Re: Re: Re: are you kidding? and???... i agree with USRufnex, i think that the logical expansion site now is in OKlahoma...
Re: Re: are you kidding? Point being? Houston already has a place to play. Just need a guy to throw the money down here.
Re: Re: are you kidding? This is about the most logical post I've read in this forum for a long time. I don't think any city deserves a team. A person who's willing to lose some money for a few years, build a stadium, and support US Soccer deserves a team. Not some city just because 1,000,000 kids play on weekends.
Re: Re: Re: are you kidding? the point is that the MLS is not looking 60K+ NFL (or MLB for that instance) stadiums for the expansion teams.... that point is disscused to death.... and throwing money is not just enough... you have to make good investments... like SSS, AND a lot of PROPAGANDA...look the Fusion Owner....., the team was doomed because the investments where out of place... when the Stadium came the team was doomed already (at least for the owner...
Re: Re: Re: Re: are you kidding? Hmmmm. Earlier you posted that you think Oklahoma is a logical expansion site. But to me, the Miami fiasco argues just the opposite point: having a SSS to play in and a willing investor does not automatically lead to a successful franchise. Imagine judging competing bids from a half-dozen cities that were all roughly the same in terms of stadiums and ownership group. Would, say, Tulsa be at the head of that list? If not, then maybe it ought to be rejected in the present situation. But all things aren't equal. No other city has the stadium/ownership situation that Tulsa/OKC offer. Yes, but what if they did at a later date? Given the likelihood that MLS won't grow to 25 or 30 teams, the league will be faced with either foregoing a better market because it made a hasty decision or moving a team, with all the teeth-gnashing and hair-pulling that entails?
Re: Re: Why not I hope so...one Oklahoma team is stretching it. Two would be ridiculous, as everyone outside of Oklahoma realizes. If MLS is patient and really tries to build something with investors in the usual suspects (Philly, Houston, Seattle, Twin Cities, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Rochester, etc.), they'll get a lot more out of it in the long run than if they put two teams in an underpopulated state just because the iron is hot right now. I also oppose a second New York team on similar grounds. If this is going to be our national soccer league, the teams should be spread as evenly as is financially viable. One Oklahoma team would become a regional magnet for soccer fans; two would be a joke.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: are you kidding? Originally posted by jwinters Hmmmm. Earlier you posted that you think Oklahoma is a logical expansion site. But to me, the Miami fiasco argues just the opposite point: having a SSS to play in and a willing investor does not automatically lead to a successful franchise. Lockhart Stadium is not the kind of SSS that's being discussed. Lockhart was an old high school stadium that was expanded for the NASL's Ft. Lauderdale Strikers DECADES AGO (Fusion fans correct me if I'm wrong). At that time, it was criticized for not being "big enough for the NASL" (people wondered out loud about the location and why a Miami based team be there instead of the Orange Bowl). That same stadium was never a draw for the old Strikers teams... why would it suddenly be relevant now? A new stadium of any kind seems to be a draw for NE and Colorado this year and the SSS in LA is going to be a big draw for the Galaxy next year. Any 22,500 seat stadium in Tulsa would be built from scratch and any "expansion" of Wantland Stadium in Edmond would be practically the same thing... check out the drawings for Edmond sometime... neither would compare to Lockhart or Naperville-- better comparison would be Columbus. Imagine judging competing bids from a half-dozen cities that were all roughly the same in terms of stadiums and ownership group. And welcome to FANTASY ISLAND... Would, say, Tulsa be at the head of that list? If not, then maybe it ought to be rejected in the present situation. Hmmm... then Hunt and Garber must be pretty stupid, huh? Especially compared to your superior knowledge of Tulsa?!? But that's just the reason why the "bar is higher" for smaller market teams... and may explain why a Tulsa bid would most likely include a promise of at least 7500 season ticket holders. Using your logic, NBA should never have come to Salt Lake City, Sacramento, or San Antonio and NFL football should never have expanded to Jacksonville, FL... or Green Bay, WI... But all things aren't equal. No other city