The "Thoughts That Don't Require Their Own Thread" Thread XIII

LOL!

Is there such a thing as "real LA" in the most plastic, fake culture in the whole country? OK, LA is a big city and there are a ton of regular everyday people who live and work there and do all the "normal" things in life that everyone else does, but I have to laugh at anyone who uses any suggestion of "authenticity" with "Los Angeles."

 

I think that's just the point. Pretty much every team in LA uses the Hollywood sign, palm trees, stars, etc. to market themselves, whereas LAFC has marketed itself more around the ethnic groups that make LA (outside of Beverly Hills, Newport Beach, etc.) an incredible diverse place.

 

Anyone watch https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/who-killed-garrett-phillips/about on HBO? Pretty interesting documentary involving a very successful college player turned very successful coach.

It was of particular interest to me because my brother went to Clarkson and I remember going up to Potsdam many times.

 

McCourt bought Marseille for €45M. Now an English billionaire buys Nice for €100M.

I’m not going to say Ligue 1 is some fantastic league but it still leaves me scratching my head on MLS entry fees.

 

Because MLS is the Hotel California. "You can check in anytime you want but you can never leave"

 

Hah! I got that reference immediately.

Also, you can't forget the epic EC final where Dempsey did his "stop, drop and roll" celebration, because everyone knows that's how you put out a Fire!

 

While I think of it, I just want to say that one of the best things about the Arena era has been the end of the infighting and bitterness on this board. The Friedel/Burns era was understandably frustrating, but it was doubly so how it ended up getting folks here so angry at each other. It’s so nice that we’ve gotten back to a point where things are upbeat and friendly again!

 

HEY! What are you talkin' about? No one here likes to fight and argue, and I will thrash you within an inch of your life to prove that point!

 

Here you go: https://www.espn.com/soccer/club/ne...-after-being-left-behind-by-the-growth-of-mls

A damning piece of journalism, that.

 

While those aren't entry fees that are being paid for those clubs, I get that the value of having a team in those leagues would seem to worth more than an MLS entry fee. It does however point to the perceived value of the US soccer market.

 

I'd wager that Marseille and Nice both come encumbered with some significant debt. The longer MLS can build itself as one of the very few financially stable higher leagues in the world, the more enticing ownership of one of its teams will be.

 

Apparently Nice only has 22M Euros of debt. He is also buying Allianz Arena for 250M Euros on top of the 100M for the team. I read somewhere that the squad is considered worth about 155M euros.

https://onefootball.com/fr/news/nic...lub-et-le-stade-fr-25717715?variable=20190825

Red Bull and Man City seem to have invested in MLS as part of a feeder system? Chivas... well we know what happened. Other than Beckham’s Miami (maybe) is there much foreign interest in the great potential of MLS? Is it fair to say that only American investors seem willing to shell out the MLS franchise fee and build a stadium to boot?

I acknowledge the prior responses about MLS and they are valid. I’m not trying to put the league down. I’m just trying to make sense of the value proposition. I’m back to comparing a 350M euro investment to get a about 383M of net assets (well we don’t know what the payroll and the facilities represent...) to the situation in MLS where it is around $250M to enter and you have to build a $250M stadium in most cases. $500M to enter... I get that MLS may have potential but I’d be more convinced if TV revenue and salaries were rising faster than we’ve seen.

Ratcliffe will be in the stands Wednesday night watching his new purchase in action. St. Louis investors will be waiting 2 (more) years to play (and who knows how long until they see their team in a new stadium). So no revenues from operations for a long time. It just seems a striking contrast.

 

Agreed, but it should hopefully signal to the players union that there is more money in MLS than perhaps MLS is leading on. It would be interesting to see the difference between the presentations MLS makes to prospective owners and the one they make to players about the financial stability and possibility of MLS!

 

That's easy.
To the players they go with "Hey, look at that dirty scrungy bottle you guys want to take a piss in. So obviously half empty!"
To the prospective owners they go with "Hey, look at that translucent and shiny Jeroboam you guys would love to take a swig from. So magnificently half full!"

Like Backbiter, the truth can be made to cut both ways.

 

Interesting fact: The REVs are tied with NYCFC for fewest away losses in the Eastern Conference. After the road futility over the past years who would have thunk it?

 

(Emphasis mine)

Buying a new MLS franchise is an excuse to build a new stadium, and new stadiums are cash cows for club owners. Even if the build costs are split 50/50 (and usually the public pays well over 50%) the club keeps the VAST majority of the revenues, like naming rights and parking and concessions and sponsorships, and they almost never pay property taxes based on the full value of the property, if any. The public is often on the hook for all maintenance and every 10 years or so the clubs get government handouts for further upgrades.

Also, in MLS there is no fear of relegation. In most of the rest of the world, the possibility of relegation could artificially reduce club values.

 

Also, ATL has twice as many road losses (8) as the Revs (4). How crazy is that?

 

Juan Agudelo picked up a coveted honor...

http://apps.bostonglobe.com/magazine/graphics/2019/09/2019-stylish-bostonians/#juan-agudelo

 

He's never been short on style - it's the substance that comes and goes (and seems to have gone).

 

There's an interesting article in The Athletic, referenced by an article on the NESN website (for those without a subscription to The Athletic) about how Julian Edelman and Bruce Arena met and got to be friends. Edelman is credited with helping convince Arena to come to the Revs.

 

I'm actually surprised it hasn't been brought up, but Charlie Davies had some really pointed (and explicit) comments about Mike Burns and the bad contracts he signed players to last week. Unusual because it was so clear and direct.

If you’re a Revolution fan, you are just overjoyed that the team went from bottom of the Eastern Conference, bottom of the league in goal differential. You lost a GM who couldn’t sign a player, who gave the worst contracts to players

Wow, shots fired.

I think I can understand some bitterness from Davies - he had fallen pretty low after his accident and failed attempts to come back. The Revs did give him a chance - which did help him revive his career - but he had to swallow a pretty low salary that was a fraction of what he was making a few years earlier.

But, more likely I guess, is that he is speaking for a lot of the guys that he shared the locker room with.

 

Wow. Where was this? Article or radio interview?