ummm...the Rhinos came to prominence long after Kodak cuts happened. From 1996-1997 levels to now there is maybe a drop of 5000 jobs locally, but some of those are just off-loaded jobs to various spin-off companies. You know that hot & cold game you played with your siblings while looking for stuff as a kid? You're freezing on this hypothesis...
With the clock ticking on the NASL meeting USSF D2 expansion standards to get to 12 teams within the next few years, that window to jump to the NASL will be open to the Rhinos for a while. With Montreal moving to MLS and no solid plans for Vancouver and Montreal to back up their talk of keeping teams in the NASL in the future, the NASL has a tall task to find 5 more markets over the next few years. They'd love to have Rochester in the NASL to fill one of those spots.
The USL and the NASL both see Rochester as a key swing market and that has led to Rob jumping back and forth the past couple of years from the USL camp to the NASL and back to the USL. If the NASL makes an offer to Rob that makes financial sense, he'll make the move. And the NASL might make Rob an offer he can't refuse if they are in a bind and need a turnkey market really bad.
Umm, really? "A hell of a lot less.."??? Let's drop the bias here for a moment and look at a few facts. Travel - Will the Rhinos have a smaller travel budget this year? One would certainly think so. Is this as much of a savings as it could have been? Certainly not. Thank you Holt and Marcos for your new "regional" league with trips to Orlando and the Caribbean. And that's not even taking into account that the Rhinos got off better then most travelwise with this year's schedule. Opponents - Is the casual Rhinos fan going to go to more games this year then last year, or step up from a few games to season tickets when they see the schedule? Someone please don't try to tell me that seeing Antigua, Orlando, and Dayton on the home schedule is no different for a non-hardcore fan then seeing the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers, Tampa Bay Rowdies, and Montreal Impact. Not only are these teams the fans know because the Rhinos have been playing them, but even just the names themselves have considerably more weight to average soccer fans. We've all heard of the Rowdies. Who's heard of the Barracudas? Roster - How much roster turnover will the team have due to their self-relegation? Will Clark continue to pay his players at a D2 wage level? All of these things, and many others affect the bottom line in the end. It's easy to say, well, it looks like travel will be less, so they're saving money moving to D3. The truth is they probably are saving a little. But it's nowehere near as simple as that, especially long term.
Good points considering you're the sidekick of that buffoon, SoccerSam. He could obviously learn a few things from you. Clark does find himself in an enviable spot. There aren't many USL Pro teams I think would meet the USSF D2 standards, and the NASL would be overly interested in welcoming aboard. Despite the waffling, I think you're right in that given the situation as it stands now, the NASL would really have no business turning away Clark if he decided he wanted to come back. Especially if the mystery 2013 franchise Davidson eluded to awhile back is in fact Ottawa, or another Canadian market. They need every viable US market they can get. But that's the key, and has to be the difference for the NASL over the USL. They HAVE to be far more careful about who they let in, no matter what their circumstances are, or they'll just be falling into the same uncaring turnover trap the USL has been for years.
The biggest issues budget wise for the decision were around the payroll. Last year the Rhinos stated that their payroll was around $300k and teams in the NASL averaged much higher payroll budgets. The Rhinos obviously didn't feel like it was a good business decision to spend to the levels that a lot of the NASL teams are expected to spend. And the travel is better in the USL because they can hit a few teams on long road trips as opposed to the NASL where they would go to Edmonton, play once, and come home. The same thing with a trip to Minnesota and Carolina. And I don't know if they could double up Tampa Bay & Ft Lauderdale. Then you have the shorter season which means fewer games after school is back in session in September and salaries are reduced because seasonal employees are employed for a shorter time. Even Peter Wilt had serious questions about the risk involved with the NASL's business plan.
So, while ignoring all of my other points, you've pretty much told us that the Rhinos are not willing to pay for top level talent. And this will be good for business how? Even if you're spending less on salaries, do you think the inferior level of play resulting from lower salaries is not going to lower the attendance???
It has been proven time and time again that attendance doesn't change between D2 and D3. Were fans in Richmond lining up to see Seattle in Portland when the Kickers were in D2? The Kickers had one of the better teams and they dropped down the next season. Their attendance has largely stayed the same. Charleston's attendance didn't drop with the move to D3. Cleveland's attendance didn't improve with the move up to D2. And yes, the travel costs will still be significantly less. The only time the Rhinos will have to fly is their 5 day trip in the Caribbean. They'll play 3 games in those 5 days. Every other trip is a bus trip.
Rhinos lose another veteran player to NASL as they've sold Aaron Pitchkolan to PR Islanders and now Jeff Diveronica expects us to believe, [sarcasm]I thought Rochester would have players just as good as a 2nd Division team.[/sarcasm] Now we're signing role players from NASL teams and writing them up to be stars while we lose the real stars from our roster to the NASL. Once upon a time, the Rhinos were a viable option for middle class MLS players who could make more money without MLS' "no-indoor soccer" policy. I really don't see how they'll get the public to buy into this team much longer.
If they just lose Pitch, Frankie, and Vallow, it might not be that bad. If Roberts, Kissi, Greenfield, and others walk out the door to NASL rosters, it's going to be a rough 2011 season while Rob prays that the NASL falls apart.
Maybe instead of praying for others to fail, he should think more intelligently about what HE can do to make HIS team more successful.
Good grief man, tell me just WTH in pro soccer, especially below MLS, ISN'T high risk?!? Especially now that MLS has picked clean the landscape of all the markets that were supporting the lower level game at solid numbers! If you can't handle the ups and downs, then you shouldn't be in this game. You should do something less ulcer-inducing, like selling greasy pizza.......
It would be hard for long time rochester fans to accept the decline of the level of soccer being sold. The one-time potential MLS city is now without calibur players and no open cup games in 2011. You get what you pay for - low budget = low quality. This is not reserved for the USL, as poor management in Tampa and Miami have proven. You cannot force fans to support badly managed clubs. If you have a quality product, people will buy it.
Well looks like the drop in division hurt the team, is the organization in trouble: http://www.rhinoszone.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=2095&pid=34248#post_34248
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I thought R. Clark knew better than anybody else how to run a minor league soccer team? I thought he had all the answers? He sure spoke confidently when "self-relegating" to D3. Will he have the balls to re-join D2 or will he throw in the towel when the D3 experiment fails? It's gotta be demoralizing for the Rochester fans.