has the stadium/ownership situation that Tulsa/OKC offer. Yes, but what if they did at a later date? Given the likelihood that MLS won't grow to 25 or 30 teams, the league will be faced with either foregoing a better market because it made a hasty decision or moving a team, with all the teeth-gnashing and hair-pulling that entails? [/B] Teeth-gnashing? Hair-pulling? That's what happens when potential owners, investors, and city politicians try to put a bid together with a stadium proposal in the first place. If a potential Tulsa or OKC franchise eventually turns into a "disaster" then move the team or "contract" again... other leagues during their "growing years" expanded, contracted, and moved teams until finding the right combination. Maybe the title of this thread is a bit too provocative. My assessment of the situation has always been that 2 teams in Oklahoma "wouldn't happen in my lifetime" and that the likelyhood of 2 SSS in Tulsa and Edmond is well... "lightning stiking twice in the same place." There was a nice article in last Sunday's Tulsa World with former Roughnecks' GM Noel Lemon... seems nobody knew where Tulsa was or cared about having Tulsa as a franchise. Conventional wisdom at the time said Tulsa would NEVER support a soccer team in a city that, after all, is football country and doesn't have much of an ethnic population to speak of. Yet soccer succeeded there with a .500 team where franchises playing in the Astrodome in Houston, the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta, Veterans Stadium in Philly (etc., etc.) ALL FAILED. Does that mean a franchise with a good owner and SSS in those cities would fail based on a soccer experience over 20 years ago? Of course not. Why does Sacramento and San Antonio have NBA teams while the NFL has teams in Buffalo, Jacksonville, and Green Bay? And the NHL in Nashville and Atlanta? What makes one city a "basketball town" and another an NFL "mecca?" And what makes a city a "soccer hotbed." It's time to start thinking outside the box. Because we'll never know unless we try. I WILL tell you this: if Tulsa's Mayor LaFortune persuades an ownership group to invest MILLIONS in MLS on a yearly basis, and a bond issue passes (in a city that's pratically allergic to spending $$$ on anything other than fixing potholes) that aids construction of a first-rate SSS, and a season ticket drive can guarantee at least 7500, then Tulsa DESERVES a team. Ditto for OKC/Edmond. At the very least they deserve the chance to prove your theories and fail. And possibly be a "disaster." Period. End of discussion.
Re: Re: Re: are you kidding? Originally posted by jwinters I'm going to start another thread on this point after the final regular season figures are in, but do you have any real proof that MLS markets with few or no pro teams perform better at the gate than do those with many teams? Not necessarily. But I DO know that there is much more media coverage and higher visibility given to a smaller market team like Columbus than the Fire and Metros that get lost in the shuffle. I can't imagine a Tulsa broadcaster from the ABC affiliate leaving out highlights and getting the friggin' score wrong to a game MINUTES AFTER the entire game was shown on his network... but, by god, that's what Mark Giangreco did on the ABC affiliate in Chicago after a Fire game was shown from Soldier Field... [/b] I know you hate statistics, but try to spot a trend in this: Los Angeles CSMA: 6 pro teams + MLS New York CSMA: 9 pro teams + MLS Washington-Baltimore CSMA: 5 pro teams + MLS Columbus SMA: 1 pro team + MLS Kansas City SMA: 2 pro teams + MLS SF-Oak.-SJ CSMA: 6 pro teams + MLS Miami-Ft. Lauderdale CSMA: 4 pro teams Tampa SMA: 3 pro teams [/B] Your MLS stats are meaningless because Columbus is the ONLY team that applies in this discussion and happens to be a success... ALL the other cities have histories of major league sports. In Columbus (or any franchise with an SSS--big or small), I don't see any potentially embarrassing situations where the team has to play a couple of seasons in Naperville or playoff games at a 6200 seat stadium in Newark... Now try this: Columbus: NO pro teams until MLS came in; first city to build SSS. Now has an NHL team. Sacramento: 1 pro team Green Bay: 1 pro team Salt Lake City: 1 pro team Jacksonville: 1 pro team San Antonio: 1 pro team Charlotte: no pro teams until the 90s... now 2 Memphis: 1 pro team Nashville: no pro teams until just a few years ago-- now NFL and NHL. Stats don't mean a thing unless you have the stories behind them (like LA being without pro football for almost a decade). But then again, any computer toting idiot can come online and start spouting off statistics...
