I want to thank those that recognized that contraction was a true disappointment as far as the league itself is concerned. Fact is, certainly with the Miami Franchise, the league was up for a turnaround. Just as we have seen in several teams throughout the league and particularly with Kansas City. If KC can increase their attendance with highly mediocre teams then most certainly Miami could have had a major upswing in the turnstiles this year. As far as for Arisrules's comments earlier "Why are so many people dissapointed with the fact that the Florida franchises were contracted? Only positive things have come out of it honestly. The other positive is that we aren't involved with Florida anymore. Florida in my view is the last state a sports team should be in. The people don't care. That's just the facts." I think that was rather unfair. For the Florida franchises must have been the two most maladministered teams by far. Tampa bay being negected by all and the Fusion probably being better off without an owner in Ken Horowitz. Regardless of Horowitz' blunders the soccer community and even the media began to embrace the Fusion and Ray Hudson durring that last and marvelous last Fusion season...which ALONE make the contraction of the Miami Fusion the biggest disappointment in MLS history. Pardon my bias...but dispite the fact that the Fusion did not make it to MLS cup last year (by a hair), that Fusion team was probably the most entertaining team in the entire MLS history. I hope someone in MLS...hopefully Don Garber is having second thoughts about contraction after this year's relative success after the WC successes and attendence increases. I truly believe that this year's improvement in MLS' attendance have little or nothing to do with the contraction of the Florida teams. It was only the enevitably fruit of the original MLS idea of "being in this for the long haul" and of course the USMNT World Cup surprises. For the Miami team, 4 years (with 3 of the 4 being in administrative chaos) was certainly not enough, keeping in mind that that last year was its best season and had a 50% increase in attendence. Yet dispite all those facts Big Brother MLS decieded to eliminate this team.
I think it was more an ownership/lack of ownership issue than a fan issue... Tampa had 7 years to get some kind of ownership situation settled... so did Dallas. But Hunt lives in Dallas and we had those McKinney stadium rumors that ended up going nowhere... Miami's fan support lasted precious few games in season 1, but I don't see that as much different than KC's situation... I'd rather see 9k at Lockhart than 9K at Arrowhead. Horowitz owned the Fusion while Hunt owns the Wizards AND Arrowhead... I wasn't surprised to have a couple of teams fold although I felt KC and Dallas were worse organizations to keep than Tampa and Miami... but after all the talk of expansion, I was very surprised the league contracted the 2 Florida teams and moved/expanded to NOWHERE (no Seattle, no Philly, no Detroit, etc.)... this tells me it's all about the $$$ right now until the league gets closer to the break even point... I know this thread was up for awhile but I'd have to give one more nomination for the worst off the field situation: Metrostars playing playoff games at a 6200-seat minor league ballpark in Trenton... that's unbelievable...
some of my least faves 1. Rothenberg's stadium-building league model falls through. 2. Contraction. 3. Ken Horowitz 4. Japanese economy/Dentsu tanks 5. Kluge 6. Lynn Meterparel 7. The Krafts 8. Big name foreign Metros like Quiroz, Bora, Lothar BTW, what's Sunil done for us lately?
What are you basing this belief on? Last year, the ten teams that are still around this year had a mean per game attendance of 15,851. This year, the had 15,821. Unless you believe that Miami and TB were going to average 15,800 this year, then the increase in attendance obviously had at least something to do with contraction. I actually think that until MLS teams have two more SSS to play in (through expansion or otherwise), then MLS should further contract by going with 10 teams and a 26 match regular season schedule and a contracted, group play-to-straight knockout playoff schedule. This would allow all non-major event weekday games to be removed from the scedule without lengthening the season. This year, the average attendance without the 20 non-major event weekday games was 16,535.45! This is not to say that I wasn't disappointed by contraction. I was very disappointed by contraction. among other reasons, its frankly a little scary to see that MLS had to do that in order to improve their bottom line. I only hope that by improving its bottom line through contraction of teams and regular season / playoff matches, that MLS can gain the financial stability that will allow it to become a permanent fixture. More on topic, for me the biggest off-field disappointments were: 1. Metros not getting their own stadium. Man, would that have been sweet, considering the bath that the league takes financially by playing in Giants Stadium. 2. The Burn on getting their own stadium. If both one and two had happened, it would have permanently secured the league's financial stability.
1. poor ref quality 2. how the league let a player spit on a fan, claimed they punished him, but then you never heard report of a fine and well, he played the rest of the season, so no suspension.
