Particularly because the owner of the Buccaneers, the Glazers, could have bought it for the change in their sofa. Instead they bought Manchester United, apparently on the theory that not enough people hated them.
SUM was pretty much entirely Don Garbers invention, with a good deal of help from Chuck Blazer who, whatever his flaws, was a broadcast rights genius. It was 2001.They held a meeting at Anschutz' ranch. Garber brought some bankruptcy attorneys. They had a fax literally on the machine ready to send that would have shut MLS down. At the last minute, Anschutz and Hunt went into a corner with Don, who pitched a plan whereby they would shutter two teams, Hunt would own 3, Phil would own 6 and Kraft would keep the Revs. Its a great tale
Yeah, I don't and haven’t cared for many of Garber's decisions but in that respect anyway, I think he deserves a lot of credit. I can just imagine if Doug Logan were kept on the job. We would probably be watching college ball , the PDL, USL or the NASL 2 instead of MLS.
That second kit really is a top tier 90's kit. I wonder what they go for these days. I know the original '96 Rapids kits are hundreds of dollars because so few of them were ever sold/distributed. Back when Paul Bravo was the TD of the Rapids he had the thought of putting El Pibe into the Rapids Gallery of Honor (Hall of Fame) less for what he did as a Rapid and more to recognize what he did for the league as a whole, and since the Rapids are the only team still remaining that he played for it would make sense for the Rapids to do it. It never happened though. None of it would have happened without Uncle Phil. A guy who was only convinced to buy into the league in '96 with a team in Denver if he could have "that guy with the bicycle kick against Colombia". So as we like to joke, Marcelo Balboa is the reason MLS still exists today.
If they had gotten permission to use it, it might have been cool to have the team enter the pitch for home games to "Rock The Casbah"!
I recall there was a supporters group called that. I think it still exists but again, refer to @Goodsport .