Re: Re: Re: are you kidding? The point is that another major league team with a great new ballpark will be sharing the summer with a potential MLS team in Houston ... you don't think that would affect attendance? Will the team be taken seriously if it plays at the U of H or does it need to play games at Reliant? Not being mean... or saying a franchise in Houston wouldn't be a success... just wondering if MLS team in Houston wouldn't be playing "under the shadow" of the Astros...
Re: Re: Re: Re: are you kidding? The Astros got a new stadium because the Astrodome is becoming obsolete. The Texans got a new stadium because they couldn't play in Minute Maid and as I just said, the Astrodome is becoming obsolete. Now, the U of H place was just renovated. It looks nothing like it used to. Although I don't think that the whole "new stadium" argument holds much water. For the first few games people might show up because of a "new" stadium, but the newness wears off and people don't come back. The real soccer fans will go see matches regardless of how old the venue is. As for playing in the Astros shadow...I don't really have much to say. Baseball and soccer crowds are very different. The only people that would really be swayed by any conflicts would be Joe Sixpack. Houston's population is large enough that regardless of Joe Sixpack's choice, there should be a decent amount of fans at the match. The only solid argument I can provide for saying there would be fans at a MLS match is that Houston has some of the highest Neilsen ratings for MLS in the country. Now honestly, I think a team would succeed in Houston; however, without an I/O there's no point in really trying. I think there should be a team in Tulsa/OKC. I'm not necessarily pro Oklahoma, but I am pro midwest. Also, just because someone is willing to throw money down, doesn't mean that they will stick around after 4 years of losses.
Re: Re: Re: Re: are you kidding? I know that you want desparately to convince people that OKC/Tulsa would be primo places for MLS. But that desparation seems to cloud your ability to make logical statements. I suggest that there's no real indication that markets with few professional sports teams support MLS better than those with many teams. You claim without support that ONLY Columbus should be considered, and that it is a success, thus Palookaville will also be a success. That doesn't wash. Columbus is a success, but so is Los Angeles--LA has been a bigger success in attendance and on the field. If it's profits, then Kansas City should be considered a success. If having your own field is the yardstick, then Miami was a success. To me, the only metric that's worth considering in looking at MLS markets is average attendance--it's a known quantity and it related directly to a club's ability to make money. On that score, Columbus has been successful, but no more so than LA or DC or NJ. (The fact that NJ can't make money on its attendance has little bearing on the quality of the NJ market.) The idea that MLS can only compete in virgin markets is a false one and betrays a sad lack of confidence in the power and potential of the league. The top three attendance leaders over the past three years are Los Angeles, DC, and MetroStars--markets that are saturated with sports teams. They are also, not coincidentally, three of the largest markets in the country. That's not a "statistic," that's a fact. Yes, but your longwinded stories of Tulsa's NASL grandeur are worse that meaningless--they're misleading. Up to now, NASL attendances have had an almost negative correlation with MLS gates: LA's and Washington's NASL gates sucked, and they consistently shine in MLS. Tampa was one of the best NASL markets, but couldn't support the Mutiny. Even the relative attendance success of the Metros pales in comparison to the Cosmos. And Garber and Hunt? Do I think they are idiots for talking to Tulsa? Nope. I think they are yanking your chain. Ask Seattle about MLS's interest in expansion. I suppose the reason why you use stories rather than numbers is that the numbers argue against you, while the tales you spin supposedly are irrefutable. The problem with your approach is that you can't really argue that Tulsa is better than City X based on stories, let alone stories told from only one biased point of view. You claim that stats without stories are meaningless, but stories and only stories--which is all you offer--are the weapons of a salesman with a shoddy product. And by the way, the NFL never expanded into Green Bay or Buffalo. To suggest otherwise exposes the limitsof your understanding of sports history.
