. The Paxos years look like the golden era of indoor soccer in comparison. He is pathetic and has to go.
Not commenting on most of your post, but if I recall it right the VERSUS deal is including the upcoming season as well, with significantly more games shown LIVE on national TV! Martin
In the case of the expansion draft, he might not be at fault. If there are issues regarding certain expansion teams (as others have outlined on the forum), and if those issues are in fact delaying the draft, then Steve Ryan might not know himself the exact date until those issues are resolved. Therefore, rather than announce the date he thinks it's going to happen, only to have it changed again, it's probably best not to announce anything until they actually have a firm date. If they were to announce June 25 or 28, for example, and then the problems in New Jersey were not yet resolved and they needed to delay it again, we'd all be on here complaining about that and the league would look bad. So they MIGHT be waiting until they actually know.
You may be right, but that's pretty much what they said when they sacrificed their playoffs in 2004-05 to be on ESPN and sacrificed them again in 2005-06 to be on ESPN2. They haven't announced that there will be a TV deal in 2007-08, but they haven't even indicated there will be a season at all so who knows.
Then why not release a statement like this: Due to circumstances beyond the control of the MISL and our member teams, the upcomming expansion draft has been postponed until those issues have been resolved. Obviously this could be expanded on to sound more profesional, but it shouldn't be that hard. The whole league stinks of unprofessionalism.
I've been riding Jaye Cavallo harder than I've been riding StormCousin, but I still can't see any evidence that Cavallo has been with the MISL the last 2 years. Ryan Waldeheger seemed to put out the bulk of content on misl.net and Cavallo couldn't even pick up the slack for the Player of the Week awards. Even if you're not communicating directly with key media members it's not that hard to put a general update on the website. Heck, they haven't even announced Monterrey. There must have been league meetings in the last six months and some things must have been determined.
Ryan would obviously still be a part of hiring and firing and such, but there are other people that work: communications specialist, public relations, whatever - It's not the comissioners job to update the website directly.
Just for clarity I'm blaming the lack of web content on Cavallo, not Ryan (despite the name of the thread). But in the big picture Ryan is supposed to be so astute at marketing and merchandising and the MISL is a humongous failure in both departments.
Right. They need some intern to get into the PR department and help revamp it. Some kid in college who loves soccer and is taking communications or sports management and will help keep things up to date and nice looking. Can't be that hard. Crap, they wouldn't even have to pay him. I would freaking do it.
I have to strongly disagree with this point. That whole mentality of "get some kid" or "get some intern" from some local college is the type of mentality that is just one of the things wrong with the league and the individual franchises today. You don't go get someone who is green or who will work for free to do an important and key job like revamping and running your communications effort. One of the teams hired an intern from a local tv station a couple seasons back as their media director and the press releases were horrendous. The poor guy couldn't even compose a sentence and he was writing press releases! I think it's also a mistake in today's world to pass off the internet duties like they aren't important or that "anyone can do it". More and more people in the world rely on the internet for information. Just look at how often the participants of this forum complain about the league and team web sites when they aren't up to par. The MISL is advertising right now for Ryan Waldheger's former position and at least it sounds like they are trying to get someone with some experience and qualifications. It sounds like they're trying to fill it right. If you then want to add an intern (or two) to assist that person, that's fine, but I think some teams rely too much on interns who are often just "doing their time" and don't care about the job as much as someone who is trying to make a living at it and hopefully doing a good job.
I will have to graciously semi-disagree here. You do need someone who knows what they are doing and has experience - that is obvious. BUT, I think that the right kid would be a great asset. Seriously, there are plenty of kids out there who love soccer and are into business. The passion really adds to the strive for success. If they go out and get some basketball player who hates soccer buts needs an internship, then yea, that's a problem. But do a little interviewing, find someone who wants to help them succeed and I guarantee you have an asset to your team. They are in Connecticut - Sacred Heart, University of New Haven both have good sports management programs - go talk to some kids or professors. A passionate kid can really make a difference.