Photar, The reasoning behind my comment that contraction had little to do with overall improvement is as follows... you can look at the numbers just black and white like you said and question if Miami or Tampa would have surpassed the league average. However, thats not really the point. For if you are going to look it that way then you should just look at San Jose and ask yourself... do you really believe the Fusion's average attendance would have been worse... I don't think so. Had San Jose been elimated and not Miami this year's average probably would have surpassed 16,000. The point is that league attendence just about improved across the board (with the exception of Columbus...it decrease by some miniscule number and Chicago decreased simply because Naperville's capasity is lower than Chicago's entire average attendance last year). So chances are that if Chicago played in Solder Field(would've had a much higher average) and the league NOT contracted the average attendence improvement may have not been very different, maybe better, INCLUDING Tampa and Miami. Even if it was not better than this year's average I'm sure it would have still improved. Thats the true goal. Better an overall improvement with 12 MLS teams than higher numbers minus 2 teams. Heck, the way you look at it why don't they just drop San Jose and Kansas City this year and you'll probably see an "improved" attendence next year too. MLS' attendence improved because of several factors lesser of which was the "artificial" improvements as result of contracting 2 teams. MLS' would be making a much louder statement in improving attendence average to 15,500 WITH the Fusion and Mutiny than 15,800 minus those two teams.
A couple of things. Don't forget that there were, what, six Nat doubleheaders this year. The attendence for the 4th matches in Denver and Pasadena was up this year. Fireworks, a trick used for decades by minor leagues everywhere. And Lamar Hunt doesn't own Arrowhead. Jackson County owns it and Hunt gets a sweetheart deal and veto power over events at the stadium, so he practically owns it. But not according to the fine print.
Khansingh, I don't know if you are aware of this, but Nat doubleheaders have existed throughout MLS history. Also, I know fireworks are a marketing gimick, however, please let me know the last time you saw over 60,000 attend a minor league game for some fireworks. By the way, now that you've clarified Lamar Hunt's deal with Jackson County. How does that differ in comparison to Ken "asswipe" Horrowitz deal with Broward County and Lockhart Stadium. I heard that deal was very similar and was also called a "sweet heart" deal which makes the Fusion contraction even more mindboggling when you take that and other factors into consideration as I've mentioned in other prior posts.
I also feed bad for Miami and Tampa fans, but I'm not totally convinced by the Miami arguments. (1) Miami saw the lowest low in history. While things improved greatly, you can't expect to have one of the best teams every year. (2) Despite all the anger at Horowitz, all the small fry bailed out on MLS. He would have been an exception had he stayed. The real issue is why Anschutz decided not to add the team to his growing collection. I have to assume it was because he thought it to be an unusually bad investment. (3) I imagine that San Jose could still be eliminated. Things are looking better, though. (4) As for this KC stuff. Look, everyone knew going in that KC would be one of the bottom teams in attendance. But for the stadium issue, there would be no KC Wizards. Nothing has changed since day one.
Who cares if fireworks are a "trick" If teams will do it to get 20000 in the stands, then getting 60,000 is quite the accomplishment. Does anyone know the costs involved?? The doubleheaders are clearly bogus. I doubt anyone here knows the financial arrangements, but it's easy to guess that MLS only sees a small fraction of those revenues. Moreover, the fans are going primarily to see another game. I've never heard of 60000 people going to stadium just to watch fireworks. Big difference. Ideally, I would like to ignore all doubleheaders. Simply not count them in attendance. The other stuff we can count.
The fireworks at the game were the only fireworks in Denver and the surrounding communities because of the drought and brushfire issue.* In other words, I can see 60,000 showing up to a stadium to watch them. My question is, were the fireworks before or after the game? How many people showed up early for the game (if fw. were after) or how many stayed late (if before) to watch soccer? * This is what I heard after the event initially happened.
The players elect to file an antitrust suit that serves only to delay their ability to unionize and collectively bargain, and ends up forcing MLS to make admissions in court regarding its finances that are taken out of context by the mainstream press. The players lose on every count and then elect to have the same NFLPA bring ANOTHER legal action challenging the standard player contract, rather than unionizing and attempting to engage in collective bargaining.
That's true this year. Look at past years and Colorado has had good attendances for the 4th of July though, and there were fireworks elsewhere in the state. BTW, the fireworks were immediately following the game.
I think I see where you are coming from now. You are correct in saying that the league would make a much bigger statement improving attendance with Miani and TB than to do so with only ten teams. Yes, that is the true goal--a larager league that can still increase its attendance. I know that. As I said before, I was dappointed by contraction. Besides, just as you are not saying that contraction had no impact upon attendance, I am not saying that it was the only factor. However, as I have argued before, attendance for the 10 ten teams remaning this year is actually flat compared to their attendance last year--even if Chicago isn't included in the analysis! Contraction did not improve team-by-team attendance. What it did improve is the league's bottom line--a ten team league at 16,000 per game is better off than a 12 team league at 15,000 per game (even if the league lost one of its teams with control over parking and revenue concessions). It is extremely unfortunate that such a step had to be taken in order to improve to accomplish that goal--which is the ultimate goal for MLS. Could Miani and TB have turned things around? I don't know--no one knows. What we do know is that the league needs to stop losing money. Since five of the ten remaining teams have a very good chance to do so in 2004 (raise that number to seven if the Burn and Metros stadium deals get done), what we do know is that it is entirely possible for the league to make a profit by 2006. This, of course, is the next time the investors decide whether or not it would be best to just contract the entire damn league.