Here's the link to the IMS story. http://www.insidemnsoccer.com/2011/...cer-league-names-david-downs-as-commissioner/ Here's the article from the league site. http://www.nasl.com/index.php?id=3&newsid=234 This is a really good signing for the league. It makes the league front office less Traffic centric and it gives them someone that is a US Fed insider and has plenty of contacts there. I think a really good move by them.
Could not have better a better person for this job. If this effort has any chance of succeeding, he will be the one to make it happen.
Well, technically they could have hired away Garber, and that would have been pretty big, but otherwise this seems extremely promising.
Well, judging by his resume and some of the assessments I've read of his ability and potential I'd say he could finally be the glue the NASL has been looking for to hold this ship together. But there are alot of other people who've put in alot of work and spent a ton of money to make the new NASL a reality. Very interesting news and it makes this first season much more promising. I hope he is ready to work, though.
I'm stunned that they got Downs for this job, to be honest. I can't see how anyone could call this a bad hire. No matter the price, you get a guy with TV experience (yes, I understand the league won't have a TV contract), tournament organization skills, a media marketing strategy, and connections like crazy with US Soccer and Garber.
Ok Over/Under until People start posting bad things about the new Commish (how he screwed up, is killing the fan base, etc? 6 Months? 12 Months?
Hoping that's tongue in cheek, because there's simply no a national TV deal is in the works. Back when USL used to put games on FSC, the teams themselves, not the league, were forced to be exorbitant amounts of money to the network. Those few teams still around who were burned by the arrangement have no doubt learned their lesson. I just can't see anything above regional coverage for the individual teams (which is more dependent on the teams themselves and their fanbases than the commisioner) coming to fruition any time soon. Lower level leagues are struggling for TV contracts in Europe, where the game is king. If they're having trouble, how much more will NASL?
Has there been new news on this? I thought they were still at the stage where many teams didn't want to pay for the production of that sort of content. From a marketing perspective, I get the point that was made by Davidson late last year--that the league didn't feel comfortable releasing a product that was not uniform and that would in some cases be very low quality--but as a fan, I just want to watch the games.
http://www.canadiansoccernews.com/c...lled-Football-Interview-Only-with-David-Downs here are some of those comments by the commish.
Thanks for the link. I especially like his idea that match highlights will be made available. Hopefully this is done at the league level.
http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/q-and-a-n-a-s-l-commissioner-david-downs/ NY times interview.