Once again, the problem is your biased use of statistics. Tulsa has a potential fanbase that doesn't exist in other cities. Tulsa WAS a success. Period. Can I prove Tulsa will be a success in MLS... no. I am stating that smaller market cities like Des Moines, etc. can work well. Large market teams get lost in the shuffle of media coverage. Unfortunately, you seem to be on your own personal vendetta against Tulsa since you seem to have no problems with a franchise in OKC. Your comparison of Tulsa attendance to Tampa Bay's... I've said that no large market cities should be excluded from MLS simply because didn't work in the NASL. Your example of Tampa is ridiculous also because Tampa won two-thirds of their games every year they averaged over 20K-- not to mention with a high scoring and very exciting team to watch. The Mutiny simply had no chance to duplicate the on-the-field success of the Rowdies. Why did anyone expect them to duplicate it attendance-wise? I find it disgusting that some people have decided the league (NASL) that laid the groundwork for the current one (MLS) is thought of as "useless." I've never said NASL success/failure should be the deterimining factor for success in MLS... but a generation a kids who were Roughneck's fans (both in Tulsa and OKC) have grown up and very definitely can be counted towards as a factor in "fan support" every bit as much as hispanic population and soccer moms.
Again, the problem is your biased used of stories as a replacement for serious analysis. As a counter to the fact that Tampa was a knock-out NASL market and a dismal MLS one, you conjure the excuse that the NASL team was great, the MLS team was awful, and that's why the attendances were so different. There are two ways to destroy this excuse. First, it's simply not true. In 1996, Tampa demolished the competition, winning the Supporter's Shield by nine points and scoring a league-high 66 goals. Tampa played attractive, attacking soccer. It also pulled in an average attendance of 11,679, second from the bottom in the league. MLS put the best team in one of the premier NASL cities, and they couldn't draw flies. Indeed, the only year (1999) that the team averaged over 13,000, they had a decidedly mediocre season on the field. Sure, last year Tampa was dreadful on the field and at the gate, but to claim that the team was always a cellar-dweller shows that you either don't know the facts or you simply disregard facts that contradict your beloved stories. Second, there has been little to no connection between on-field success and attendance in the MLS. Hell, two of the best teams last season were attendance black holes, San Jose and Miami. It takes real, long-term ineptness to drive attendance trends down (as they've been sliding a bit in DC, and even then that team pulls in better numbers than most), the kind that wasn't found in Tampa. No, Tampa's gate was dismal from the get-go and no amount of winning or losing could change that. It was a mistake to place a team there. Fighting cold hard facts with fuzzy stories is understandable, given what you have to work with. But being openly contemptable of facts and numbers like population and demographics (Des Moines? in MLS? That's dumber than anything you've said yet!) and creating stories--pathetic excuses--that are so easily checked and debunked leads me to the inevitable conclusion that you are someone who debates without honor. I can excuse a partisan, and understand that people make honest mistakes from time to time. But someone who has such a low regard for the truth is not worth dealing with. I withdraw from this thread and will no longer expose your errors of fact and logic, let alone outright lies. I wish you lots of bad luck on bringing MLS to Tulsa.
Tampa and Miami I truely believe that the reason the Tampa and Miami franchises were shelved were more of a geographic one than problems at the gate. The league expenses of flying to those cities were probaby far greater than the cluster in the northeastern part of the U.S. which houses several MLS franchise. Major League Baseball's season is competitive with the MLS season; therefore, MLS cities with MLB are going to have a tougher sale being in direct competition with baseball. The MLB Baseball teams there are having trouble attracting crowds and these two Florida cities' sports entertainment dollars are stressed. In Miami, where you have all Fab Four franchises (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL), the metropolitan area has over 3,876,385, that's about 970,000 per major league team. Tampa has 2,395,997 with 3 major league teams; that's 800,000 per major league team. Compare that to a city like Columbus which has no major league baseball and 1,540,157 residents; that's 1,540,157 per major league team. Columbus certaining has room to market MLS. The smallest major league baseball market with an MLS franchise is Kansas City. It is also the smallest MLS market. Kansas City has two major league franchises with a population of 1,776,052; that's 890,000 per major league team. This may very well be the reason why MLS is having trouble getting a foothole in KC. Dallas-Fort Worth has four major league franchises with a population of 5,221,901; that's 1,305,000 per major league team. Good potential for MLS marketing; however, still less than Columbus. Cities like Oklahoma City and Rochester are small markets with 1.1 million each and no major league franchises. That's still 1,100,000 per market with no major professional sports competition. The marketing potential for MLS is far greater in markets where there are no major professional sports and MLS should be looking at these markets for immediate expansion if they want 25,000 seat stadiums filled. As MLS moves toward a lucrative tv contract; they will certainly need to be in some large markets as well like Philadelphia, Seattle, Houston, Detroit and Minneapolis-St. Paul. MLS has a future; people are fed up with baseball's greed. This would be a great time for MLS to go after the baseball fan.
