I agree with everything you said. This is the biggest problem with single entity and one owner owning 5 teams. Every market is different and when you have the league office doing a one size fits all approach to everything from salaries to marketing you let much business fall through the cracks. As Mightymouse mentioned, the league I think will change as more owners come on the scene but AEG still plans on keeping 3 teams. I dont think that is a good thing. They need to give front offices more individual responsibility and incentive.
If New Yorkers are so sophisticated in their soccer knowledge and front-running, then let Club America buy their team and move them to Houston. What have they really added to MLS anyway? Here is your answer, nothing but bitching, moaning, and talk of the good old days with the Cosmos. Well guess what, the Cosmos and the NASL's ridiculous spending led to the demise of the league. Sorry for my anger, but when you support a team that is threatening to be moved and you read this crap from Metro fans it just pisses me off! P.S. Before you pile on, I am not serious about moviong the Metros, I am simply attempting to show you how petty you are being.
Hey buttmunch, I'm relaying what others tell me. I go to all the games. It is a message board where people try to come up with ideas to better the league. If you want to put your head in the sand and act like everything is peachy be my guest.
But we have salry parity now and they suck anyway. Lets not even get into the drawbacks of a system in which there is no penalty attached to losing and very little reward for winning.
Wow talk about discussing your own topic. I don't recall anyone saying anything about paying anyone a million a year. Oh by the way at least one-third of these guys get by on less than 20K, so no I don't think most of them have it made.
Seriously the worst thing we can do is continually have american soccer fans be veiwed as oversensitive nerds. No one wants to follow the sport of whining, insecure weenies. These types of statements help no one. Let it go. You are saying things people don't even say. There is no need to make things up.
IC. How embarassing. It appears that in this case I am the whiny hypersensitive soccer nerd. /slinks away
We get it, your team has good attendance, even though they suck, and you want to get rewarded for it. Unfortunately, they don't get points for attendance.
Yes... but in every other league in the world - you get to keep all the dollars you generate from attendance and turn that into long-term club strength... then you can increase your chances for getting "points" - rather than being at the mercy of the whims of current player distributions. Single-entity is fine - but it should address the BUSINESS of being in MLS. Being good at the business, should under some form of incentives, help you improve the product you sell to the consumer - it does in virtually all aspects of commerce and industry. Parity is great, unless everyone gravitates to mediocrity... and no, parity is not mediocrity by definition - the World Cup in many respects has parity but it is not mediocrity.
Considering that you root for a money-losing operation who's paying rent to the University of Utah, I don't know if you'd want too quick a change to the current state of affairs.
I don't think you do. His team has good attendance and they should be rewarded for doing so (by being allowed to put forth a better product) before they slip into a deeper state of suckage (you like that other team that was never allowed to exploit its good performance - The Crew).
What makes you think it's money losing?... what in particular? All I've ever heard is Garber and others talk about how attendance (i.e. ticket sales) is THE major source of revenue. Dean Howes (RSL CEO) said that the breakeven number for them was 15,000 average per game... they're averaging just under 21,000 now?... about 50% over breakeven... have you heard something else? I'm sure a 1st year franchise sells more jerseys than most - considering there is NO merchandise saturation in the local market... U of U rent is not much compared to other MLS teams - I saw the number in the SL Trib a while back but I don't recall the amount... but I want to say it was a few hundred thousand for the whole season. Let's just say they aren't making money - shouldn't you reward the franchises who put the best attendance numbers forward in the hopes that they will continue to improve the attendace (i.e. retain the loyal customers and add more). In every corporation I've worked in, the performers got the most help, because it was much easier to help them do better than to waste your time trying to help someone who has proven they can't do it. EDIT - Math for fun: 20,000 average for 16 games - average ticket price $20 (range from $12 to $35 today... not including double those prices for the 41,000 who attended the USMNT double header)... 20,000 x 20 x 16 = $6.4 million. At 15,000 (the CEO's "Breakeven" number), using the same average price, you have ... 15,000 x 30 x 16 = $3.2 million dollars... that looks too good. Instead, let's assume "direct labor" payroll of $2.? milion and roughly the same amount for support staff and fixed overheads / operating costs - breakeven is at $4 million. I don't know what the real number is, but I do know that if the CEO said 15,000 avg attendance for them was the magic number and now you're above that by 50%, then it may not be a safe assumption that they are losing money.