I have three points to make. First of all, if there is a solid ownership group in both cities, you have to consider them. I'm not talking about Horowitz type ownership, but Anshultz or even Kraft type support. People who are commited. If the soccer facilities are built or even partially built you have to conisder the site. No matter what!!!!! Plus it has the added benefit of a rivalry that is intense. Now if that can be channeled into the creation of Fire type support, then it will be extremely benefial to the league.
some decent points Sorry I have been away for awhile since my last post on Friday. I only surf this thing while I'm on my lunch break or before work. Some of you made some good points about Oklahoma despite my "personal vendetta." My problem with Oklahoma deals with a certain politician's son that I cna't stand. In fact, I hate him with the fire of a thousand suns, but that's not the point of my previous post. I'm not even from St. Louis so don't attack me for moving, in fact, I never lived there. I just visit alot and have tried to develop some ties into the youth soccer program because my girlfriend's family lives there and it is a potential place to settle down and raise a family some day. I have lived in a number of cities. Cleveland for awhile, then Cincinnati, then I was an intern for DC United and now I'm living in Chicago working in pro sports. I don't like the Fire at all, I have been a Crew fan since the league's inception despite being bitter that they didn't put the team in Cleveland and then developed a strong bond with the DC organization due to my internship and the many many friends I have that still work there. On to my point: Oklahoma could potentially have one team, eventually, but two would be absurd. Maybe saying that one city DESERVES a team over another was a bit on the ridiculous side, but certainly some cities are better suited. No, population has nothing to do with it. Rochester draws more fans than most MLS cities for pete's sake. NASL also means nothing, look at Tampa Bay and their miserable attendance records. Chicago doesn't draw that much despite a large soccer population and 8 million people....NY, same deal. Columbus proves that with a smaller market and a SSS that any city could produce a team that will profit from MLS. However, St. Louis, Houston, and Philadelphia seem the most logical to me. They have large potential sponsors and great locations to put soccer specific stadia. Unfortunately, NO CITY has come up with an owner who has said, sure, I'll drop a million on this new stadium, invest in the league and lose another couple million dollars before I even draw my 1,000,000th fan. It's quite absurd really, you would need a damn whale of Hunt and Anshutz's stature. From a business standpoint, MLS needs to fix it's cash flow problems first, then create a better product with SSS, then attract some new sponsors and THEN and ONLY THEN, we can talk about expansion. And honestly, I would bet my life that Oklahoma will not be in the first expansion group. Not that you don't "deserve" it, maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I don't think it will happen.
I understand... The experience you had in Oklahoma appears to have left a bad taste for the Sooner State. I appreciate you sharing that with us! That's really sad! There are so many positive things going on here. I use to live in Fort Worth and work in Dallas. I just recently moved back to Oklahoma City from the Metroplex. I love the Metroplex; however, I could have gone 10 places and done 10 things in Oklahoma City faster than I could have done two in Dallas. Don't get me wrong, I love Dynamic Dallas and our Dallas Burn and I love Fort Worth (Funkytown) and the Texas Rangers. The beauty and growth of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is unlike any I've seen besides Houston and Phoenix. I can get around faster on the expressways in Oklahoma City. I travel 15 miles to work and it only takes me 20 minutes. I traveled 15 miles from Arlington to Dallas and it took me 60 minutes on I-30. I'll say one thing for Oklahoma City. It's a true-hearted hard working city with geniune hospitality when it comes to friendliness. The people there are friendly and not afraid to help their neighbors or lend a hand. The City is naive to the dangers of strangers, it's a Galapagos Island inland, much like the animals that inhabit the island with little known fear for predators, our citizens are too friendly. I see that you met a predator within our ranks and you got to experience the bad apple of the forbidden fruit tree. You can go to many of the gas stations in Oklahoma City and fill up without pre-paying. It is much like Los Angeles, it's not a city but a cluster of suburbia! Many of the famous people who are from or grew up in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area include Wealth:Sam Walton, (Walmart) Edward L. Gaylord; Sports: Johnny Bench, Joe Carter, Bobby Murcer, Troy Aikman, Barry Switzer, Brian Bosworth, Bart Conner, Willie Stargell, Shannon Miller; Actors/Writers/TV personalities: Brad Pitt, Vince Gill, Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Wanda Jackson, Conway Twitty, Kay Francis, Ted Shackelford, Jimmy Webb, Lon Chaney Jr. (Wolfman), Ralph Ellison, Chuck Norris (Carlos Ray), Mary Hart, Van Heflin, Walter Chronkite, Curt Gowdy, Douglas Edwards, Dizzy Dean, Jimmy Houston, Pearle Mesta, Rosa Lee "Aunt Jemima" Hall, Astronauts: Dr. Shannon Lucid, Thomas P. Stafford, Gordon Cooper and the infamous Belle Starr, Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie & Clyde. Yes even "Aunt Jemima" lived here, a few blocks down the street from where I grew up. I never knew she was Aunt Jemima until the papers revealed her street address and that the person everyone called Miss Rosa Lee was "Aunt Jemima"! It was rumored that she died on welfare! Oklahoma City Myriad Botanical Gardens OKC has its glitter and glamour spots as it does its split ends. This city is hungry for some type of Major Professional Sports and the MLS would be a big, big hit here. The local AA hockey team (not AAA) has averaged 9,200 fans per game for 9 straight seasons playing in an arena which was built in 1973. This is the best minor league hockeytown in North America! We're looking to average 12,000-15,000 in our new 19,000-seat NHL-NBA quality arena called the Ford Center. A new soccer specific stadium and I'd bet this city could easily attact 20,000 with a competitve team and 30,000 with a winner!
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: are you kidding? Please tell me this isn't the stadium that Univ. Houston plays in. Often considered the worst field in D1 football. There was a reason why UH played in the Astrodome. MLS needs to have stadiums it controls the revenues at.
Re: I understand... nice pictures.... i liked your post... and yeahh, the support for the hockey team is great... can we translate that attendance for an MLS team??? i think that we still have to prove that
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: are you kidding? Sorry for the Houston bit here - I'm not trying to hijack your Oklahoma thread, just replying to a question re a stadium in Houston: Yes, it's the stadium at UH, but it's been significantly renovated recently. Then big-time plaintiffs' lawyer John O'Quinn (as in John O'Quinn Field at Robertson Stadium) contributed some big bucks a few years ago to upgrade pretty much everything - field, scoreboard, seating, luxury suites, etc. It was built a long time ago, but the renovations are outstanding. Sightlines are decent, too. I've been there several times since renovation for various soccer games and the fabled Bayou Bucket (the world championship of Houston D1 college football) and think it would be a great MLS venue. No problems at all as far as the facility goes. Here's a link to the UH page on Robertson: http://uhcougars.fansonly.com/extras/local/facilities/robertson.html. As far as controlling stadium revenues, Reliant would obviously be better if McNair is the I/O. If not, then UH would probably be about as accommodating as you can get in working out something very reasonable for lease terms. Despite the pictures on the page that I link above, UH doesn't draw well for football (they only get good crowds, such as the one pictured, for the world famous Bayou Bucket - the biggest game in the world). They've been happy to schedule all sorts of soccer there in recent years - Pre Pre's, US Soccer Festival, and a US women's friendly. They probably understand the benefits of having an MLS club in their stadium. Ok, return to your regularly scheduled OK programmming...