I read in an article (can't find it) that RSL pays $400,000 for the full season's worth of rent. Metros pay about half that per game.
I googled it, per SLTrib article on 6/16/2005... RSL will pay $320,000 to Rice Eccles Stadium this year for using for 20 games (16 league games and 4 bonus dates). So, what else costs RSL so much money? The salary cap $2 millionish, rent $320K... SL Trib print article The delta on 5,000 additional seats above breakeven is probably around $2 million per year (even more if you could capture the concessions and such) - even HALF that in picking up a 2-4, $250k per year guys would make a BIG difference!
The above noted article points out that while the current situation is OK for RSL - the team loses a lot of potential revenue from not being able to capture all concessions, merchandise, parking, etc... sales that happen at the stadium - I guess that's the magic of having your own stadium (and the fact now you can charge others to use your stadium for events and such - or host them yourselves)...
Those break even numbers never made sense to me. I remember when MLS first started they said back then that if they average 15k they would break even. However, for the life of the league it has always been around that number yet they claim to have lost all this money. Either they miscalculated the expenses at the beginning of the league or they are lying about their losses. I guess nobody knows the answer to this but them.
I always understood the 15,000 break even number to be for clubs that owned or controlled their own stadiums. I don't see how any club will make a profit without revenue from stadium advertising, concessions, parking, etc. And I seem to remember a couple of years ago when Columbus was averaging about 17,000 that they still didn't break even because of shared losses. I believe the article said that without shared losses they would have made a "very small profit". (If I can find the article I'll post it)
Yeah... "shared losses" is the albatross, but on the business unit itself it was close to breakeven at 17,000 (instead of say the "holy" 15,000). I think RSL got a sweat deal with Rice Eccles Stadium as they are not charged much... I'll bet you the big expenses come from the teams/markets not drawing paid ticket fans well (particularly the large markets), national tv broadcasts, and national marketing... all the things that MLS does to try to raise the profile of the league in the eyes of the general masses. They seem to be trying to do all the things that will land them a TV deal or something without much hope of getting one... kind of like the corner grocier trying to be the Walmart.
If this is the case, I agree with you that it probably is, why in the world have they waited so long to get stadiums built? From the very beginning they should have done what RSL has done and been going after a stadium right from the beginning.
That's a great question. Building stadiums and infrastructure should have been the focus since the league kicked off in 1996. Most of us that lived through the NASL knew that instinctively. And anybody that has read my posts knows how strongly I feel about this issue. But for some reason, many original owners thought they could make it work in NFL stadiums. Probably because they anticipated television revenue to start flowing with the second contract. Obviously that didn't happen. By 1999, Crew stadium had opened out of necessity, and there was an obvious change in focus coming out of the League office. I think Crew Stadium showed the owners that the league could prosper without television revenue. But for that to happen every team would need to be playing in a stadium where they control scheduling, and all of the revenue potential. Now we are seeing that strategy implemented. And with every new SSS that opens the league grows stronger. So to all of you that think the owners need to spend big money on players I say the following: IT'S THE INFRASTRUCTURE STUPID!
I completely agree with this post. MLS does not have the deep pockets to outspend the top Euro leagues for players. Bringing in aging stars only works if you get them for a discount, and they still can/want to play. The focus should be on stadiums to help revenue, then should shift to youth development. They are doing this to a certain extent. It would be great to see youth academies all over the US affiliated with MLS teams. With the massive population we have, combined with the athletes we have in this country we could develop stars over time. Of course people are not patient. I really believe that if we start spending big bucks for transfers, if that fails, so does the league. Staying the course and building facilities is the proper path.
It's a lot easier to get various municipal entities to pay for $55 million of a $65 million stadium complex for a team that's been around for seven or eight years in a league that's been around for seven or eight years than it would be to get public funding for team that's never played a game in a league that's never played a game. Even RSL, which had never played a game before April, benefitted from the fact that they were going to be in a league that had a little longitivity.