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: are you kidding? it is a good looking stadium to m... the site says that it have a 32K capacuty... it doesn't look so many... but is a good stadium to me.... any one knows if this stadium have a soccer specification field???
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: are you kidding? Yes, I've been there for soccer and the field is plenty wide. It's also where several Mexican Pre-Pre-Libertadores matches have been played the last two years. The stadium has an intimate feel. The fans are very close to the field. Even a small crowd looks and sounds pretty good. Maybe we should take this discussion to the Houston thread in this forum so that we don't keep encroaching on Oklahoma's turf. The Houston thread is here: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=485&pagenumber=3. Sorry - I should've linked there earlier.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: are you kidding? Originally posted by jwinters I know that you want desparately to convince people that OKC/Tulsa would be primo places for MLS. Nope. Just that BOTH are viable candidates for expansion. But that desparation seems to cloud your ability to make logical statements. I could say the same thing about your contention that Tulsa would be "a disaster"-- AP newsflash... pot calls kettle black... I suggest that there's no real indication that markets with few professional sports teams support MLS better than those with many teams. You claim without support that ONLY Columbus should be considered, and that it is a success, thus Palookaville will also be a success. Columbus is the ONLY MLS team that didn't have any other major league franchises at time of expansion. This is not a "story." This is a fact. The teams not in the top 8 markets in the country (KC, Denver, Miami, Tampa) ALL have a history of major league sports that span at least 20 years. "Palookaville" is not a candidate for expansion at this time. That doesn't wash. Columbus is a success, but so is Los Angeles--LA has been a bigger success in attendance and on the field... HUGE markets like NYC, LA, Chicago, etc. should have teams. If Philly has the right situation, it should have a team. The idea that MLS can only compete in virgin markets is a false one and betrays a sad lack of confidence in the power and potential of the league. I NEVER said that. I said the league needs to "think outside the box" when expanding and not just go down the list of "MSA's"... Yes, but your longwinded stories of Tulsa's NASL grandeur are worse that meaningless--they're misleading. Ummm... gee, thanks? So, you're guaranteeing that a franchise in Tulsa would fail to pull in the fans in the seats that it did TWENTY YEARS AGO... and in a brand new stadium??? LA's and Washington's NASL gates sucked, True enough for LA... false for Washington-- the Diplomats and Team America were supported pretty well... especially considering neither did particularly well on the field. Tampa... I give up trying to explain Tampa... maybe someone from Tampa can explain what factors lead to such a shift... Even the relative attendance success of the Metros pales in comparison to the Cosmos. Ummm... this is downright silly. Cosmos was a phenomenon. If the Metros signed Figo and Romario tomorrow and next year started winning 3/4's of their games, attendance would be predictably closer to what Cosmos achieved. Look at the HUGE attendance for the last big exhibition game this year at East Rutherford... And Garber and Hunt? Do I think they are idiots for talking to Tulsa? Nope. I think they are yanking your chain. THAT'S a fine way to do business. If that's indeed what Garber and Hunt are doing, then the league will be out of business before 2006... in 20 years from now you can argue why Columbus MLS statisitics are "meaningless"... I suppose the reason why you use stories rather than numbers is that the numbers argue against you, while the tales you spin supposedly are irrefutable. I DO use numbers... all of them... not just Tampa's numbers... I am not a statistician... but NEITHER, sir, are you... The problem with your approach is that you can't really argue that Tulsa is better than City X based on stories My "stories" have stats to back them up... you choose only stats that back up your position... (i.e. Tampa) let alone stories told from only one biased point of view. You claim that stats without stories are meaningless, but stories and only stories--which is all you offer-- hmmm... compared to over-simplifications, which is all you offer... Reuters newsflash... reuters newsflash... Kettle calls pot black... And by the way, the NFL never expanded into Green Bay or Buffalo. To suggest otherwise exposes the limitsof your understanding of sports history. expanded... moved... I don't really care... Tulsa was never an expanion franchise... it was moved from Team Hawaii/San Antonio... what's the diff? All your statement does is expose your arrogance... that I could not possibly know what I am talking about...